Our last days on Trawangan… Wild turtles and crazy horses!

We are now at the end of our last day on Gilli Trawangan, tomorrow we leave for Bali once again stopping briefly at Lombok to transfer to the ferry port.

Yesterday and today have been very relaxing and very quiet, even Georgie has got into waking up early now and we are both at the breakfast table for 8 am for our free breakfast of thick black Lombok coffee, omelette and toast or banana pancake and fruit salad. Even if it is with an audience of half a dozen local stray cats.

Once breakfast had gone down yesterday we retired to a beach side bamboo gazebo to read and go for a morning snorkel session… The perfect morning exercise! Yet another scorching day and another beautifully clear blue sky. Once we have slipped properly into beach life the only real way to gauge the day is by food-

“are you hungry?”

“a bit yeah”

“let’s get some lunch/dinner/snacks”

(Georgie in a low grumbling tone) “ooooo yeah!”

So based on that we didn’t do a great deal until dinner time, when we washed the sea water off us and took the 30 minute walk into town for a curry… And this time we really went for it!

We ate far too much and the walk back to bed was gruelling I somehow managed to eat enough for five people and paid for it every step of the way home.

Today has been mostly the same, early morning breakfast followed by a spot of snorkelling then relax and read for a while, then over lunch one of the chaps who works at our guest house told us we might be able to see some sea turtles if we were lucky just down the road not 5 minutes away… As hard as it was to tear ourselves of our comfy little perch looking out over a particularly beautiful sea on a particularly beautiful day, we managed it. A short stroll down the beach and we headed out between Gilli Trawangan and Gilli Meno it cant be any more than 200 metres and by the time we had splashed out to about 20 it was already a cut above our usual spot near to Nusa Tiga where we are staying.

The coral here was busier and absolutely teeming with colourful fish and as we swam out further (maybe to 40 metres off the beach) there was a sudden shelf and the seabed fell away very sharply! Suddenly faced with such a massive drop (probably 50 metres or more), cold water being pushed up from the depths and a wall of much darker blue water was fucking scary! I ventured over and bobbed about just on the edge gazing down to the white sandy floor that seemed a mile away while Georgie bless her kept her distance.

We settled instead for swimming along with the shelf as the best coral was a few metres back and I was certain that if we were going to catch a glimpse of a turtle it would be somewhere near the edge.

After maybe 40 minutes of by far the best snorkelling we have done on this Island yet I saw one! Gracefully flapping its flippers as it glided up from the edge and into the warmer shallow water where we were watching, it didn’t seem to give a toss we were there and after a gulp of air from the surface it headed in towards the beach right under us, I couldn’t resist and dived down to meet it, it let me swim right alongside it and even stroke is shell before my pesky lungs demanded I surface for more air. Georgie was up next and after a couple of attempts to get deep enough (she has an unusually powerful natural buoyancy!) she too was swimming along the bottom of the sea with the happy little chap.

We stayed bobbing around for a while and watched as it disappeared from view as gracefully and unhurried as it had appeared, then started to slowly head back to the beach… Only to bump into another one in water probably only a metre deep!!! It was truly mega!!! This one though seemed much more interested in us and after we left it to its business to head back it began to follow us almost looking curious.

We got back to our room to start the tedious task of packing. This morning at breakfast Georgie had booked a horse ride tour of the small island, she’s been wanting to get on a Gee Gee for ages and it seemed like the perfect place for a little trot about. At 5 pm on the dot the bloke arrived to picker up and she somehow managed to convince me to come too… This was short lived though because the slow ride down to the main part of the island in a pony and trap taxi gave me time to think it through and bottle out… Another day… Maybe!

Georgie however got saddled up with a gorgeous (apparently) brown steed and set off waving manically but looking like a pro. I however had much tamer things in mind and booked our tickets for tomorrow back to Kuta Bali, as I was doing so Georgie and her guide passed me by, he jumped off his horse to get some cigarettes and Georgie’s horse despite looking under control slowly plodded off towards the sea with Georgie looking slightly like she had no control what so ever… I felt instantly that I made the right decision!

But I am assured Georgie is a pro and I left her to it, she managed to steer it in a circle and went back for her guide while I headed back to our bungalow to pack some more.

An hour later Georgie returned looking triumphant and was smiling from ear to ear, apparently it was a lively handful of a horse that wanted to run at every opportunity but like a master she reined him in and showed him who was boss. A bit saddle sore and with a few blisters (Georgie not me) we headed next door for dinner before turning in to finish the packing ready for our 7:30 am pony taxi… Then the boat to Lombok… Then the 2 hour minivan ride to the ferry port… Then the 4 hour ferry… Then the 2 hour ride to Kuta.