Just the thought of more hiking after Rinjani almost made our legs seize in protest. But with things to see and do before returning 'our Cilla' to the rental office, I managed to put my legs into gear and drive us to a place called Senaru.
The route to Senaru took us along some very twisty narrow roads. On a motorbike it's enough to whizz around the bends, but when your car is almost as wide as the road it's a must to warn others of your presence. The hills were alive with the sound of.. honking!
Senaru, although lower in altitude and further away from the top of Rinjani, is a much more popular destination for trekkers. Compared with where we based ourselves in Sembalun, the place was positively bustling. There were trekking companies left, right and centre! Along with this were numerous places to stay, we were spoilt for choice. Presuming that the places slightly off the main strip would be cheaper, we searched the outskirts for a place to stay.
It wasn't long before we found a place called 'Blue Mountain Cottage and Homestay'. Initially the homestay owner asked for 300,000 rupiah (£15) for a room with cold water! I think he was trying his luck. Realising his mistake, as we swiftly turned on our heels, he halved his price and offered the room with free breakfast (more banana pancakes). We accepted the very reasonable offer and dropped our bags in the room.
Our reason for being in Senaru was not to tackle Rinjani for a second time, but to visit the nearby waterfalls. We'd read and heard they were worth a visit. Fortunately for our legs sake, the day was getting on and the clouds had come in, so we decided to 'put our feet up' for the rest of the day and work on the blog.
The upside to touristy areas is the choice and competitive pricing for accommodation, the downside is the overpriced food. For dinner we ended up eating at a below average, overpriced warung located in a car park on the main strip. The place was run by a group of late teens who were seemingly tipsy on locally made arak. Having read and heard horror stories online about arak turning people blind (high levels of methanol), we kept sober that night, despite their numerous kind offerings!

Resting our legs hadn't done us any good whatsoever! I think Amelia suffered slightly more than me, but we were both feeling like like OAP's trying to get out of bed that morning.
The general consensus around Senaru is that guides are mandatory for visiting the waterfalls. But having learnt from a friendly trekking company that this is incorrect and that we could 'self guide' our way to the two waterfalls close by, we set off early to beat the crowds.
With our towels, phones, cameras and nasi campur (mixed rice) in hand, we reached the first waterfall called 'Sendang Gile' with ease along a conveniently paved route.
Whilst looking at the thirty metre high, two tiered waterfall with only one local family for company, we looked at our phones in an attempt to figure out the route to the next waterfall.
From what we could see on the GPS it was just over a kilometre away. But unfortunately there wasn't a clear path to follow, so we set off wading up the shallow river in search of the second waterfall.
It wasn't long before we realised that we were probably going on an 'alternative route', but seeing no other option we continued. Our GPS apps were at least showing us that we were going in the right direction, so we kept wading.
The majority of the river was relatively calm and shallow, but at times it got fairly fast flowing over moss covered rocks, at these points I could see Amelia wasn't comfortable following our 'alternative route'. But with a helping hand over the dry boulders and reassurance from the GPS, she felt happy to keep going. The route wasn't dangerous, if you steered clear of the obviously slippery rocks, but it was slow going. At one point we caught a glimpse of the trail we should've been on, but it was a lot higher up and without a difficult climb through the unknown undergrowth it was out of reach.
A hour later, our perseverance paid off and we found an easy way up to the path which we were meant to be on. We followed it for less than ten minutes to reach the second waterfall called 'Tiu Kelep'.
We had the waterfall to ourselves. It was a single tier waterfall and much more powerful because of it. The downside to this was the vast amounts of mist drifting in the air. After taking a few snaps (trying not to get the SLR too wet) we found a place out of the way of the spray, to perch and have our nasi campur.
Sadly, our lunch had unknowingly been submerged in the water during our little adventure and was therefore inedible. Although the water looked clean we didn't want to risk eating the rice, veg and chicken, just in case it was now swimming in parasites.
We envisioned beforehand that the waterfall would have a nice area for sitting and relaxing in the sun, hence the picnic. Unfortunately this wasn't the case. Even though the sun was out, we were completely shielded by the tree canopy above.
We felt a little chilly, but the water looked very inviting. So seeing as we were prepared with our towels and swimmers, we took a very refreshing dip. Disappointingly the water wasn't heated by the nearby volcanic activity so was therefore breathtakingly cold! Needless to say we didn't stay in the water long.
After drying off and eating a few crisps we'd bought, we followed the path back. Funnily enough, the path turned out to be a very easy route! It only took us around twenty minutes opposed to an hour or so. But on the upside our vigorous adventure had loosened our muscles!
We returned to the lady who sold us the takeaway nasi campur and ordered more for 'eat in' at her roadside warung. It was just what we needed. The sambal it was served with was typically spicy but that didn't seem to put the chickens off jumping on the tables and turning cannibalistic - they literally pecked the bones clean!
Feeling the need to try and catch up on the blog, we returned to the homestay and spent the rest of the day 'working'.

Needing to get Priscilla back and organise our onward travel we awoke early, ate yet another banana pancake and left to return to Senggigi, completing our loop of Lombok..