robodawno.com – Page 6 – Our Travel Blog

February 21, 2023

Fast Scoots and Slow Routes

We escaped the big city of Jakarta to an island in the Flores Sea. Once again DawnO did a masterful job at picking our “Hilltop” accommodations as our home base.

After getting our bearings we started booking our various excursions including the boat trip to Komodo National Park. First, we had a day to kill so we decided to find our way to a small village where we could book a private boat to one of the smallest islands in Indonesia, and a very cool spot called the Rangko Cave. That’s when we met a hot little firecracker named “Scoopy”.

With DawnO navigating from the back seat, we began our scooter trek. We took the way that our navigation app told us to take which meant we had to plough our way through some muddy sections. All-in-all Scoopy proved up to the challenge and got us to the Rangko village.

We hired a pair of brothers to take us to our destinations. When we reached the smallest Island in Indonesia, it was only visible when the waves weren’t crashing over it. This was the only picture we took:

At this point our boat had bottomed out at the “island”. As our team of brothers worked our boat free, we nearly capsized. However, I escaped without getting too wet, DawnO was on the wet side of the boat. As we floated away, our guides told us the island is way more spacious during low tide.

Next stop was the Rangko Cave. The cave has a pool you can swim in but the light only enters for about 1.5 hours in the day.

After we returned to Scoopy we elected to take a 100% paved route back to our hotel.

Next on the excursion list was an all day excursion to 3 islands including Komodo National Park. The fourth destination was the possibility, not the promise, that we could snorkel with Manta Rays. When we booked we had the option to pay a little more and book a fast boat, which included 2 more stops, but we decided on the slow boat option because we knew there would be less people on board. I could be wrong, but I estimate that for our 13 hours total time, 9.5 of those hours were spent on board the slow boat.

9.5

Hours

First stop, Padar Island, where you can climb 900+ stairs to get a view of 3 different coloured sand beaches: white, grey, and pink.

Our second stop was the main event! It was time to see some Komodo Dragons!

It was cool to see the dragons. The smaller ones moved around while the bigger ones mostly parked in the shade. The park itself was a little underwhelming but it could have been that the massive cruise boat that supplied thousands of people to the island may have scared off a lot of critters. Our nature walk around the park didn’t provide anything but exercise which was needed after logging 5 hours on the slow boat.

Next stop, pink beach time! We didn’t take a lot of pictures here so I’ve added a bunch of photos we took from our boat:

The last stop on our excursion was Manta Point. Now this was the point where the boat crew keep their eyes peeled for Manta Rays and when they see one, a boatload of frantic snorkel-sucking passengers jump into the sea to catch a glimpse and say they got to swim with manta rays. I would be lying if I said it’s not on our bucket list to swim with a manta ray in the wild. I also must remind our readers that my ability to spot animals in the wild is quite abysmal. Here are 2 versions of our story.

DawnO, who chose to wear a life jacket, was one of only 2 boat passengers to spot the 3 manta rays from the boat. She is also debatably the only one in the water to “swim with them”. Once the rays had swam out of view she effortlessly made her way back to the boat to go again. The boat motored up current to look for more majestic sea creatures. She told the others that watching them swim was like watching large blankets gliding along the sea floor.

Manta rays-Check!

When I heard the battle cry to jump in the sea, I believed I tripped over the side and immediately discovered that I could only see through one eye as the other was fogged up so bad I had to pause a moment to spit in it and clean it out. That’s when the current took hold. I didn’t quite notice as I was now trying to look for manta rays. After about 30 seconds of that I looked up and noticed the boat was not down current, as promised by a crew member, but was up current loading the rest of the passengers. I was getting pretty tired and remembered that I flunked out of the Maroon level in swimming so I should probably stop fooling myself and start kicking my diabetic ass to the back of the boat, which up until now was one of the slowest moving motorized water vehicles on the planet. I kicked and kicked and kicked but every time I checked my progress, I seemed further away than when I started. Panic set in and now I pulled my snorkel out of my mouth to try and yell for help. Unfortunately I was breathing so hard I managed to pull in a breath of salt water. After coughing that out I put in one final effort and swam as close as I could to the boat. That’s when they threw me a rope.

