It's oh-so-easy for Australian surfers to take our proximity to Indonesia for granted. On many an Indo jaunt I've run into surfers from overseas, say South Africa or the US, who are treating their time in the islands as a Big Trip. Yet for many Aussies it's just one rung above a Gold Coast dash.

The Tyranny of Distance gets reversed when our nearest neighbour is the most wave-rich nation on Earth. OK, for the anal retentives it's the third nearest behind PNG and East Timor, but regardless, who cares about Europe's crumbling old world charm when there's 5000 kilometres of coral reef just to our north-west?

Chris Lovell knows about distance, being an expat-Australian living in London who recently spent some time in Indonesia. The trip, by all reports, got off to a brilliant start; the boat they'd organised a year in advance not even turning up in Padang! Fortunately they were rescued by a Seppo in a speedboat and spent the next few weeks in the landcamps. After a patchy start here's how the rest of the trip went.

All photos by Chris. //STUART NETTLE