Today was a red-letter day. As of yesterday, we were allowed to be "tourists" again. OK, we still have to stay in our home district, but we can be out and about just for fun. We don't have to have some pressing commercial or social or health reason.

As I've mentioned already (indeed, you might well think I've gone on about it way too much), this was our first time out of Kuching since early December. For 10 months, our radius has been about 8 km, and our most far-flung destinations have been the hospital and the vaccination centre...

So this morning, to get the most out of the last few hours with our hire car, we set off with our breakfast sandwiches to see the sun rise at Buntal.

It was drizzling and surprisingly cool. And the sunrise was the world's most unspectacular ever. A total damp squib.

Nevertheless, it was fantastic -- really fantastic -- just to be out and about.



And the soundscape was second to none: The soft patter of rain on our umbrellas, the plaintive sound of curlews out hunting for brekkie, the plop of water falling from the boardwalk, the mysterious pop of the mangroves, the twittering of the land birds (probably complaining about how cold it was)...





After taking all that in for a while, we moved round to Pantai Puteri. A few people had set up camp near the entrance to the beach, obviously profiting from the relaxation of restrictions.




The tide was well out, so we were able to walk a little way along the coast. Beautiful as always.




After so many months of tramping the same routes (which change, of course, but even so, we're awfully used to them by now), it was refreshing to have new things to stare at and photograph.





And we were privileged to spot three otters cruising just offshore:


All in all -- awesome.

We're looking forward to doing some more next week, before we again go to ground for a while in preparation for heading off to the British Isles.