Vanuatu

When we went to Fiji around this time last year we were exhausted from all the work we had done on the cottage and garden and just wanted to blob out in a resort. This year we were looking for a little more adventure and picked Vanuatu.  Still, we did want a bit of resort time (i.e. no chores) and chose a family oriented site with a big pool, lagoon beach and kids club.  Not that the boys were too keen on the idea of kids club after last year, where they preferred to maximise their "daddy time".

Vanuatu is a diverse place comprising over 80 islands, where the 250,000 odd population speaks 113 different languages! The place has variously been occupied by French and English colonials and about 500,000 US troops during World War 2. For this trip we stayed on the main island of Efate near the capital Port Vila, a convenient 3 hour flight from Sydney.

The boys were very excited and had been counting down for the previous two months or so.  We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and were driven through the fairly damp and somewhat shambolic looking town to the resort. A Melanesian band was playing by the pool, complete with tea chest bass and glass bottles. All was well.

We divided our time between resort days and outings, which kept the pace fairly relaxed.  In addition to the pool, which had various water features for the kids, there were kayaks and catamarans to paddle and sail about the Erakor Lagoon, a bush fringed 4km stretch of turquoise water, featuring some pretty strong tidal currents towards the narrow neck (we started wondering why the cat was sailing backwards), small islands, the odd flying fish and unfortunately an ever growing population of the noxious crown of thorns starfish. Plus a few organised activities like coconut husking demonstrations, weaving the versatile coconut palm leaf into all sorts of toys including balls, fish on a line and caterpillars and a fire dancing show from a local group with a hip hop twist and some great pyro effects.

The view from our room.

Out on the lagoon

Fun with coconuts

Pool time

Fire dancers

Tribal face painting

Sailing away

James did some very cool dancing when the band was playing.

Owing to the start of the rainy season, middle of the school term and start of the pre-Xmas silly season the resort was half empty, which suited us just fine. Particularly because it meant the kids club staff pretty much outnumbered the kids and were able to provide very friendly and personalised attention. And they had a smart TV with lots of kids' movies on it. So suddenly the boys decided they did like kids club after all, which meant we could do a few extra-kidricular activities ourselves. 

On our first day out we wandered into town, dodging muddy puddles to find the recommended money change place after which we were ready for our first adventure - a local bus trip and short boat ride to Hideaway Island, where Charlie had his first experience snorkeling on a coral reef (he did great, saw nemos!) while James enjoyed splashing in the shallows. We also posted waterproof postcards in the world's first underwater post box...

Charlie takes to snorkelling like a fish to water...

And sees his first clown fish

We posted cards at the first underwater post office

And they were collected by a mermaid

Fun at Hideaway Island

Ok that was pretty much going from one resort to another so on the way back we stopped at the main produce markets to see some of the real Vanuatu. Amazing flowers was one of the things we found.

Live crabs

Flick bought a hand bag

We decided to rent a car and drive round the island. At first the idea of a moke had some appeal, but lacking seat belts we opted for the sensible family car option. As it turned out the rain wouldn't have been great in a soft top with no sides... Negotiating an unfamiliar manual while driving on the right hand side of the road on the potholed streets of Port Vila was somewhat challenging, but once we cleared the city limits the road suddenly became a lot better. This, we discovered, was due to $120m of Japanese aid money, which had delivered a brand new fully sealed ring road, cutting hours off the 130km route.

Our first stop was the village of Eton, where Flick had arranged to meet a local (through a connection with her former work) to donate a couple of bags of clothes and toys the boys had grown out of. Much of Vanuatu's population is based around subsistence farming and GDP per capita is around a tenth of Australia's so we were pleased to be able to help out in this small way. We enjoyed a morning tea of local bananas in our host Beatrice's home.

Then it was off to the nearby Blue Lagoon to swim in the azure water and try out the Tarzan swing.

Dave tries the Tarzan swing

 Further up the road we enjoyed a thermal hot pool (Vanuatu has a number of geothermal areas and one of the world's most accessible continuously active volcanoes though it is on another island some way from Efate. It was a bit like a Roman bath, with several pools of varying temperatures including one overlooking the sea.

For a coin or two we were serenaded during our thermal swim.

At another stop James decided he liked the look of a local family's boat and cheekily climbed aboard. Good thing the ni-Vanuatu are amongst the world's happiest people and very friendly. Coming back towards Port Vila we had a great view of Mele Bay.

Day two with the car allowed us to check out the Mele Cascades, a 50m jungle fringed water fall with a series of delightful cascades and pools.  The boys had a fine time negotiating the crossings on this Goonies-style adventure.

A moment of affection between siblings on the path to the cascades

At the top of the trail and the bottom of the main 50m falls

It was quite hard work getting down!

In the afternoon we dropped them at kids' club and snuck out for an AO lunch at Tamanu's, a delightful beach side eatery about 20 minutes out of town that had been recommended to us.

A highlight for Dave was a diving excursion with two dives: one on a pristine coral garden sloping down to about 32m with huge staghorn and other formations, with spottings including fluoro yellow nude branches, a huge ray (at least 2m across) snoozing on the sandy bottom, a large banded sea snake, shy moray eel, angel fish and a family of clownfish in a clump of anemones. The second dive was on the wreck of the Konanda, a 45m freighter that was damaged in a Cyclone in 1987 and subsequently scuttled as a dive site in about 26m.

Dive Master Mattie outlines the drill for diving the wreck of the Konanda

OK, not a photo of me, because all I had was a basic waterproof camera.
GoPro Hero 3 in a water proof housing seemed to be the go amongst my fellow divers.

Nice selfie. Note the mask rash

All in all a great break. We hope to return.