OK So the boats have buggered off for a few days so we safe from the hoards.
As the Island of Efate, of which Port Vila is on, is such a reasonably small island about 25~30km in diameter, the road around the coast is only about 120km, so the big thing to do here is an around the island road trip.
We organise a price and Karl picks us up and we start our trip. Though Vila and it’s a busy day in town. We change some more money at “Goodies” and start heading north. Past Hideaway Island, and the Mele Cascade waterfalls. Mele Cascade was meant to be the place to go, but I’ve been told it was bought up by some overseas interests (Chinese?) and its pretty Exxy to enter and not that great any more. Up the really steep hill out of town, the bus is struggling. Then we enjoy the scenery along Port Havannah and the north coast. There is a snorkelling trip along here we might take in a few days so we keep moving today.
We stop in at Le Life Resort. Really the only resort up on this north east side, fairly basic, but they have a restaurant so this will be our lunch stop.
The trip around is nice, and a lot of the way you have great views of the coast line, it goes through a few villages and the odd forest, it not massively populated. So is really just a nice pleasant drive rather than anything amazing.
One thing in Vanuatu, is there is no “public” land as such, there are no “public” beaches they are all owned by someone, in most cases it is the local village. So as a way of getting an income, most provide some facilities and charge an entrance fee, most are not very expensive.
The road is in pretty good condition, which apparently is not always the case and there is only a couple of sections where trees have come down that we need to make a small detour.
We pass Eton beach which was a possible stop, but we venture a bit further to Blue Lagoon to do some swimming and snorkelling. It’s this huge deep blue pool, its salt water and tidal, I think it might be low tide when we arrive. The lagoon is deep and blue, but not super clear. At the head of the lagoon, we follow the water way out of the pool, towards the ocean, but like a lot of coast up here it is all sharp volcanic rock and the current streaming out is pretty strong. So after a bit we turn back. I’m not sure if we’ve just come at the wrong time, but it’s not quite as nice as I imagined it would be.
We finish the lap, get some more supplies from the super market and finally make it back home. Again, really enjoyed it, it’s a must do, but that line item is ticked now.
Later that night, there all this noise under the deck, dozens of hermit crabs?, fair sized ones Are rustling about. Not sure what they’ after, but the kids have fun looking at them.