During our stay on Tanna Island we were fortunate to be able to visit a number of villages and tribes and found that everywhere we went, we were welcomed very warmly. The Entani tribe, who protect Mt Yasur, gave us entree to their sacred mountain and accompanied us to ensure our safety. Then if that wasn't enough of a feast for our eyes and spirits, they treated us to a delicious feast afterwards. From our accommodation at Friendly Beach we were able to just walk up the road to visit the local village (I think they offer homestays there). Again the very young children were a little wary of us but taking their pictures and then showing them as well as showing photos of our great-grandson put them at ease. Kids relate to kids!
Such gorgeous kids
From the gentle people of the Entani tribe a day or so later, we made a fascinating, albeit a little startling, visit to a tribe not long separated from their cannibalistic past. It was beautifully staged. We walked through the massive tangled 'roots' of an old Banyan tree and were greeted by screaming 'terrifying' tribespeople acting out their cannibalistic warrior past. Of course they took us to their village! Here Lindsay met with the chief’s son and was given wise advice on his responsibilities as a man. He showed us, well actually Lindsay (it’s a patriarchal society) how they ‘predicted’ the weather, enforced laws like arranged marriages, how they healed their sick - the Kastom way. (But you will have to ask Lindsay what he learn because is was strickly men's business!). I think this is purely historic - hope but in places with impoverished soil it's a sensible for of nurishment!
The Banyan trees are sacred on Tanna. Sadly this huge tree was damaged during Cyclone Pam
With such a dramtic introduction of course we had to line up for a photo with their clubs and spears
The past is not so distant! One day we were taken to see a Stone Age man-made cave and an ancient footprint embedded in the lava. Once protected from outsiders’ eyes, the local villages that are the custodians of the treasures of Tanna Island, are sharing some of their ancient heritage - and very proudly.
On our final day on Tanna Island we visited the village of the Yakel tribe. This was the village setting for the movie 'Tanna' made in 2015, a movie about an ancient culture and its customs. We met some of the people who had featured in the movie which was a bit of a thrill. Yakel is one of the villages thst follow traditional kastoms and where modern inventions are restricted - except we saw a couple of small solar panels installed to charge phones no doubt. Most of the villagers wear traditional clothes: grass skirts for the girls and grass-woven penis sheaths for the men and older boys. These warm and gentle people gave us a small window into traditional village life. Each family has its own compound with structures for sleeping, eating and housing animals - small pigs wandered everywhere. The structures are fairly rudimentary but obviously very functional. One we saw was one of the family compound which had featured in the Tanna movie - ‘Wawa’s family. And we met 'Wawa's' mother and grandfather and Selin her sister who had all featured in the movie. It was a delightful visit and again we were welcomed with dance and song and finsihed with a wee market where all the women layed out their trinkets to show us. I bought a beautifully polished shell from one of the beautiful young women.
A typical village home
One of my favouites! The kids were intrigued watching Lindsay change the batteries in his hearing aids. A first for them!
The kids were just gorgeous and loved having their pictures taken and being able to see themselves on the screen
Evereything that grows is eaten.Quite delicious because they know how to prepare it
On our way to the airport on our last day on Tanna, we wandered around a small market in Lénakel where a colourful and intriguing selection of fresh fruit and vegetables was on offer. We got lots of curious stares as tourism was pretty slim at the time and those who come to Tanna go to the main tourist spots.
Then it was back to Port Villa where we were greeted with airconditioniing! A return to a world we were accustomed to but what an amazing visit we had enjoy. From the day we arrived until leaving the island not only had we gazed into the fiery maw of a very volatile volcano, we experienced a series of shocks from an earthquake and small tsunamis, allowed to met local villagers and experience some of theu=ir kastoms. Despite the tumultuous Mt Yasur I found it a place for stillness and solitude, a place to return to fundamentals. There is a simplicity of life and the warmth and humour in the people making this place an idyllic place. I gave me pause for thought at what treasures we are missing out on by not knowing and understanding more about our Australian indigens. One can always hope!
Thanks as always to our marvellous travel manager, Bev Edwards, who makes everything go so smoothly.
