Vanuatu (part 5)

I’m back in Australia, in the Brisbane Qantas Club. It was an uneventful flight, though it seems like internet didn’t appear until about 30mins before we landed (I didn’t bother to check at that point) but it would be nice if Qantas got its international wifi up and running soon. Lounges are nice so I’m thankful to God and FPS that give me a big head start towards doing enough travel to hold onto Qantas Gold.

I’m almost home but it’s over an hour til boarding and I should definitely have WiFi on the flight to Perth so let’s see if I can actually finish this trip blog before I get back to Perth – I make no promises though. Friday was the day I had organised the tour, luckily I was up early but as the driver was there 15 minutes early and ready to leave. Somewhat unintentionally (possible I was unclear and it was last minute) I think I had booked a more private tour which as it turned out was shorter, but more personalise service. The day, or the morning at least was mostly sunny which was nice weather for the tour. I ended up sharing with another family staying at the same resort. It turned out that they were from New Caledonia and didn’t speak English so there was limited communication between us. It seemed like I mainly go to call the shots on where we wanted to go though so I named the Blue Lagoon and the Waterfalls as well as an ATM (these places had entry fees).

Blue Lagoon was fun, I swam, used one of the rope swings and jumped off one of the higher places you could jump in. The colour is amazing and it is really pretty. We were probably there for about an hour and I enjoyed it.

After that it was off to the falls, but by comparison I would say they were a bit of a let down. They weren’t bad but especially compared to waterfalls I’ve seen from sailing families on YouTube I was expecting something a bit bigger and better. I didn’t swim here but we did have some quick easy lunch after I walked to the falls and back. Just bread and tinned beef but it was actually decent.

After that it was back to the resort (via the butcher for the other family). There was mention of visiting a village to but that didn’t happen and I didn’t request it after it was first mentioned. The tour was good, I was glad to see those sites and some more of Efate but I think had I been able to do the non-private full Island tour I might have seen more locations. The cost was very good though, as I split it with the other family it was only VT7500 (about $90) for an almost 5 hour trip.

After I got back it was rest time. I continued my cocktail tour with a Midori Splice which was fine, but not as good as the Pina Colada or Tequila Sunrise but better than the Blue Lagoon. I’ve been naming all these cocktails so at the end of the post I’ll put a copy of the cocktail list so you can see what’s in them all! I went with the fish curry for dinner. The fist and rice were nice, but the actual curry part was a bit too spicy for me.

After that I got organised and headed down to the beach bar (this is a restaurant & bar a few hundred metres down the beach from my accommodation). On Friday nights there is a free fire show that came highly recommended. It was excellent – I thoroughly enjoyed it, super impressive. The photos and videos don’t really do it justice but they give you an idea.

After the fire show I thought I would get a cocktail at the beach bar as I hadn’t got to try the Toblerone yet. I decided to get the Nambawan (Kahlua, Baileys, Malibu and fresh coconut cream) it sounded delicious but was thoroughly disappointing. I didn’t enjoy it at all. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I feel like it just didn’t seem to have a lot of flavour. After that it was back to bed.

it’s a fairly long post, but there’s a lot of media in there. I had to go and get a sparkling wine while I was waiting for it all to upload :p. I’ve still got over 30mins to board, so I mighty try and smash out the final day now or maybe on the flight home, we’ll see.