The eruption of Mount Rinjani on the neighbouring island of Lombok has covered the skies above Denpasar Airport with volcanic ash, making travel unsafe.

Flights in and out of Australia and Denpasar have been largely grounded or cancelled since Tuesday, putting the travel plans of many in jeopardy.

Wodonga factory worker Rory Carroll and his masseuse girlfriend Lauren McLeish were due to fly from Melbourne early Saturday.

Mr Carroll said the plan had been to stay on the island for ten nights.

“The plan was to spend five nights with my girlfriend, and then meet others from Melbourne who were flying across for the next five,” he said.

Mr Carroll said the trip had been months in the making.

“We first spoke about it in March and it has been booked since May,” he said.

“We paid in full for flights and accommodation.”

A similar event occured in August when Mount Raung in East Java blew its top and the volcanic ash also made its way over Denpasar.

Mr Carroll said he had been constantly checking for updates on the Jetstar website and other news channels.

“We checked their website and Facebook for travel updates and keeping aware of what they were cancelling,” he said.

“We didn’t have any thoughts about events that could stop our travel, however we did take out travel insurance."

A secondary option had been discussed but not decided if the holiday had to change.

“We’ve been thinking about a back-up country but haven’t discussed any options,” Mr Carroll said.

“The problem is our friends fly five days after us and they may be cleared to go to Bali, and we might be grounded."

On Friday afternoon the Jetstar website alerted those with flights booked from Bali back to Australia they would operate a “limited number of recovery services” to get passengers to their destination, after an improvement in weather conditions surrounding the volcano.