Day two post descent from Mount Rinjani and my legs are still literally screaming at me…everyone else apparently unaffected…or just putting on brave faces. Hobbled my way to our favourite cabana pool for a last morning chilling before it was time to set off for our next destination. Kuta is on the south coast of Lombok so we retraced our steps from a week ago, driving back down to the capital Mataram and past the airport before heading east across the island. Our home for the next few days is a lovely villa hidden down on an unpaved lane off the main high street past a smart looking hotel, new accommodation being built, lots of dogs were roaming and a family were farming cows – so many contrasts in such a short drive! The villa is one of four grouped together and has an open plan dining/living area open to the elements on two sides, it is just lovely providing shade from the sun and roof fans creating a nice breeze. The bathrooms are also open air which is nice but a little disconcerting when you can occasionally hear chatting just over the wall! A couple of dogs live outside the villas including a particularly friendly one always looking to be petted; he strolls into the villa each time we open the front door…possibly due to the snacks we’re providing him! Stu also had a pied piper moment feeding some of the strays, including a dog with puppies – each time he subsequently walked down the track they followed him en masse! Once again thoughts turn to missing Scrabble!

Kuta is known as a surfing town so we were looking forward to some quality beach time after the rather disappointing beach at our hotel in Sengigi (basically very narrow and rather rocky with coral – we hadn’t ventured into the sea). This is another world – both in terms of the beaches and the town. I suspect Kuta is a taste of what will come in Bali, albeit on a gentler/quieter basis. There are lots of restaurants along the main road ranging from nasi goreng for a £1 to places that wouldn’t look out of place in London (if London was besides the sea) – Stu is very pleased on our last night to be able to sit at a restaurant with proper wine glasses (and chilled wine to fill them with!). Our favourite place, a brunch type cafe, feels like we’ve been transported to Melbourne, we visited for cake/coffee, lunch and breakfast! I was especially chuffed with my surfer coffee art, and carrot cake almost as good as my favourite maternity leave cafe Belle Amie in Earlsfield!

Enough of the food, we were here for the sea. On our first day we took a short taxi ride to Tanjung Aan Beach, a little piece of paradise. A large cove with white sand and blue blue sea. However what really made this a great day at the beach were the local restaurants backing onto the beach, each offering free sunbeds, thatch roof sunshades and toilets for the day if you bought food and drink. Just makes a beach day so much easier rather than cooking in the sun on the sand all day, it was just lovely. We enjoyed coffees in the morning and great fresh fish goujans for lunch. The girls also loved the swing set up at the water line. We spent the day dipping in and out of the sea, chilling, and watching the surfers being taken in and out on little boats to the break about 500m off the coast – only for the brave ie not us! The sun beds along the cove gradually filled up with tourists but it never got really busy so maintained a lovely chilled vibe. We loved it here so much, when our day trip to the Secret Gillis was cancelled two days’ later we returned. This time the wind had picked up (hence the cancelled trip) and the sea was crashing against the beach, we all loved jumping in the waves, a tad reminiscent of my teenage days out at Rhyl Sun Centre…!

Between our days at Tanjung Aan we had a day at Selong Belanak Beach, about half an hour drive away. This was the perfect spot to do our surf lesson…along with lots of other beginners! It was another beautiful cove, the sea full of people trying to catch their first waves. We were really lucky to have two instructors with us who really helped us by spotting the waves and shouting ‘UP, UP’ as we paddled furiously. It was so much fun, despite crashing out several times, we were all I think surprised that we were better than we’d expected. The girls were super confident and did really well. My previous surf experiences have been wearing a wetsuit on the south Wales coast, surfing in the warmth with 1to2 tuition certainly made it easier. By the time we came out of the sea, we were all tired, bedraggled and had sand everywhere!

We’ve had a lovely few days in Kuta, it’s been great to be somewhere with good food (and coffee) and such lovely quiet-ish beaches. Being able to relax in such a great space back at the villa also helped make this is a relaxing few days. Back to the countryside now as we head north to the centre of Lombok.