Category: Best Of

Fremantle Favorites

One of our favorite places in Western Australia was Fremantle. Freo, for short, is a coastal city with history, culture, beaches, and more. We spent a week there, exploring the city streets and coastal paths, enjoying the nightlife, food, and history. Here are our Fremantle favorites.

About Fremantle

Located 22km south and west of the city of Perth, Fremantle is a city of its own with a population just over 36,000. In fact, while we were in Freo, we didn’t visit Perth, knowing we would have time there at the end of our month in Western Australia. We found plenty to do in Fremantle for such a small city. For context, it has fewer people than Port Macquarie, but feels much bigger because of the amount of activities on offer.

Sunset in Fremantle
A sunset from a Freo rooftop

With lots of preserved Victorian historic buildings, waterfront walking paths, and bars and restaurants, Fremantle is a great place to visit for a long weekend. For us, a week was a good length of time to experience our Fremantle favorites and still relax.

Continue reading “Fremantle Favorites”

Down Time in Lombok

We arrived in Lombok, Indonesia in late November. After three weeks in Indonesia getting to Lombok, we settled there for a bit and got to know the area. During that time, we went to a festival, visited some satellite islands, and enjoyed some down time in Lombok.

About Lombok

Lombok is an island east of Bali and west of Sumbawa. While its closest neighbor is Bali, Lombok is part of the province of West Nusa Tenggara. 4,607 square kilometers in size, Lombok is surrounded by several islets, a few of which we visited. It has a healthy population of over 4 million very friendly people. We spent most of our down time in Lombok in the northwest quadrant, north of the town of Senggigi, and east of the Gili islands. We also sailed to some islands on the southeast, visited waterfalls, and even rented scooters.

beach in Lombok Indonesia
A Lombok Beach
Continue reading “Down Time in Lombok”

Eastern Indonesia Highlights

Indonesia has been an adventure. After two years in New Zealand and Australia, it’s been a fun change visiting a new country where we don’t speak the language. And sprawling Indonesia offers new cultures and languages, or at least dialects, on almost every island. From Darwin, Australia we travelled to Kupang, on the island of Timor. Indonesia is a very big country, and we’ve only visited a small section. While traveling from Timor to Lombok, we encountered amazing animals, met friendly people, and ate delicious food, all part of our Eastern Indonesia highlights.

Our Route in Eastern Indonesia

Unlike our excellent sailing conditions in North and Far North Queensland, we had no wind after Darwin. We motored for the 4 days to Kupang and then for the almost 700 miles from Kupang to Lombok. When the wind wasn’t on our nose, it didn’t last, so we motored the whole way. All of our trips, aside from the first jump upon leaving Kupang, were day trips. We only sailed overnight from Kupang to Sagu Bay because we had no choice, as it was too far to do in daylight.

Calm sea Indonesia
The sea and winds were calm on our “sail” from Darwin to Indonesia
Continue reading “Eastern Indonesia Highlights”