As we often do, we went for a dawn walk this morning.

The sky was cloud free and so we could see the morning star, which is actually the planet Venus, to the East and the Moon, three days after its special appearance in a Lunar Eclipse to the West.
Unfortunately Yogyakarta was the wrong side of the planet to view the eclipse, but you can not have everything in life.

Today is Good Friday which is a public holiday so the early morning traffic was lighter than usual as we set off down the road.

As we cleared the trees and houses Gunung Sumbing appeared in view. Despite being 50km away it seemed to be just beyond the next rice field - one of those occasional days when the air is so clear that your sense of distance is confounded.

A little further down the lane and the locals, Gunung Merapi and Gunung Merbabu appeared. These two mountains are big and dominate the landscape, usually Merapi has a trail of steam of his own making round his summit.

At moments like this it is hard to believe that weeks can go by and they are not visible.