Manta rays-Maybe next time.

Stay tuned for one more blog before we leave Indonesia. Next up, a river boat adventure in Borneo with orangutans!

February 16, 2023February 20, 2023

Jakarta Start

Back in August I was itching to book some travel. I asked RobO if I could pull the trigger on the next cheap deal that lit me up and hoped it would be somewhere in Asia. The very next day a seat sale to Indonesia came up and I pounced.

Having travelled as much as we have, we have strong preferences on the types and timings of the flights that we book, so I was less than enthusiastic when United made some major changes to our booking. We ended up with an overnight layover in Houston, which is a great excuse to visit our cousin Byron and hit up our favourite Tex-Mex place, Manny’s. This time we also got to meet one of Byron’s friends Troy, who travels a lot for work. As luck would have it, Troy had expiring United points and upgraded our first flight to business class. Total game changer.

Our schedule change also gave us a couple of days in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. I wasn’t all that jazzed about time in a sprawling Asian capital city and it delivered as anticipated.
We stayed in Glodok, which is the Chinatown area. The sights and smells were like any Chinatown market we’ve visited around the world.

We reacquainted ourselves with the terrifying act of crossing a busy street. The key is to start walking and without changing pace as the drivers accommodate. To me every time feels like it will be my last street crossing and I have to strongly resist the urge to sprint to safety.

We visited the Old Town area which has Dutch colonial architecture. I could imagine how beautiful it would have been in it’s prime.

We were struck by the genuine helpfulness of some Indonesian people including:

a bus driver who drove us to another place, got out of the bus to show us how to buy tickets and where to catch the correct bus.
a guy who came sprinting across the subway station with bills to change our money to the ones that would go in the ticket machines.
many smiling and welcoming faces.

First peanut sauce, but also first Bali-belly

After 2 days in the city we were thrilled to fly to paradise. Here’s a sneak peak.

July 14, 2022July 25, 2022

Budapest Manifest

From the very beginning of this trip we have had countless situations where we seem to be thinking something into reality. There have been big examples like believing that we can be at Wimbledon Centre Court and small examples like wanting a bike coffee break and all of a sudden, in the middle of nowhere, a coffee stand appears. I can think of at least 10 other situations where we have seemingly manifested something.

One of the best/worst examples (depending on who you talk to) is the story of RobO’s swim trunks. Way back at Wimbledon RobO realized that he had forgotten his swimsuit. As we were walking in our neighbourhood we noticed a charity thrift shop. Upon entry there was little hope as it was mostly racks of women’s clothing. When Rob asked the clerk she told him he could try to look through the bargain bin. He dug around and found only one set of men’s swim trunks, which were … PERFECT*.

RobO says ”eyes up here”. *Well maybe one size up would have been better.

Our first day in Budapest we treated our weary bodies to a couple of hours at the Széchenyi Baths. If you ever wanted to feel like you’re soaking, steaming, and sauna-ing in the middle of an oil painting this is your place.

There is also a ’beer spa’ on site, where we soaked in a tub of hops, malt, and salt beside our own unlimited beer spigot (or numerous alcoholic seltzers if you’re gluten free!). It was weird, but a fun experience nonetheless.

The city is divided by the Danube river. On the west side of the river is the ’Buda’ side, which has lots of hills and monuments that feel really regal. On the east side is ’Pest’, which also has a lot of sites, but feels a bit more trendy. We easily got the hang of the metro and trams and ended up crossing the river a couple of times during the day.

Throughout our trip we’ve seen lots of flags and posters in support of the Ukraine. I couldn’t help but think of those when we were at the ’Shoes at the Danube’ memorial.

