In June 2002 we spent 11 days in Vanuatu using Hideaway Island as a home base. Our boundless gratitute goes to our friends and Hideaway Island resort managers Rod and Sarah Habla who hosted us, looked after us, drove us around town, introduced us to the locals and gave us advice on the best things to do in Vanuatu.

Hideaway Island

Coongoola Boat Trip

The Coongoola is a yacht built in Brisbane in the 1950s which spent a while as an inter-island transport for the Solomon Islands government and now it's used for day trips around the islands to the east of Efaté. A company bus picks up passengers from around the Port Vila area and drives them for about 40 minutes to the east side of the island to meet the Coongoola. The boat makes a first stop at Tranquility Resort where passengers visit a turtle hatchery, then it proceeds to the other side of the island where a small clean beach has been prepared for a BBQ lunch. It's a pleasant day trip, but it can be boring at times during the long cruise. If you don't drink beer or don't eat BBQ meat then you'd better make sure you take your own cold wine and food supplements (which we'll do next time!). I was quite pissed off to have nothing but bread and water to eat for the whole day.

Tanna and Whitegrass

We originally weren't going to visit the volcano on the south island of Tanna because I was worried about the expected disruption of an overnight trip away from Hideaway, the additional $500 cost per person, and the prospect of staying in a very primitive resort. Forget what you just read! Anyone visiting Vanuatu must reserve money and time to visit the Tanna volcano and the relaxing Whitegrass resort. Take a 35 minute plane trip from Port Vila to Tanna where you will be met by one of the staff from Whitegrass resort which is only 10 minutes drive away where they can see the planes flying right past their front door. Managers John and Sylvana will meet you with a fresh coconut drink, show you around the beautifully landscaped pathways and bungalows and titillate you with their pictures of the volcano. Sadly, we only stayed one night, John recommends 2 or 3 nights, and I agree. You could spend one evening at the volcano and the other watching the sunset over the Pacific Ocean from the cliff-side dining areas in front of the reception hut before dinner. The generator is turned off each evening when the social activity dies down and you retire to your bungalow in complete peace and quiet. Tanna is noticeably more primitive than the main island of Efaté with the capital Port Vila. The inhabitants live a nearly traditional lifestyle with little to no electricity, poor roads and no cities or significant towns.

Tanna Volcano

The last image above (right) shows the view as you descend along a steep and winding road towards the volcano. Immediately you are struck by the strange brown discoloration like a huge burn staining the tropical green. As you get closer the soil turns to an ever darker ash brown colour. Suddenly you clear all vegetation and are driving across a flat brown "moonscape" studded only by rocks and boulders that have been strewn around randomly as if by the hands of a giant. After crossing the "moonscape" and navigating 15 minutes of tortuous winding track traversible only by large 4-wheel drive you are deposited near the top of the volcano's cone.

There are little to no safety measures present at the Tanna volcano. As we walk right up the edge of the crater's rim we peer directly down into a steaming bowl littered with glowing rocks. At random intervals there is a scrotum-tightening BOOM!! and a shockwave of hot air ripples through your clothes, quickly followed by an explosive fountain of molten rock fragments that often reaches hundreds of meters into the air. Thankfully, our guides have positioned us on the side of the crater rim that is away from the direction of the spewing rocks (but there is this seed of doubt and worry in your mind!). Less frequently, a vent to our left hisses and releases a towering column of ash that stretches up into the clouds. At one point the tower is so tall and neatly formed that I imagine I'm looking up at the mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion (and perhaps the analogy isn't that farfetched). Even more amazing and surprising, lightning bolts crack inside the tower of ash (how does this happen?). Twice, larger explosions send molten rocks the size of refrigerators flying up and over the crater rim, almost over our heads, and one makes a fireworks whizzing sound as it plummets downwards not far from us. We are told not to turn our backs to the volcano if there is a large explosion, so we can watch for and hopefully dodge falling rocks while running away. Hmmm! Why don't they just hand out umbrellas?

Looking down into the crater

An explosion, too fast for the slow film to capture.

Port Vila Socialising

There wasn't time to sample many of the restaurants and bars in Port Vila, especially when we could get such good food back on Hideaway Island, but we found two great spots to relax: Café du Village is an open-air restaurant with a Mediterranean style and French cuisine with dining tables on the patio right up the waterfront overlooking Iririki Island. In the afternoons you'll probably find Mike, Christian and Rod there playing Backgammon. Tilly's (Chantilly's On The Bay) is an elegant and attractive restaurant owned and run by friendly and helpful ex-Brits Brian and Tracy who can often be found--glass in hand--mingling with the locals in the bar area in from the the huge aquarium. I call this place the Cheers of Port Vila. We had a lovely dinner there one evening, absorbing a few bottles of Sancere wine and good food while watching free entertainment under the harbourside balcony which consisted of a small squid trying to sneak up on a teeming school of tiny fish.

Bonus Photos