Our first full day in Australia and we’re back in the car headed about an hour north into the Daintree Rainforest. The roads are a little windy narrow, which has my navigator a bit nervous that I haven’t mastered the whole left side of the road thing, but with the exception of using the windshield wipers every time I want to signal a turn, I figure I’m fitting in with the locals pretty well.

The rainforest here is the oldest in the world (about 200 million years, more than 20 times as old as the Amazon), and chock full of different plant and animal species, many of which are found only here. Wandering across the aerial walkways at the Daintree Discovery Center puts us among thirty percent of all of Australia’s frog, reptile and marsupial species, sixty five percent of all bat and butterfly species, eighteen percent of bird species and over twelve thousand species of insect.

One of the most interesting is the cassowary, a flightless bird related to the emu, which is the only animal big enough to eat the fruits of many of trees here and disperse their seeds in giant piles of chunky bird poop. They are endangered now, and should they go extinct, may species of tree in the rainforest will follow. Joey is convinced we’re going to see one, so for the rest of the day we’re on cassowary watch.

We also learn about epiphytes, which are plants that grow without ever touching the ground. They are everywhere up in the trees, and rely entirely on catching water and falling leaves for nutrients as they fall from the forest canopy (only 1% of the light and very little rainfall actually make it through to the ground). It is a topic that Joey’s class is going to learn about while we are away, so the opportunity to learn about them here is perfect.

Every since we took Nick to Thailand and let him kiss a crocodile, Mom has kept a pretty tight rein on animal interactions. The best I could do here was to let Joey tickle this python.

From the Discovery Center, we continue north towards Cape Tribulation, stopping for a quick dip at one of the swimming holes along the way. There was a small restaurant serving crocodile burgers, but just as we worked up the nerve to try one, they started closing up for the day. Fortunately, enough people order them to keep the swimming hole croc free.

Just past Cape Tribulation the road is only passable in a four wheel drive, and while I’m tempted to cross a river in our sporty red rocket, my fellow passengers are far more rationale. Instead, we find a nice place to park and wander down a patch of the deserted beach before heading back to Port Douglas for the night.

We’re arrive at the airport for our 10:30pm flight, anxious to finally be moving on. Nevertheless, there is an air of uncertainty as to why Garuda is flying normal schedule when the Australian airlines still feel it is unsafe to fly. More normally stalwart traveling companion is very quiet, which is generally a bad thing, and I know she is nervous. Of course, we have a junior traveller with us and, at the moment, he is oblivious, so we keep such concerns on the down low.

Now I’m not superstitious by nature, but it has not escaped anyone’s attention that we are flying on Friday the 13th. As we check in, I notice we are at counter 13, and for a brief minute, my faith in logic flickers. However, I can’t believe the pilot and crew will needlessly put themselves at risk, not to mention the company and it’s $200 million plane, so I muffle the annoying voice in the back of my head and press on.

Since I am writing the story, clearly all ends well, and after a very unusual departure where the pilot stays at a low altitude for quite a long time (presumably to stay under the ash cloud), we settle in for the 5 hour flight. This gets us as far as Sydney, where we have a 4 hour layover before catching another flight to Cairns, finally arriving at 1pm, only 29 hours behind the original schedule. All things considered, we are pretty pleased with that.

Our first 4 days here are booked at Port Douglas, about an hour north from the airport. And as things to see there are fairly spread out, we have booked a rental car. This normally would be a non-event, however, Australians drive on the left side of the road, and while this isn’t a first for me, it definitely isn’t one of my limited talents. They sweeten the pot by adding in a traffic circle about every 100 yards, but somehow, we manage to make it unscathed (and more importantly, undented).

It is late in the afternoon but the time we check in, and after flying all night we’re running on fumes. We do manage to rally enough to make it into town for a quick dinner and to grab a few provisions at the supermarket (wow, we’re certainly not in Indonesia anymore). That’s everything in the tank though, and I’m sleeping before my body even hits the mattress.

After spending more time learning about volcanic ash and studying weather patterns than I ever thought possible, it’s time to test our luck. Our original carrier, Jetstar, still isn’t flying regular flights (they are getting a the odd recovery flight out when they deem conditions are just right), and from the stories we hear, people are expecting it to be at least a week before they get all of their stranded passengers home (we’re somewhere near the bottom of that list). The forecast shows the ash cloud blowing pretty much directly over the airport all day, so we’re not super optimistic, but trying to stay positive.