We spent the late afternoon in the golden sunshine at the Fisherman’s Bastion. Do not miss this spot when you visit Budapest.

Some of our favourite shots from our wanders:

Another great Olson holiday is in the books. I have to give a big shout out to RobO on this one. This trip we relied on a lot of teamwork and positive encouragement and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to share it with.

We have a few potential trip plans in the works, so we’ll keep working on manifesting something!

July 13, 2022July 13, 2022

Euro Velo 6

The last time we blogged, we were about to start a 4 consecutive day bike trip that would either make, or break us. The following is my account:

Day 1 of 4 – Bratislava, Slovakia to Nagybajcs, Hungary

Distance: 90km

8:45am- 3:45pm

This was the day I was probably dreading the most. It was officially the longest distance we would have to bike in the entire journey and I knew our training did not prepare us for what we were about to tackle. We went into it with the right attitude, we were prepared to take breaks and go at a slower pace and not beat ourselves up over it. After all, this was supposed to be our vacation not a race. I’m pleased to report that we actually crushed it! We made it to our AirBnb within the time we thought we would and we didn’t feel like dying at the end of the ride.

Day 2 of 4 – Nagybajcs, Hungary to Patince, Slovakia

Distance: 58km

10am- 5pm

This was supposed to be an easy day. After biking as much as we did the day before we may have gotten a little cocky and thought this day would be a breeze. Though we took longer breaks, it still took us the same amount of time to complete the leg. Now to be fair, we did stop at a spa for 2 hours and soaked our weary bodies, but overall the ride was a bit of a slog. Unfortunately we were a bit camera shy that day so I don’t have much photographic evidence of our day.

Our AirBnB host in Patince let us know in advance that she organizes the apartment for her parents who live on the property. Her father enjoys socializing with guests and is excited to meet every weary traveller that darkens their door. He also only speaks Slovakian so he had his wife write statements in Slovakian on their iPad that translated to English for us to read. One thing he needed us to know was, “They can drink downstairs”. He communicated that he brews his own palinka ”fruit liquor” in the cellar and that he has bee hives in their field with which supplies him with fresh honey. DawnO got to have a drink with him downstairs and we both got to sample some of the honey.

Day 3 of 4 – Patince, Slovakia to Vac, Hungary

Distance: 84km

9:10am- 4:30pm

This was the second longest leg of our journey so I believe we were mentally prepared for what lay ahead. Unfortunately what lay ahead were a few surprises. We discovered that the Euro Velo 6 bike trail we were following turned into a dirt trail in a field. Unfortunately this forced us to resort to riding along the major highways of Slovakia for a few dozen kms at a time. Though the highways are well paved, they are only two lane highways that are not wide enough to include shoulders. We did our best to stay as safe as we could and fortunately the traffic gave us plenty of room as they passed. We were grateful once we got to Hungary again because the bike paths returned to what we were accustomed to.

Vac was one of our favourite stops and deserves its own picture gallery:

Day 4 of 4 – Vac, Hungary to Budapest, Hungary

Distance: 39km

9:40am- 12:17pm

This was by far our best travel day. The shortest leg had us riding around like experts, navigating the Euro Velo 6 trail like it was second nature. We avoided highways, had a clear paved bike path the entire way and took our time to take a few shots:

We arrived in Budapest intact and dropped off our bikes, Ludwig and Wolfgang, to the bike rental place here. We learned that they were brand new bikes and we had just taken them on their maiden voyage. Overall I think we did pretty well navigating the trail system and staying out of trouble. Our bodies don’t seem too sore and we still get along so I’d call that a successful bike trip across 3 countries. Now it’s time to go explore Budapest, and by the looks of it, there will probably be one more entry from this holiday. First stop, the Beer Spa!

July 8, 2022July 13, 2022

Castle on the Hill

Still riding the Wimbledon high we boarded a flight to Vienna, Austria. The buildings are so inspiring it’s no wonder so much classical music was composed here.

