Wordsworth and Lakes; Orangutans in the Jungle; Sunny Queensland; the Olympics and Menorca: What a summer!

Well - it's been a while since I last posted a blog.  I guess life got in the way a bit.  The last time I posted was July and I had a little rant about the weather.  The rain didn't go away so I suppose it must have rained somewhere on St Swithins day.Soon the summer holidays where upon us and we kicked off with a long weekend in the Lake district.  For this trip it was just Andrew, Harry, Archie (faithful hound) and me.  We stayed in Lodore on Derwent Water.  Great hotel and perfect location.  The really amazing thing was that it was probably the only part of the UK where it wasn't raining.  Alex was up in Scotland at T in the Park getting completely soaked.  Andy Murray was playing a semi final in Wimbledon dodging showers.  But we were walking up the Cat O Bells in glorious sunshine and blue sky.  The views from the top were stunning and the dark pink foxgloves dotted amongst green ferns were truly inspiring:

As was the chance to go to Dove Cottage in Grasmere.  William Wordsworth is still one of the most inspiring poets of all time.

We came back just in time to pack our bags for the next instalment of the Woolley family summer holiday.  This time we were altogether as we headed off to Borneo to meet the organutans.  Our journey to Kota Kinabalu (on the western side of Borneo) was long and arduous as long haul trips always are.  But a beautiful place awaited us and we were soon soaking up the sun and swimming in the South China sea.  We even managed to meet our first organutans - two four year old female orphans who we were lucky enough to get up close and personal with:

A few days later, we reluctantly packed our bags - the resort was so lovely it was hard to say goodbye - and headed on a small plane across the island to Sandakan.  On the way we were greeted with glorious views of Mt Kinabalu (with it volcanic crater) and then further on with not such a glorious view of acres and acres of Palm Oil plantations.  Palm Oil plantations = no rainforest. On arrival at Sandakan, I think Alex thought he was arriving as a famous rock star or something:

 On arrival at Sandakan, we drove two hours into the forest to a lodge on the Kinabatangan river.

 Bilit lodge was lovely (very different from the luxurious resort over in Kota).  Each room was a separate building on stilts with a hammock on each verandah.  We had the river on one side and the jungle on the other three sides.  We went out every morning and late afternoon on a boat in search of animals and birds:

We were lucky to see one orangutan in the wild - just as he was putting himself to bed.  But the greatest discovery of all was the probiscus monkey.  What a creature - what a star.  People come to Borneo to see the Orangutan, but the should really get to know the probiscus monkey.  The alpha males in particular are quite striking - they kind of look like a mixture of Oliver Cromwell, Buddha, Donald Trump and Frankenstein:

They may be ugly but they are endearing and we all fell in love with them.  Let's  not talk about a certain appendage though.


After four days, we left our jungle world and headed to the famous Orang utan sanctuary in Sepilok near Sandakan.  We arrived just in time for feeding and saw two or three young organgutans who managed to show us how to perform gymnastics whilst eating.  It as most enlightening:

We reluctantly said goodbye to them and travelled to Sandakan airport, but  not before we managed to get a tour around the Sandakan Memorial Park.  This is a memorial which pays homage to the Sandakan prisoner of war camp and the brave Australian and British POWs who perished in their long march in the jungle in 1945.  It was very moving and beautiful.  We flew onto to Kuala Lumpar where we had shower in a marble bathroom after having no proper shower in the jungle (got to save water you know).  Then it was off to Brisbane to see friends and family.

Let's get this straight now. It was winter in Australia but the weather was glorious - blue sky and sunshine with the temperature creeping up to mid twenties celsius during the day.

As you can see, Queensland winters are hard work.  It was great to catch up with friends and family especially my best buddy Chris:

And my old school buddy Peta marie:

We're not bad for 40 something

And my lovely family:

And then it was back to the UK in time for our Olympic trips.  We had been getting up in the early hours in Oz in order to watch events in the first week live.  We were finally now able to watch things in real time.  And what a Games they turned out to be:

Sometimes a picture says it all.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, Absent Husband who was coming to the end of his 9 months sabbatical decided we should head off for a week to Spain.  It was lovely to have a few days sun after the dull weather of the UK in August.  It was also amazing to see how many people could read "Fifty Shades of Grey" around one pool.  I prefer "Fifty Shades of Mr Darcy" myself.  

And so, the great summer endeth.  And so does this post.