Vanuatu

We had a fantastic time in Vanutatu over the past week. We did everything we wanted to do and a bit more while we were there - day spa massages, game fishing, 4wd buggying, snorkelling, sailing, kayaking, parasailing, horse riding, village visits... plus of course a bit of relaxing!

We stayed at Iririki Island Resort, which is a small island just off Port Vila (the capital). The staff were really friendly and helpful and the food and drink at each of the 3 restaurants was excellent. The buffet breakfast every morning was great - we both got slightly addicted to the local passionfruit and even went to the local markets three times to buy more! They are bright yellow or dark red and about twice the size of the purple ones we get here, with way more flavour.

(Iririki Waterfront "Fares" (pronounced "faa-ray" - meaning bungalow) at sunset from the wharf)

The location of the resort was great - a quick 5 minute ferry ride back to the mainland and we were at the pick up point for any of about 300 different day trips you could do. The only thing we were a little disappointed about was the lack of white sandy beaches - the only sandy beach on the island was about 100m long, and man-made. We've since been told that white sandy beaches on Vanuatu are few and far between - and not that great (if there is no coral, there are no fish, and, unlike where we were, not great snorkelling).

Which brings us to the snorkelling. We saw sooooo many fish, of all sizes and colours, including plenty of clown fish ("Nemo" fish!) - some of which were so tame they came right up to your hand to see if there was any food for them. We took a day trip to Hideaway Island, which boasts the best snorkelling on Efate (the main Island of Vanuatu) and we weren't disappointed - although we snorkelled at Iririki two days later and found it almost as good!

(Hideaway Island)

The highlight of our trip were the 4wd buggies. These are like 4wd go-carts, complete with rollcages, and had a top speed of around 90-100km/hour. There were particular places where our guide told us we had to go flat out or we'd get stuck - such as in the long tall grass he took us through. A little scary when you're losing sight of the guide and the buggies in front and behind you - at 90km/hr! It cuts the grass pretty effectively though! We definitely ended up worse off than the couples in either of the other two buggies. Greg must have found every mud puddle on the track, and went through them at high speed. The guide got off his bike, looked at us and cried with laughter... saying only one word: "CAMERA".

In the morning, on the same day we went on the buggies, we went horse riding. Andrea had never been on a horse before (with the exception of primary school gala day pony rides) so we decided it was as good a chance as any. The horses pretty much played "follow-the-leader" but she did manage to get hers up to a fast trot (not quite a canter!) a couple of times. The horse was called "Enana" and was a bit stroppy - Greg commented that they matched the horse to the rider quite well....

The resort had "Happy Hour" with half price cocktails, between 5 and 6 pm each night. It was really popular with all the guests - the staff handed out free bowls of banana chips (salty and deep fried, not like the ones here!) and there was often entertainment. The local tour operators made the most of the captive audience and came over to hand out "raffle prizes" which were usually 2-for-1 vouchers. We won a 2-for-1 voucher to go parasailing and decided to give it a go. It cost less for both of us to go up than it would have cost for both of us to go here in Queenstown - and a new perspective on the surrounding area was great!

(Andrea up above Port Vila)

(Greg took the camera up with him - this photo shows Iririki Island just to the right of the parasailing rope, and Port Vila in the background, to the left)

On the last day, Greg finally managed to book in a spot of game fishing. Unfortunately, the other guy on the charter only wanted to go for 6 hours, not 8, but they still managed some great strikes from a marlin or two (but failed to have a hook up) and he landed this beautiful Mahimahi, by casting a popper towards a navigation buoy.

All said and done, we had a great time away and are already talking about our next holiday! The last photo below, shows one of the three resort pools right on sunset. Which happened to coincide with happy hour - you can see why happy hour by the pool was so popular!