This morning was one of the best mornings I had ever had. We left at 3.45 am in a jeep to begin our climb to the sunset view point over Bromo-Tengger-Semuru National Park. I finally got to wear some of my hiking clothing! The old school jeep drove us up to a point on Mount Penanjakan where we then got out and hiked the final bit to the peak. Luckily we found the best spot facing east where the sun would rise! The spot was absolutely crazy packed with tourists, mainly Asian tourists and a lot of French people.

The sunrise was astonishingly beautiful, all pink, red and orange with bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds forming atmospheric shapes over the horizon; as we were up so high if you looked slightly below the mountain peaks you could see an entire carpet of fluffy clouds as if we were floating up above, as if you could walk across them to reach the sun (something out of a dream). Once we caught first glimpse of mount Semaru, mount Bromo and the surrounding Tengger crater it was honestly the most incredible sight I had ever experienced. It looked like something out of a fairytale and is almost indescribable. The volcanoes looked prehistoric and I even said to Emily and Michael that I could imagine dinosaurs roaming around this land. We stood overlooking the entire National Park surrounded by green landscape with flowers and the tiny colourful town of Cemaro Lewang (where we had stayed) way down below. Mount Semaru erupts every 20 minutes or so and we got to see just that as it belched out a huge smoke cloud in the distance. Mount Bromo is recognisable as it is a volcano of which the top was completely blow off so you can stare down into the eerie crater inside that constantly releases a sulphurous cloud. The panorama of both volcanoes and the sunrise was magnificent and just looked so surreal; I could have stared down into that crater in the middle of the misty morning jungle forever.

The jeep then drove us to the base of Mount Bromo right down in the crater so that we could hike to the top. It was only about half an hour up and then a million super steep stairs to the rim of the crater which again was just surreal - one of those days where you literally cannot believe what you are looking at. We walked around some of the edge of the crater and the views from the top were also really beautiful overlooking the "sea of sand" - a huge area of land covered in volcanic ash. Not many people could say they had ever achieved so much and seen so much natural beautiful scenery before 8 am!

After returning to our lodge and indulging in a free buffet breakfast, there was no time to rest as we then organised another trip and got a minibus all the way to Bondowoso in order to hike the Ijen Crater in the middle of the night/early morning THAT NIGHT. After two buses and checking in at a truly questionable hostel at around 6pm we had a small wander around the very local Javanese mountain village before going to bed at 7pm (as we have to leave at 1am to climb the crater). This will probably be the most action packed and exciting 24 hours I've ever had.