Day 53 - Hanging With The Hipsters

It's Matt back on blog duties today.

Our second day in Seminyak started with a lie in and then we went round the corner to a place called Sisterfield for breakfast. In keeping with this place it was full of hipsters but the food was amazing. I had a breakfast burrito and Helen had a chilli and bean concoction. We also had sides of smashed avocados and potato and manchego cake. We've both been missing avos so they were a treat, the potato was very good and it's probably the best brekkie we've had on our travels.

After breakfast it was back to the apartment to do a bit of admin for our final leg of the trip in Australia. Unfortunately looks like cyclone Debbie and the subsequent floods are going to affect our plans a fair bit and particularly around the few days we were planning in the Whitsunday Islands. Shame as this was one of the bits of the Aus trip we were particularly looking forward to but can't be helped and obviously a minor issue compared to the people who's homes have been damaged etc. Given we collect the campervan on when we land in Cairns on Monday it also seemed like a good time to watch the 'how to' video the rental company sent us. Presented by a guy who wasn't overflowing with charisma it was a mixture of 'ah that's useful' and '**** is that the actual bed'. Driving down the east coast of Aus sounded really cool and romantic at the time and hopefully won't end up with the campervan parked in a hotel car park.

After that it was time to slap on the factor 50 and head to the beach. Ten minute walk took us to the sea and a very small beach but then one wrong turn meant we headed the wrong way up the coast. Wrong in that it was all security protected fancy beach bars and hotels rather than the beach for the great unwashed which was in the opposite direction. All we wanted to do was wander down the beach which we eventually did after a couple of dead ends but an unexpected wave stole my flip flop. Thankfully it washed back up to save me becoming one of the bare footed wannabe hippies we've seen in pretty much every country we've been.

We decided to try one of the bars and after more confusion and two bag searches (where our bottle of water was refused entry) we ended up in the Potato Head Beach Club. This place had a lot of pouting and posing going on and that was just the blokes. Very pretentious and we didn't stay long before heading back to the pool at our apartment.

Sure everyone's been on tenter hooks after yesterday's cliff hanger but after a stress free taxi back up to the laundry place I can confirm all our stuff returned the original colour and size plus we gained a random pair of odd socks which were in the pocket of a pair of my shorts. Once the laundry was safely back in the apartment we went back out to the beach and found a non pretentious beach bar to watch the sunset. Good sunset it was too.

Seminyak really is hipsterville, mainly of the Australian variety. All fancy coffee, pristine beards and vintage clothes and not a Tuk Tuk in sight. It's like Shoreditch with sunshine It's still a cool place and an interesting contrast with some of the less developed places we've been previously. It's a relatively short flight from Aus so there are tons of Aussies here and it reminded us both of Melbourne at times (which is good a thing).

Evening was spent eating some very good burgers (we've eaten more than our fair share of local food this trip so had a full Western grub day) and then drinks in a couple of sports bars, the first half was crap and Helen wisely called it a night before the second while I stayed out and watched United draw 0-0. Sigh.Read more