We were on the road by 6.35 on Saturday morning, buzzing along on Scott V until the city turned into rice-fields and villages, and the route finally tilted sharply upwards to deliver us to the land of black rock terraces, teak trees, and cassava fields that is the Gunung Kidul.

We stopped for brekkie at a small, unsophisticated, not-really-yet-open eatery. It's amazing how good Indomie, with added tomatoes, veggies, and egg, can taste, especially when accompanied by more of that wonderfully fragrant Javanese tea we've been reacquainting ourselves with.

Later, we stopped for coffee at Kampoeng Baron, where we have stayed and/or lunched on previous occasions.

Then on to Pantai Pok Tunggal, our furthest point east from Yogya on a motorbike.

Realy huge waves. Barrelling in.

We climbed up onto Bukit Panjung, at one end of the beach, and sat up there for quite a while, slurping a kelapa muda, and watching the sea.







At lunchtime, we switched beaches, plonking ourselves down at the Restoran Indrayanti (the one after which that particular beach is unofficially named). Crispy fish, with sambal, tofu, tempe, and so on. A little basic, but nice enough, and of course you get an excellent view of the sea and the sand.

Beach vendors of different types were ambling up and down. A life guard, from atop his watchtower, would occasionally loudspeaker warnings to the people who were venturing a little too close to the hungry waves.





Our next stop was Sundak Beach.

Now, this was slightly mysterious. I thought I'd been here, more than six years ago, when I first spent serious time in Yogya. The outing is there among my photos, labelled Pantai Sundak. But on Saturday it looked longer than I had remembered. There were more beach-side restaurants. And having checked my photos from that year, it appears that where I was then was not Sundak Beach... A little detective work suggests that I was then at Pantai Ngandong. So there we are. I've done more beaches than I'd thought.

Be that as it may, Sundak Beach is awesomely beautiful, and a superb place to watch the tide come in.

What a work of art... The huge, tumbling waves in the middle distance; the determined little waves that march in towards us across the flat reef, like little mobile walls marking out segments of sea; and -- my favourite -- the bit where the outgoing wave meets the next incoming wave, producing all kinds of special effects. Depending on the height of the wave, you get an undulation like the whipping of a wire, or a sideways run of water that looks for all the world like a sea creature racing from one side of the bay to the other.

It was pleasantly quiet, and we stayed for ages, making two drinks last a long time, and watching the families play and the light fade.





We overnighted at the Rock Garden Homestay, which was simple, but nice enough. They served up a very good dinner: a piece of grilled fish; rice; sayur lombok; and spicy papaya leaves.

We headed off early on Sunday for a pre-breakfast look at Pantai Watu Kodok. The beach-side grass was full of camping students, and the beach itself was under major assault from some truly humongous waves. Several bits of greenery bit the dust while we were there, and at times the sea was right up under the gazebo we'd occupied. Supplied by the owner of the gazebo was a pot of Javanese tea. Kakek was a bit hard of hearing, so the request for "plain tea" didn't register, and the first glass (ready-poured) came with a sugar-berg fit to sink the Titanic. Never mind. The deeper you drink, the sweeter the tea.

A metaphor for life? I hope so...

Time passed.

The inside of a curling, rearing wave is like marble. The outside, as the curl rolls over, is like glassy green jade -- but you glimpse it very briefly before it's lost in all the white chiffon foam. Out where the waves start to form, there's an ongoing roar like the roar of a train, masked only by the crash as the waves hit the shore.



Eventually we decided it was time to move on for breakfast. We redeemed Scott, set off up the steep track, and had gone only a matter of metres before Nigel realized we had a flat back tyre.

We walked back down to the beach, where luckily there were tambal ban facilities. Not so luckily, the person who operated them had set off on some errand not that long ago. Someone was sent to fetch him. This took a while. Ibu kept repeating her apologies; we kept repeating our gratitude for her efforts; and I got through quite a few pages of my novel in between times.

Eventually, our tyre-fixer rolled up. A slightly manic youth, with a beautiful smile. If he was frustrated at having his morning hijacked, he didn't show it.

It takes a wee while to vulcanize the inner tube and the patch. In the downtime, he was guiding out buses (terus, terus...), making friends with the students' bus driver, and leaping out to attract passing bikers into his bike-park.

He charged us 20,000 rupiah (6 ringgit or 2 dollars).

Back on track (and now very grateful for Kakek's sugar), we had incredibly nice pancakes at Kampoeng Baron, and then headed back to Yogya.



Just south of Imogiri, we stopped for guava juices at Kampoeng Es. A simple outfit, and right by the road. Not good for conversation, therefore, but it made up for that by the quality of its juice. Unlike many plusher establishments, they actually sieve out the bits of seed.

Then, as a final stop before returning Scott to his rightful owners, we dropped in at friends in Bambanglipuro. When I say "dropped in", actually this understates the case. Whereas last year we effortlessly found the house, this time we did a comprehensive but fruitless tour of Bambanglipuro's many little roads, before having to resort to buying a day's roaming in order to make contact with our prospective hosts.

But again, never mind. If you have to get lost, Bambanglipuro is an idyllic place to do it.

It's always nice to catch up with these kind people. And can anything be more delicious than kelapa muda and tiny boiled bananas that have come straight off the trees around you?

What an awesome little trip...