I’m on a plane again and buoyed by my success of actually successfully blogging my entire Vanuatu trip I thought I might try to repeat that impressive feat! We’re about 40 minutes out of Adelaide. Kaleb and I are taking a few days off to visit Adelaide and do a few wine tours. This trip is ostensibly a short break after Easter and filling in for a vacant role at work, but it’s also a status run in some ways as it will hopefully give me the status credits I need to maintain Gold again this year. It has had the added benefit of giving me a short break from the past 23 days which have involved several hours in hospital each day (that might be inspiration for a different blog post)
At any rate this is just the kick off post, but we’ve got 3 days, 2 of which will be wine tours so I’ll try for a few posts to tell you what I think of Adelaide. Let’s see how well I do this time.
So I’m taking a break from exploring possible flights to the US for my annual FPS trip to finish off this blog. We’re on the flight home from Brisbane and the WiFi is working at the moment. We should be good until we cross the bight – we usually lose some of the satellite at that point. I’m in 4A and there’s nobody in 4B which is always nice. I do prefer aisle but 4A was what was available so I took what I could get. I have been lucky this trip with generally good leg room and space even flying economy for 3 of the legs.
The final instalment in my Vanuatu holiday. I woke up about 8 as check out time is 10 so I knew I might have to be out of the room by then. As always (as I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts) it always seems to take ages for me to pack when I’m leaving somewhere, but with a few breaks etc I was done by about 9.45. I went to the bar to pay my bill (all my cocktails, meals etc had just been charged to my room). I then asked about leaving my room but they said I could stay until I left for the airport at 11.30 which I was very grateful for. I went back to the room and had a short rest/nap til about 10.30. After much debating I decided I did want a final swim in the ocean so I went for a ten minute swim / ten minute sunbathe to finish my trip. I went back to my room, showered go organised and the same guy who took me on the tour drove me to the airport. From there you know what happened from the intro to one of my earlier posts today so with those intros you’re up to date.
It was a fun trip and it was relaxing so I did enjoy it. There was of course the tension I mentioned earlier of exploring vs relaxing, Overall it was also pretty reasonably priced, the points reward flights made a big difference. There was definitely more I could have done of Efate – I didn’t make it to hideaway island or do any snorkelling and I think I would have liked to do the hot springs and maybe visit a village. It sounds like the other islands of Espiritu Santo and Tanna are definitely worth doing but you have to go via Efate. So if I was to go again, which I hope to maybe I could have a few days in Port Vila to do that unfinished business and then some time on Tanna and Santo for new experiences. They’re my thoughts for now and dinner is being served so time to put this away for now.
P.S. That’s amazing. I actually blogged a whole trip and finished before I landed back in Perth. Maybe there’s hope for future trips.
My last full day. I had organised for zip lining in the morning. It included pickup which was convenient and it was out near Mele so it was only about a 15 minute ride. I got my own car for the pickup and had a very bumpy journey up the mountain. As an aside a lot of the roads in Vanuatu are terrible, there are so many potholes. They drive on the right but people mostly ending up swerving all over the road to try and avoid potholes.
This company offered 3 attractions, a skybridge, zip lining and a swing (effectively bungee jumping but not upside down). I wasn’t sure but in the end I decided on zip lining (with bridge included) but not to do the swing, it seemed a little bit too wild for me. The zip lining was great, lots of fun and probably slightly longer than New Zealand. There were also excellent views from up the top. I didn’t love the bridge, it was a bit too wild unsteady for me. Kind of fun, but hard to take good photos. I watched one person do the ‘swing’ and it looked pretty scary.
I didn’t realise we had to wait for everyone who wanted to do the swing to do that before we left, so I headed back and checked out the mountain top gardens but still had a bit of a wait before we returned. However, it did start to rain so I wasn’t too sad to be back at reception and undercover. The views really were amazing.
That little booth in the centre is where you jumped off for the ‘swing’
Everybody went back together, so that time I had a really bumpy ride as I was in the kind of open back area of one of the four wheel drives. Once I got back it was nap time. I actually slept for a while and missed lunch. It fined up a little bit and the sun came out so I decided I would go for another swim in the bay and the water was lovely once again. After that I had some bread and Vegemite to put something in my stomach because it was the last night and I felt like I had to try the Pacific Island Ice Tea as my last cocktail. It was nice, but I don’t think it topped the Pina Colada or Tequila Sunrise. I don’t think it’s as good as the original Long Island Ice Tea or the Singapore Sling. Thus concludes my cocktail tour.
For dinner I decided to have the steak and pepper pie again because it was so good last time. I took it back to my room and enjoyed it with some red wine and tv shows. I had a vague idea of getting a head start on packing but that didn’t happen. I went to sleep! And now I’ve almost caught up, less than 24 hours behind and not much more to say. Sometime, hopefully today I’ll detail the last little bit and maybe some overall thoughts. But for now, I need a break from typing.
