We had a great few days in Stanthorpe catching up with Wayne and Julie, they are doing an excellent job in setting up their property.  This also allowed us some time to do a few small jobs around the van that we had put off. 

We drove down to Brisbane the day before we were due to fly out to Vanuatu and stayed at the hotel near the airport for the night.  The next day we had a 10am departure and were a bit surprised when we found out it was on an Air Nauru plane.  We hadn’t  flown Air Nauru since leaving Nauru over 30 years ago.  The flight to Vanuatu was excellent with heaps of leg room in economy.  Can’t fault the flight at all, good service, good food and roomy.

After we arrived at Port Vila we had around a two hour wait as Renae was flying in from Sydney.  We had arranged to meet her at the airport before we all boarded our next flight to the island of Espiritu Santo.  The three of us were spending 4 nights on this island before coming back and catching up with Anika and Ben on another island.

Espiritu Santo or just Santo when you talk to the locals was a great place that was at a lot slower pace to Port Vila.  The development hasn’t been as quick as on the main island and I suppose this would be the case with all islands in this area.   On Santo we stayed in the main settlement of Luganville.  The hotel was on the main street and the noise was very minimal.  Renae was keen to dive the WW2 wreck SS Coolidge.  This was a passenger liner converted to a troop carrier that was sunk after hitting a sea mine and the captain ran it aground before it sank saving all but one life.  Renae did three dives on the wreck, two during the day and a night dive that allowed you to see all the glow fish around you.  While Renae did the day dives on the SS Coolidge, Kaye and myself went over to a small island called Dany Island for the day.  This was a short drive out of town then a small dinghy ride out to a private island that we had all to ourselves for the day.  It was also the day of Kaye’s birthday so it was an excellent way to spend the day.

We also hired a car for the day while at Santo and did a drive along the coast up to the small village of Port Olry.   Santo is well known for its blue holes.  These are fresh water holes that have continuous fresh water flowing into them that has been filtered through the limestone.  They are such a vivid blue and so clear they are stunning.  Champagne Beach was also pretty special.  This beach had beautiful white sand and with the calm ocean it was very idyllic.  We also had this whole beach to ourselves, just amazing.  If we ever come back to Vanuatu we must remember to pick the same time of the year, hardly any tourists, just great.

Another place of interest on Santo was Million Dollar Point.  The story behind this was that at the end of WW2 the Americans had a lot of surplus equipment on the island and instead of trying to take it back to the US they offered it to the French for a pretty cheap price. The French thought they would be smart and declined the offer hoping the Americans would just leave it all behind. Instead they drove all the equipment off the end of the wharf they had built and then blew up the wharf.  Now when you visit the area there are all these rusted out body parts and engine blocks littering the beach

We had great four days on Santo but it was time to leave and fly back to Port Vila.  We had one night booked at a hotel in Vila then we were off to Hideaway Island where we were catching up with Anika an Ben.  The hotel we stayed at in Vila was quite old but OK for one night.  They had kava tasting on the night we stayed so Renae sampled that for the first time.  She wasn’t convinced it was nice tasting and I don’t blame her.  We also paid a visit to the local market in town and had a nice sit down meal with the locals.  Good fun all round.

Our drive to get to Hideaway Island was about 15 minutes out of Port Vila and about a 300 metre boat ride off the coast to a very small island that has a few bungalows on it.  Once there it was well set out and all the activities were free.  This included use of mask and snorkels, glass bottom boat cruises, stand up paddle boards and introductory scuba lessons.  They also get a lot of day visitors to the island as well.  We arrived on the island around midday and Anika and Ben arrived around 3.30pm.  It was good to catch up and have both girls together with us to help celebrate Kaye’s birthday.

Besides snorkelling and a couple of small boat rides there wasn’t a real lot to do on the island, four days was going to be long enough for us.  Just off the island there was a good little bar that had different entertainment each night and we were lucky enough to be able to watch an excellent fire show.  We were expecting to see a couple of people doing minor acts but instead were treated to 90 minutes of non stop fire entertainment and it was just a donation at the end of the performance, just amazing.

We also hired a car for one day and did a day trip to the east of Port Vila.  We also visited a blue hole here as well aptly called Blue Lagoon.  Even  though it wasn’t as spectacular as the ones we saw on Santo, it was still nice though and this one actually fed into the ocean if you swam and followed it around. It also had a couple of ropes you could swing off and this kept the younger ones occupied for a while.   One nice place was Eden on The River which had some nice waterfalls and a great swimming area underneath them.  We had lunch at Eratap Beach Resort which also had a very nice little beach area and again not many tourists around.  This does seem a good time of the year to visit these islands.

Well after a great 10 days in Vanuatu and with five of those with both girls it was time to pack up and fly back home.  We really enjoyed the pace of life in Vanuatu and it was great to be able to walk around and not be hassled like you are in Asian countries.  One thing we did notice here was how unpolluted the water seemed to be.  With all the snorkelling we did we didn’t see any rubbish floating in the water.  Very different to some Asian countries. 

We would really like to come back again one time later and do a bit more island hopping.  They seem to have a pretty good air service between a lot of islands in the group, over 83 islands in Vanuatu as well as local boat services.  They even have an active volcano on Tanna Island that you can visit.  I think you could fill in about 4 weeks here quite easily.

After we arrive back in Brisbane Renae is staying with us for around 12 days so we will be doing a bit of touring around Queensland with her as our guest.  Just hope we aren’t to boring for her, or to slow.