TROPICAL PARADISE

First visit to pacific island, tropical paradise, palm trees, beaches and lush vegetation.

Arrived at Blue Pango, our accommodation for now. No beach, lots of dogs and swimming pool that was a home for crabs.  Great views though.

First adventure – A round the island trip with a variety of interest.  Local village and tribal dancing, music and good food at Bamboo Beach.  Stunning scenery, our guide explained the different land tenures – fascinating.  Fencing, which was sticks planted in the ground that grew meant they owned the land, Coconut trees at corner boundary’s meant they leased the land.  The lease expired when the coconut trees died (average 75 years).

The amount of food growing wild means that no-one goes hungry.  Vanuatu has an incredible growing climate.  As the American’s found out in WWII when they planted Mile a Minute Vine as camouflage, it is now taking over everywhere and killing the plants – including fruit and veg.  Teams are now being sent over to try and neutralise the problem that they caused by this.

We visited Takara Hot Springs (Mud), next door to a WWII air field (disused). We were not game to get covered in mud, although it was reported to be therapeutic. 

There were a couple of brave souls slopping around in the mud – watching them was far better than participating.

Havana Harbour WWII Museum was really interesting with a great old character running the place.  Basically he had personally collected, shells, bottles, bullets and all sorts of other memorabilia.  Well worth a visit.

Another visit was to Survivor Beach (beach used in American Survivor program) – Not at all worthwhile in our opinion.

We took off another day for Everglade Cascades, a stunning scramble up slippery waterfall faces with just a rope to hang on to.  We went early  and had the place to ourselves, great swimming holes and again such amazing scenery.

 We were about to leave when the first of the crowds started to arrive.  On to a round of golf.  We had to hire everything and bought 3 balls each – they asked if we wanted more but we declined not at all sure why we would need more – but we found out.

Once your ball goes off the fairway into the grass it is so long and thick that you rarely ever find it again.  Great course, very attractive and some holes run along the seafront.

I had heard about a place called Millenium Cave only discovered in 2000 and was keen to go.  Tried booking when we arrived but it had been too wet and the water was too high, same for the next few days, luckily on our last full day they said we could go.

Start on our adventure, a bus up steep windy roads with stunning scenery ending in a muddy puddle of dirt with nothing around.  Start trek – mini Kokoda trail, mud, jungle, bamboo rickety bridges and hills.  Arrive at village – incredibly neat and tidy for the primitive conditions.

We were greeted by a village tribal dance and local food (basically charcoal yams).  The guide showed us the map and explained where we were going.  He also explained we needed a waterproof camera for much of the journey – bummer we did not have one, regret this always.

Walked through more fields, more bamboo bridges and more mud, eventually going down to a hole with the last clamber down being through water that I could swear was about 5 degrees. 
Next is a walk through a dark tunnel / underground river.  One part was light as there was a hole above and a waterfall into the river – stunning I wish I had a camera. The river is rocky, deep and cold. Coming out the other side of the tunnel we had to cross a fast flowing river where we had to  make a chain as the current was very strong. 

We could now see why we could not do this trip earlier as the waterline was very obvious and about 8 meters higher than this day (and this was a borderline trip).  Lunch on the riverbank. 
Next given a rubber ring and told to jump in – you could not see what was going to happen as a few meters past entry the river went round a bend.  Proceeding to float down rapids and river the guides discovered that in the recent rains the ladders and safety chains for certain difficult sections has been washed away.  A number of times we had to stand on rocks while the guides explored to find a way round.  There were also a few places were we had to go through small rock tunnels with only inches of air – Steve not happy as he is not a water baby, I in my contrariness found it exhilarating.  After the hard stuff we ended up floating gently through an amazing gorge with waterfalls and fascinating rock formations.  Stunning. 
We arrived at a tiny beach and the guide disappeared – he then called us to climb up a waterfall and kept laughing (nicely) when we lost our way – all part of an amazing adventure, the last bits of which were climbing up log ladders – that also sprouted and were growing.  Incredible how a cut log at both ends can just re-sprout in this environment.

Other things we did to amuse ourselves before this trip where a variety of Blue Holes – absolutely fantastic, the water is so clear and the snorkelling incredible.

A highlight for Steve was Millio Dollar Point, where the US Forces bulldozed all their unwanted equipment into the ocean – rather than let the locals get use from it.  All sorts of machinery, thousands of coke bottles and other items etc. 

Also close by was a Catalina flying boat wreck that was found in 1994 that had crashed during WWII.

Back to Efate and a couple of nights at Nirvana resort for relaxing

Another adventure, no accommodation booked, no idea what was ahead other than an island with a Volcano, miniscule population and only 2 roads.  We arrived at the airport in Port Villa and while waiting we got talking to an Australian photographer who was a regular visitor to the island. After chatting awhile he asked if we would like to go on his trip as he needed subjects in some shots.  He explained that he was doing the opposite of most tours to the Volcano which go in the afternoon for sunset.  His guide was going to be taking us up at 2am for a drive up in the dark, then watch sunrise over the volcano.  Sounded amazing so of course we were in.  We just had to let him know where we would be when we found accommodation.

On landing we spoke to a guest house owner we found and went off to Hidden Treasure Bungalows – basic but amazing plants and views.  Wandering the beach was like a treasure trove with fossils everywhere.  Our photography is just happy snaps though –wish we were better at it (maybe one day).

Bleary eyed and tired we set of at 2am very excited to be going to see an active volcano.  We were picked up in a battered old 4 seater UTE for the long journey in the pitch black.  Part of the way there we started to be able to see red glows in the distance as the volcano put on a pyrotechnic display.  It was incredible to watch and it get better the closer we got.  Had no idea what any of the countryside we were driving through looked like – this made it all more surreal.  A river crossing was also on the agenda and some very steep windy roads.  Arrived at carpark.  We walked up a short hill to a “Safety rail” a short log on top of two sticks. We alternated between watching the show and taking photos,  the rocks being spewn out looked tiny but were not.  Some were the size of cars.

The guide explained to us that the volcano had only just been reduced to a category 2 erruption the day before.  Category 3 you are not allowed to visit. We went for a walk around, looking for other angles and the photographer found a rock he liked the shape of.  The guide explained it had landed fairly recently as it had no ash on it.  The rock was about 1.5mtres long and 1 round. We did not realise the rock was still glowing till we looked at the photos with and without flash – amazing, lucky none of us touched it.

As the sun came up the Hot lava was less visible and the smoke moreso, leading to a different percpective.  Once it was light we all went past the safety barrier (minus guide as he thought it too dangerous) and went right to the rim to look in. Incredible and very noisy.

The guide  suddenly asked us to move to a different side of the volcano – he had been watching and noticed the wind shift – when we moved and looked back the rocks were now landing where we had been standing.

After a good couple of hours we moved on to the lava fields which we had not seen on the way up as it had been pitch black.  HUGE ash dunes, with the ash so fine I could not walk up them as kept sinking in to knee deep. 

On the way back our photographer friend suggested we moved to his hotel as it was much better – we explained we were on a budget but he managed to do a deal with them so we stayed for the same price as our other place.  Tanna Lodge was definitely a big step up in quality.

An incredible experience.

On the flight back we had an un scheduled stop at Errumungo Island – a grass air strip on a tiny island with one village.  The whole village came out to meet the plane, it was like being in an old movie.  Delightful and friendly people – as have been all Vanuatu people we have met so far.