Our flight isn’t until 10:30 in the evening, so we take most of the day pretty easy, catching up with people back home, relaxing on the beach, and keeping cool in the pool. It’s a hard life, and I need to track down a pair of Nockers to give me the energy to get through the day.

The low point comes as I am chilling out, just minding my own business in the hot tub. It overlooks one of the poolside showers, which at the time is being used by gray-haired gentleman sporting a few extra pounds, all squeezed nicely into form-fitting banana hammock. I’ve travelled enough now that there really isn’t any shock value left in people wearing swimsuits that are well beyond their load capacity, but just when I figured I’d seen everything (literally in this case), he yanks the front of his suit away from his body and plunges his other hand in the give the fellas a good scrub down. Please lord, let there be an eye wash station nearby.

We kill our last few hours in Bali at the hotel lounge. We’re regulars here by this point, and the manager stops by see how we’ve enjoyed our stay. He tells Joey that he needs to bring his friends back next year, and teaches him a secret hand shake for when he returns. For a guy that has probably spent the last week surrounded by frustrated people just trying to get home, he’s amazingly upbeat, and is a great reminder of why we enjoy SE Asia so much.

With that, we’re off to the airport.

After a couple of days of days just taking it easy, it’s time to get out and do something a bit more productive. There is a great waterpark not far from the hotel that seems like a good bet, but surprisingly, Joey isn’t that interested. It’s the kind of thing he’d have fun at with his brothers, but I guess Mom and Dad just don’t cut it 🙁

Instead we decide to spend the day in Kuta, which is the main beach/tourist area, full of shops, restaurants, and my favorite – people. I’m optimistic we’ll find a few food carts as it has been quite a few days since we’ve played any intestinal roulette, but sadly, there are none to be found. However, we do come across this little reminder that even though we have flown 8,000 miles, we’re not really that far from home.

We also manage to take care of most of our souvenir needs, other than the extra suitcase I’m sure we are going to need to cart them all home. Joey is tickled with his duck with shoes, which I’m sure he’ll tell you all about…

Things have slipped into a bit of a bland routine here. We spend the morning catching up on email, talking to the boys on FaceTime, and checking the status of flights leaving Bali. From there we head out to breakfast, wander to the shopping complex across the street for a massage (Joey’s a no go for any kind of regular massage but can’t get enough of the fish spa), lounge by the pool for a few hours, and then get ready for dinner. I’m admittedly starting to go a bit stir crazy, but during the day it is too hot to be moving around, and at night we are too wrapped up planning how to get to Australia to go anywhere outside of the hotel.

Most carriers seems to be flying a fairly regular schedule the past few days with the exception of the Australian airlines, which have already cancelled our planned flight on Friday. We have booked a new flight on Garuda to Sydney that should at least get us onto the proper content. From there it will hopefully be easy to get to Cairns without losing too much time in the process. Of course that’s still all predicated on conditions not getting worse, so fingers and toes all still crossed.

We’ve set up camp for the next few days in the resort area of Nusa Dua. My trusty traveling companion is back on familiar ground at her beloved Hyatt, luring Joey to the dark side with snacks in the club lounge and a private sleeping cubby (a significant upgrade from the night he spent in Dubai sleeping on the floor).

This section of Bali is pretty much mega-hotel after mega-hotel on a peninsula walled off from the rest of the city, so a pretty sterilized version of Indonesia that is not super appealing. On the upside however, it does give us a chance to decompress by the pool for a few days an recover from all the hours spent on the road. Even better, the relatively stable Internet provides us access to the tools we will likely need to navigate the next looming turd nugget, which is getting off of the island we struggled so hard to get onto just a few days ago.

The volcano that caused all of the problems in the first place is still erupting, with flights taking off sporadically as the location of the ash cloud permits. The flight we are currently booked on hasn’t actually flown since we first got to Indonesia, so we’re not overly confident that it will do so by Friday (or if it does, that we won’t get bumped off it to get people home that have been stranded here longer).

Today however, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, so off to the beach.

When booking our time at the elephant park, we chose the adjacent hotel primarily because it provided guest access before the regular park hours (like they do at Disney). That allows us to sign up to wash the elephants, and to ride them into their bathing pool.

As they dunk themselves under the water, it’s important to keep a close eye out for random coconuts lurking just below the surface. Seriously, those ARE coconuts, right?

From the pool it’s back to the room for a fully clothed shower. Shortly thereafter, our elephants show up at the door to take us on a ride through the jungle.