We spent the day wandering and in the evening we went to a string quartet concert in St. Peter’s church. Of course there was also good beer, food, and coffee along the way.

We had missed climbing the tower or St. Stephen’s church (337 stairs up!) so headed there first thing in the morning.

We packed up our rented panniers and bikes to start our journey along the Danube River to Budapest. Perhaps now would be a good time to mention that our longest ’training ride’ was about 25kms and that the itinerary for Day 1 was 337 stairs up (and down), plus 74kms on the bike. Though there were times that saddle-ass was setting in, the route was flat and scenic. We lucked out with pleasant temperatures, overcast skies, and a tailwind most of the way.

Our bikes (Wolfgang and Ludwig) at a watering hole along the way

It was exciting when we got our first sight of Bratislava’s castle.

We have 2 nights in Bratislava to rest our butts and check out the sights. It’s one of Europe’s smallest capital cities but has big bang for our buck in tourist sights.

UFO bridge that we rode over to get into town

Next up: 4 consecutive days on the bike. Eep!

July 6, 2022

Ad-in

Sometimes travelling can offer a mixed bag of highs and lows. There are times when your expectations are met with underwhelming experiences, and then there are times when you stumble into the experience of a lifetime. Our trip to London in the past 2 days has definitely been the latter.

When we planned this trip we realized that it would coincide with the 2022 Wimbledon tournament so we thought we’d start our vacation in London to try our luck at getting on the grounds. The main 3 courts are always sold via a lottery system, but you can “queue” to enter the grounds where you can watch any of the other matches that are going on during the day at no extra charge. If you’re at the front of the queue you can purchase tickets to the main courts as they hold back a small amount of tickets for a lucky 500 or so. We had originally planned to spend our first day in London taking it easy. Then on day two the plan was to get up early in the morning (3 am) and join the queue of people tenting outside the grounds in order to get first crack at tickets. To be honest, I wasn’t sure the odds were in our favour to secure the coveted centre court passes and I was thinking it was going to be a miserable experience. However, it is on our bucket list to see some grand slam tennis so I was going to suck it up and endure.

On day 1 we decided to walk over to the grounds just to get a lay of the land for our early line up the next morning. As we followed the signs for the queue, we quickly realized that there was no queue at all and we were able to get in to the grounds right then and there.

After walking around the grounds for a while, we headed straight for Henman Hill. We claimed a spot on the grass and soaked in the atmosphere with a Pimm’s in hand.

One of the highlights of our day was hearing the crowd erupt during a a pre-game ceremony where they revealed past Wimbledon champions were at the centre court match. The biggest surprise was that Roger Federer was among them.

For the rest of the day we went to match after match. We got to see some big names, some even walked by us on their way to the courts.

We were running on 2.5 hours of sleep from the airplane ride and time change but we managed to stay until the sun went down. When we got back to our AirBnB we changed our plans for the next day. We elected to sleep until 7 and get up to join the queue. We were confident that we would be able to get on the grounds.

Once we got in, we headed straight to the ticket resale line to wait for our chance to get centre court tickets. This was a risky move but Wimbledon has a system where they resell tickets once people leave. Each ticket costs 15 pounds and it all goes to charity. We were numbers 72 and 73 and were told our odds were good. They were right because 5.5 hours later we were in the possession of 2 centre court tickets!

First up, Paula Badosa vs Simona Halep.

I’m a huge Badosa fan so I was sad to see her lose, but it was amazing to see her play.

The next match featured one of the tennis GOATs, Rafael Nadal vs Botic van de Zandschulp.

When we planned on attending Wimbledon we weren’t sure if we would even be able to get on the grounds, let alone get to see Nadal play a prime time match. We feel like we have cashed in some serious travel karma. Game. Set. Match. robodawno.

