REBAK MARINA – THAILAND
It’s just 2 days before Christmas and at last we have a plan! We decided to come back to Rebak Marina for Christmas and sail to Phuket for new year’s eve. Should be good. Thought I’d send you this quick update to fill you in on a mountain climb that Terry and I did a few days ago. Who said we weren’t fit?
We escaped from the ‘retirement village’ (Rebak Marina, lol) for about 11 days. We collected our dinghy on schedule and are very happy with it. They did an excellent job. We spent a few days on anchor near Kuah town waiting for sir Michael off ‘Sound of Music’ to arrive. He eventually arrived and headed off to Penang to do his Thai visa run as per his plan. He will be joining us again in Rebak on Christmas day.
From Kuah we sailed down and anchored at Telaga Harbour so that we could spend a couple of days with our friends Ossi and Vanessa on ‘Executive’. Executive is a 73 ft catamaran. Yep, it’s huge and is 35 feet wide. You could fit more than 3 of our boats inside her, lol. Ossi and Vanessa have the boat on the market but charter her while they wait for a sale. So if you have a cool $4 million spare she could be yours!
We took a ride on the cable car with Ossi and Vanessa, and this time managed to walk across and under the suspension bridge. It took a bit of courage from me to walk out over that bridge I can tell you, as it was blowing a gale and the bridge was swaying a bit. I stayed in the middle, kept my head down, put one foot in front of the other, didn’t think about where I was and before I knew it I was across the other side. Too easy!
The next day we decided to climb to the top of the mountain above the Seven Wells. It was Vanessa’s idea and was a good one, except that before we got to the Seven Wells Ossi and Vanessa got a phone call for a 4 day charter and had to rush back to Executive to greet their guests on board. Convenient hey? I reckon it was all a set up. They just didn’t want to tell us they’d changed their mind, lol. No. Really. They did get a charter and were disappointed that they missed out on climbing with us.
On the day of the climb, we left Ridgee Didge at 0730hrs in the morning and didn’t get back to her till 1600hrs that afternoon. We were walking or climbing most of that time, with over 3 hours of it spent climbing nearly vertical. We started the 2 kilometer climb from the Seven Wells at 0930 hrs and reached the summit (701 metres above sea level) at 1145hrs. It was a long, hard climb but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Fortunately there were ropes along the track that we could use to help haul ourselves up with. These ropes came in very handy on the way down too as we used them to abseil down backwards. Although it wasn’t that hot our clothes were ringing wet before we even reached half way. Perspiration was stinging my eyes and running off my forehead and dripping onto my glasses. Several times we thought we were getting close to the summit only to find that the path turned the corner and continued more vertically upward! It felt like we were never going to reach the top. I kept saying that there was no top. It was all a myth and we would have to continue climbing forever, lol.
Eventually of course we did reach the top. It felt so good to finally get there. We sat and admired the view while we ate our picnic lunch. It was so peaceful on top of that mountain. Every now and then I could hear a ‘whooosh’ sound whizzing past us. It took a while to realise the sound was coming from the wings of birds who were soaring around us. They were going so fast it was hard to see them. I’m not sure what they were but they reminded me of swifts.
As we were leaving the summit we met an old Japanese man on his way up. He was about 70 and it was his 5th time to the top. He was studying and collecting butterflies. The only other people we met on the way down were 4 teenagers on their way up. They had about another hour to go to the top. One was a Muslim girl who was wearing jeans, traditional head gear, and was bare foot. She was carrying a pair of thongs in her hands. None of them was carrying water or sustenance of any kind. I’d hate to see what her feet would be like by the time she’d finished climbing!
Our legs were like jelly well before we got back to the bottom. I was praying so hard for flat ground at one stage and was giggling so much from exhaustion that I slipped and fell flat on my back. Fortunately I had hold of one of the ropes so didn’t slip down the mountain. Terry laughed his head off and said, ‘Well, you did ask for flat ground!’ I guess my request got lost in translation, lol!
Once back at the Seven Wells I couldn’t wait to get into my togs and into the water to cool off. It was wonderful, even though many tourists had since invaded the place while we were climbing. Some kids were using the rocks as a natural waterslide and were sliding from one well into the other. They looked like they were having so much fun but I couldn’t summon the energy to join them. I just took photos instead. Terry couldn’t even summon the energy to change into his togs, so he just sat and watched.
By the time we got back to the boat we were exhausted. I had just enough energy to make a quick snack for tea and crawl into bed. I didn’t even have a vodka! Surprisingly enough we are not suffering too much from aches and pains today. As I said, we must both be a lot fitter than we thought.
We thoroughly enjoyed the climb and would do it again (but not this year, lol). However, we wouldn’t recommend it unless you are young and/or fit.
Again, have a great Christmas. We will be thinking of you. Cheers for now, Jan and Terry.