With just a few hours left before heading back out on the road, we round up all the fruit we can find and head over to the pen with the baby elephant (2 years old, so not really a baby anymore).

One of the events that our junior traveller has been most looking forward to is our visit to the Elephant Safari Park Lodge. It’s on the other side of the mountains, so to get there, we pack up our gear, check out of our rental, and head off from Lovina by 9am. We make a few stops along the way, with the first being a local market to let Joey experience the organized chaos and see all kinds of foods he never knew existed (who knew there were dozens of kinds of peanuts?).

From there, we take a short drive to a palace of the former king of this region. Looking over some of the exhibits, I realize I know almost nothing about the history of Bali (or Indonesia as a whole for that matter), which is a bit humbling given this is our second time visiting.

Our last stop before heading into the mountains is a supermarket, as we don’t know what will be around our next hotel and need to stock up on snacks. One thing we enjoy when traveling is trying unusual food, and a grocery store is a great place to find mouthwatering treasures like seaweed flavored potato chips, chicken rings, and a drink called Sweat. Just imagine the juvenile fun possible with an 11 year old boy and a bag of Balls (“Hey, get your hands off my Balls!”).

By lunchtime, we are ready for a break from the car, so are happy to arrive at the Ulun Danu Beratan temple and stretch our legs. The temple is one of particular importance in Bali, as it sits on the shore of the lake that provides much of the fresh water to the island.

After another long day on the road, we finally arrive at the elephant park. Joey can hardly wait to drop our bags off and get out to see the animals. We are just in time to see the talent show, which is a big hit.

We spend the next hour or so wandering around the park before heading back to our room to get ready for dinner. At this hotel, an elephant picks you up at your room and you ride to the restaurant. It’s dark by this point so no good pictures, but rest assured we have one extremely smiley young man on our hands.

We’re headed up into the mountains today (thankfully, as it is already getting hot by 9am) to see a few of the local sights. Our first stop is a waterfall that is a short hike in from the road.

Back in the van, we head off to a coffee/spice farm. There is a short, but interesting tour where we learn about a lot of the spices grown on the island, as well as their famous Luwak Coffee. For the unfamiliar, this is coffee made from beans that have passed through the digestive system of a small cat. Farmers literally wander through the jungle collecting cat turds, pick out the beans, grind them up, and serve you a cup at about twenty times the price of a regular coffee.

We’re not coffee drinkers but we can’t come all this way and not give it a try. Now to me, all coffee tastes like it has come out the business end of one animal or another, so I can’t say whether this is as good as people say (or even if it isn’t just some Nescafe they whipped up in the kitchen), but if sticking to your teeth is the sign of a good poop coffee, then we’re sampling some of the best.

As I try to rinse away the grainy taste of feline b-hole, I can’t help but wonder how exactly someone discovered this delicacy, and whether they’ve made a hobby of picking through different kinds of turds looking for things to eat, or just happened to strike gold on the first one. It’s a puzzle that will have to wait, as we are soon piling back into the van and headed to our next stop – hot springs.

On a day where the heat index is easily over 100, hot springs aren’t exactly the first things that come to mind, but it turns out to be a nice break, at least until the naked baby pinches a loaf on his mother’s leg (what is it with this day and poop?). Everyone out of the pool…

Last on the itinerary is a Buddhist temple back near the village. As we know from past travels, bare legs are a no-no, so we first get to take advantage of the community man dresses. Joey, of course, is awesome and rocks his out like a champ.

According to Google, in about 3 days one can travel to the moon. As hour 76 of our trip passes, we finally pull into the house we have rented for 4 nights (2 of which have which have already passed). It is a nice little place, about a quarter mile from town and the beach, but given the circumstances, we barely have time to complete the tour and listen to the house rules before finding a comfortable bed and falling asleep.

When we do finally regroup, it’s the middle of the afternoon and far too hot for Seattleites to do much. We wait the worst of it out by the pool before finally setting off into town for some dinner and groceries. The area we are in (Lovina) is not much of a tourist spot, so in some ways there isn’t a whole lot to see or do, but it’s quiet, slow-paced, and a great introduction to regular life in Bali for Joey.

The highlight is finding a street cart that serves up matarbak manis, and we stock up on a half dozen or so of the tasty treats (like pizza, some would argue they taste better cold).

We’ve booked a tour for tomorrow (our only full day left on this part of the island), and given how hot it gets, figure the earlier we start the better.