February 20, 2022February 20, 2022

O Yeah

Let me just back up to the inception of this trip. If you were bored enough to read our quarantine blogs from March 2020 you may remember that I won 2 free flights anywhere that Qatar Airways flies as a promotion for health care workers (thanks again Kerry for the info!). In the fall of 2020 I bought a fully refundable dream Maldives package for peanuts. Put those two things together, add a lot of luck, a few negative Covid tests, and, voila:

In the 3 weeks leading up to this holiday, as Covid cases were blowing up all around us, we were self quarantining to give ourselves the best chance of being able to do this holiday. This meant cancelling other adventures, isolating from friends and family, and drowning in the anxiety of every work interaction. There were many moments that I questioned if the holiday would be worth it. (Spoiler alert: it is always worth it!) I was also wondering if I was still someone who craves adventures. (A resounding yes.) Thank goodness for RobO’s unwavering optimism that we could do this.

I knew that I needed this holiday, but the scale of how much it was needed I had no idea. I can feel freedom and relaxation and deep breaths and joy without the buzz kill of the ‘vid creeping in. O yeah, this is a true holiday!

In typical Olson fashion we have mastered the mix of ‘relaction’. New to the activity list was to try scuba diving. RobO took to it well enough to be able to wield an underwater camera, while I spent the whole time clinging to our instructor trying not to have a panic attack and/or die. In my defence we both had crappy flippers and often felt like we were floating in outer space with no ability to direct our movements. In future I’ll stick with snorkelling, which, around here, is the best I’ve ever seen.

One morning we were lucky enough to find this guy sleeping outside of our overwater bungalow.

We also saw so many baby sharks that we started to forget to look for them.

We’ve now moved out of our over-water villa and to a beach villa, which is like the move from the Rose Video empire to Schitt’s Creek. We’ve jokingly nicknamed it ‘the slum’. I guess our infinity pool is now the open ocean. I know one thing for sure, we will be missing our outdoor shower when we leave.

Next up is 1 more idyllic day followed by 30 hours of travelling, 2 days in Houston, and the trip home. May the Gods be ever in our favour.

February 16, 2022

Back out there

It has been a long 2 years since we have left Canada. And now that we have our chance, we did it with some serious style. DawnO was able to secure a pretty amazing deal in the Maldives that we couldn’t pass up. We knew there was a slim chance we’d actually get to go on this trip, but somehow the stars aligned and we found ourselves flying to the Indian Ocean to this island paradise.

It took us 3 days, 2 Covid tests and 1 float plane to get us here and it was all worth it! Our over water bungalow is quite posh with an outdoor shower, outdoor tub and an infinity pool! We can also walk down our back steps directly into the ocean if we feel like a soak in saltwater is in order.

We arrived on Valentines Day so there were a lot of cheesy (pronounced “romantic”) photo displays everywhere. When I was going through the payment with our island host he asked me if I would like to arrange a special Valentine surprise for my wife. I immediately said “hell no” and thought that dodging the $USD$ surprise on my credit card statement was the most romantic thing I could do. However we were unable to avoid the photo display.

Our island is quite small, as it only takes about 30 minutes to walk around the circumference. But there is plenty to do when we are not lounging around our cabin. We have been doing all the things an all inclusive has to offer including playing some tennis, ping pong, eating 3 buffet meals a day and trying out the 60+ island cocktails. DawnO had planned to try 20 by day 5, however she scratched that idea on day 2 after she sampled 9.

There’s more to come as we are here for another 6 days before we make our way to Houston, TX (don’t mess with it), to visit some cousins of mine. Stay tuned.

July 7, 2021July 7, 2021

Back in the ‘Hood

I put the small seaside town of Powell River on our itinerary for a specific reason: I lived here from ages 2-4 so I wanted to see if it might jog a childhood memory or two in my amnesiac brain.

Spoiler alert: no memories, but we did freak out the new owners of my old house when we were taking pictures of it (they said they thought their property taxes were being reevaluated!).

