As you will recall the Aussie and I spent my birthday in Bali with some of our friends.
Shortly before we left the volcano, Mount Agung, began threatening to erupt and the warning level was raised to the highest level and then decreased a day or two before we left meaning all systems were go for our trip.
The Aussie and I flew into Darwin, spent a couple of nights there catching up with our friends before flying out to Denpasser.
All was well until around my birthday (the Sunday) when the volcano began spewing out ash and water suggesting a full eruption was on the way. We found out about this because I was contacted by concerned friends and family in the UK!
We still had two more days or so in Bali before our flight left so we were hopeful that we would still be able to leave.
However on the morning of our flight (the Tuesday) we received the email advising the flight was cancelled and we had no indication of when we would be able to leave. We contacted Jetstar and established that we could re-book our flights for the following Sunday which we did whilst arranging a hotel for the remainder of our time.
Keeping an eye on the flights to see if the airport had opened and flights were running it remained closed for a couple of days before re-opening to help get us tourists back home subject to how long we had been waiting for a flight.
On the Thursday night the Aussie and I received an email giving us less than 12 hours before our flight left for Singapore.
We arrived at the airport ridiculously early for our 11am flight and we were glad that we did because the queues were long and the flights had been overbooked meaning there was no guarantee we would get on the flight.
Happily we checked in and made the journey to Darwin via Singapore which took about 20 hours because of a long stopover in Singapore.
After a bit of re-jigging we booked a flight for me back to Darwin so I could get back to work, the Aussie stayed in Darwin for another week, and I arrived back to our little house in Brisbane on the Saturday night.
Our friends didn’t get the email and stayed in Bali until the Sunday morning flight we were booked on but we are all home, safe and sound and wondering where the next adventure will be.