WHERE THE HELL IS KATRINA K

Where the hell is that?  That is the most common response I get when I tell people where I live.  So I thought I would use this post to shed some light on where it is that I currently call home.  Well Borneo is apparently the third largest non-continental island in the world.  Just in case you are wondering Greenland and New Guinea are the other two.  Borneo is in Southeast Asia and is divided in to three countries.  There is Brunei, East Malaysia and then Kalimantan which is the Indonesian part.  We are in the Indonesian part of Borneo Island in Kalimantan Timur.

 

 We live half way up the coast of Kalimantan Timur, which makes us reasonably remote.  It takes us four planes and two days to make it back to Sangatta from Townsville, Australia, so it is a bit of an epic journey.  Once we have passed through Townsville, Brisbane and Singapore airports we land in the city of Balikpapan.  If we are lucky we then board the Airbourne (better known as the death pencil).  If we are unlucky we get bumped off the Airbourne (it happens a lot) and we must load ourselves into a car and make the drive from Balikpapan to Sangatta.  I searched the internet for a while (in between Facebook scans) and I couldn’t find a map that had Sangatta labelled on it anywhere.  So I will do my best to explain where it is.   If you look for the word Timur on the map above, under the T is about where we live.  The car ride from Balikpapan to Sangatta can take anywhere between 6 – 8 hours depending on the road (or mud track), the weather, and truck collisions.  The only way I can explain the trip in the car is horrendous, I tend to crank up my ipod, close my eyes, say a prayer and hope for the best as we race our way towards Sangatta.  There is not too much around where we are as you can see from the blank green space on the map, which is why we have so many amazing orang-utans in our backyard.  So now you know where to find us please feel free to come visit anytime, there is a spare bed and I will be sure to protect you from rogue tokeks and squirrels.