Almost a 40 year gap. The house looks a bit different without the front hedge and with some updates.

I also had the goal of hiking at least two sections of the Sunshine Coast Trail. Unfortunately it was cloudy/foggy at the top of Tin Hat so I missed the views, though I met some great company in 3 women who were spending 4 days on the trail. Usually when we’re on holiday I add more places to the list than I can check off and this time was no exception. Anyone want to hike a few days of this fantastic hut to hut trail with me?

Even without the ocean views it’s beautiful in its own way

Otherwise we filled our time with the usual Olson ‘relaction’, the perfect combo of adventure and relax time.

Doug: It was no golf-frolf-a-palooza, but we hit 5 different disc golf courses along the way

We saw so many bald eagles right over our heads that RobO thought it might be my spirit animal

We gave this family a wide berth when we met them on the disc golf course

Candied salmon in the mussels? Yes, please!

A sunset that cements the need to come back here

We rounded out our last couple of days back in Vancouver with family. We had a fab day sailing from Granville Island, did some beer tasting, and caught up after a long time between visits. It has been a West Coast holiday that gives us lots of reasons to come back. Can’t wait for the next one!

July 1, 2021July 1, 2021

Moby Dick… and balls

As our corner of the world began to return to “normal” we took full advantage and booked a trip to beautiful British Columbia. Our first stop was Vancouver where I got to see my family for the first time in person since Christmas of 2019. The next day we picked up our rental car and headed to one of our favourite cities in Canada, Victoria!

In another life, I would take the ferry between Vancouver and Victoria quite regularly over a period of 3 years. In that time, I had never seen a whale in the ocean. I was convinced others were exaggerating when they would talk about seeing whales during a ferry crossing. I began to believe it was a weird expression that people from BC said when they crossed the Strait of Georgia. “Took the ferry over this morning, ordered some White Spot and watched the whales swimming off the deck.” Don’t get me wrong, I knew that it happened from time to time, but it had to be rare, like a Stanley Cup win for the Vancouver Canucks. My confidence was shaken when Dawn and I went on a safari in Tanzania. Not only could I not see whales in the open sea, but I also had a really hard time spotting wildlife in the Serengeti. It seemed that I had a uncommon condition called wildlife recognition disorder. It’s where one can’t see the lion 6 meters in front of oneself because he is convinced the termite mound 500 meters away resembles a water buffalo. Symptoms include hallucinations, crippling disappointment and social embarrassment.

In an effort to rehabilitate me, DawnO decided to book us a whale watching tour the first day we were in Victoria. It didn’t take long before I was able to see 3 humpback whales and 12-15 orcas. We did our best to take pictures but the tour had an official photographer on board so I’ve stolen a few of his shots.

2nd of 2 breaches (I didn’t see the first)

Though I’m definitely not cured, I can now say with confidence that there are whales out there.

We made our way to Shawnigan Lake to visit with one of DawnO’s relatives who has a beautiful home overlooking the lake. BC has been hitting record setting temperatures this week so we jumped in the water to cool off quite a few times.

After our visit we continued northwest towards Dunsmuir to check something off of our bucket list.

Many moons ago DawnO came across a book called 50 Places to Stay to Blow Your Mind. Shortly thereafter we added our next stop to our list:

If you’ve never heard of Free Spirit Spheres I’ll give you a brief rundown. They are spheres that are suspended in the air that you lodge in. We spent 2 nights in the sphere called “Luna”. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but I definitely didn’t expect it to be so fancy. It was glamping in the sky. The site itself was very relaxing thanks to the on-site lagoon and resident wildlife. Not too far away was a cooking area and fully serviced private washroom and shower facility. There were many creative uses of space including a bed that could be lowered from the ceiling with the flip of a switch.

We have since made our way back to the mainland. DawnO will be back with another blog before we return to Alberta.