A few moons ago the sea circus freaks deflated the big top for a day and took the show out of town, for a treetop adventure.

For our staff away day 2012 we decided to head up north to Bedugul, the green spot in the mountains where all of our fresh veggies grow up. Bedugul is the coldest spot on the island. At times it is said to reach temperatures as low as 22 c. By the beard of Zeus, get me a blanket! Armed with hoodies, hot drinks and feet covering shoes {no flip-flop/jandal/slippers/thongs up there} we gathered at early o’clock and boarded the bus for the treetops. Well, after a quick nasi breakfast at the circus of course. As you can see, none of the staff were at all happy about having a day off to go play….

En route and spirits were high. There were games. And songs. And an awesome tour of Bali by our security guard, Made; “and here on the right is the famous hotel kerobokan – where some of the most famous visitors to Bali come and check in… you can stay for verrry reasonable rates… sometimes for free if you’re really unlucky”. After the laughter, came, well, more. And it wasn’t even 8 o’clock yet. Even so, the Sea Circus staff thought this was the perfect time for a bit of a boogie, and so the bus dance off began…

We’re not sure if it was Tari’s crumping or Charlie’s splits that did it, but after the dance-off the bus got a little, well, broken. It started to chug chug chug. We were a sorry sight indeed crawling up the hills to Bedugul. After a few tears and a lot of prayers from the Hindu floor staff, the bus eventually passed away somewhere near Kintamani {where our coffee beans are born}. {Reincarnation anyone?} Spirits weren’t low for too long, as we decided to make the most of our bad luck. As one of our coffee quotes tells us,

‘Problems become opportunities when the right people come together’ – Robert Redford

And so the staff decided to show Charlie & Josh a thing or two about real Bali transport. The girls hitched a lift on a doorless van and piled the old faithful high, while the boys followed behind standing up in the back of a farmers’ pick up. Fresh air sandwiches. Delicious.

When we finally got to the Bali Treetops everyone was bursting to go and so we got dressed up in harnesses and listened excitedly, but attentively, to the safety briefing.

Then we had a practice run all together…

Then we were let loose on the real thing. Which was a supersized, quadruple shot of fun! Climbing, jumping, swinging, zipping, flying, screaming, laughing and other verbs. Yep, we liked it a lot. Even though it did scare us more than a little bit to start with… and later too. But as one of our coffee quotes says,

‘Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile… initially scared me to death’ – Betty Bender

After the trees were swung and the foxes were flown {and the appetites were worked up} we mosied on up to the lake for a spot of lunch. Spicy nasi and mie goreng. Enak sekali. By the lake we took more photos and bought punnets of freshly picked strawberries for the ride home. By this time everyone was getting a little snoozy, and so the bus turned into a sleeper on the way back to the yak. Everyone slept more than well that night and came in well rested, if a little stiff, the next day. We thoroughly enjoyed our day away together and thank all of our customers for understanding that a days closure once every while isn’t such a bad thing. Glad to be back and open now though. Yippee!