We finally made it to the crater of the world's longest, continuously erupting volcano .... hooray! A bit of a challenging climb for me, but I made it. That was after an extremely rough, bone-shaking drive through the jungle in the back of a 4x4 cab ute - and then back again! Let me tell you that by the time we got back to our bungalow, some 6-7 hours later, we ached in places we didn't recognise. We banged along volcanic ash roads damaged by rain which left deep washaways, detoured around even rougher spots which disappeared into deep gullies and along simple wheel ruts. Between partially vegetated black ash dunes, which were strange to our eyes, and across a vast moonscape of ash plains, we clung to the car frame until ........ there it was - Mt Yasur! We were dumbstruck! It is simply awe-inspiring.
Before we plunged to the heights, but hopefully not to the depth, of this mighty natural phenomenon we drove through vast ash plains. What a fascinating otherworldly panorama! The blackish ash is broken by swathes of pinkish-yellow hardened lava and on the fringes the jungle creeps in unrelentingly albeit slowly. The rock is a strange consistency and the colours interesting - it all comes from the belly of our mighty planet earth.
To the Entani tribe, who protect this mountain, it is sacred: the name Yasur means ‘god’. Before we could approach the mountain, a special ceremony was performed by the villagers to seek his blessing and permission. We also had to get the green light from the Bureau of Meteorology who continuously monitor the volcano's ferocity from near the crater. The volcanic activity is reported as Volcanic Alert Levels from 1 to 5 - if it reaches Alert Level 5 the entire island is evacuated. On the day we visited, Mt Yasur was relatively 'benevolent' at Level 2, but four days later it had gone to over Level 3 and Yasur made himself very vocal (and there was an earthquake which hit offshore). Then Mount Yasur was off limits to visitors because the volcanic acrivity was unpredictable and so the area way too dangerous. Our visit was obviously meant to be!
The ash plains are a panoramic moonscape. Fascinating!
The black ash is broken by swathes of pinkish-yellow hardened lava. Slowly slowly the jungle encroaches
We were treated to a couple of ceremonial dances by the Entanai tribe. Once these were performed only by men but today everyone joined in.
Mt Yasur quietly, or not so quietly as it turned out, smoking.
The colours of the hardened lava were beautiful
Yasur's crater hides behind this massive ash-dune. The slippery slopes attract a few daredevils including Jacky Chan.
And finally the crater was almost in sight. One final slope before we could peer into the maw of this fiery giant.
With Lindsay in front egging me on and Daniel, a darling local guide, ensuring I was OK from behind, I made it up the slope
Close to the rim - all smiles.
The safety railing is on the very edge of the crater!! Thin bamboo sticks nailed together and painted white
The ground fell away precipitously from the ‘guard rail’. If you went over that would be the end as it is a slippery slope with a very loose surface straight into the vents - there were two. Needless to say we didn’t lean on the rails! Daniel, my darling guide from the local village, kept his eye on me and brought me little treasuers - sparkling jet, solidified lava thrown up into the sky by Yasur to fall tinkling around us.
The scene before us was spectacular, awesome, overwhelming, mighty, mesmerising - and very hard to tear yourself away from. Billowing smoke, gas and ash, molten fragments of the earth's innards, some huge, burning shapes the size of small trucks shot high into the sky only to tumble back in to the hellish vents which had spat them skywards. Fiery offerings to the dying sun. The entire time we were there the volcano huffed and puffed, groaned, crackled and roared. Quite terrifying yet absolutely mesmerising. After a few hours riveted to the spot at the crater's edge peering into not one but two vents, our joints had seized up and reluctantly we all trooped back down to the 4x4s - in the dark. We were taken, still a bit dazzle-eyed, back to the Entani village where a huge feast of delicious fruits and other delicacies had been laid out for us. What a day! What a truly unique spectuclar humbling experience. The videos should make it come alive if only for a few moments!
This was a safe, 'quiet' day but the volcanic activity we witnessed might give you some idea about the potential power of Earth's inner core, what lies beneath our feet. Four days later the ground shuddered as a magnitude 7.5 earthquake hit some way offshore to the west of us but it send small tsunamis crashing well beyond the high tide line just in front of our bungalow. That night and the following day there were storms and torrential rain but fortunately we only got one of two drops through the roof. It was a little exciting to say the least! Exciting but a little unnerving. That day the Volcanic Alert Level was over 3. The power of the Earth is something we can't ignore and need to comprehend - no military power on earth has quite that kind of power (perhaps one should not tempt fate!).
One last word on mt Yasur. emember the 2015 movie ‘Tanna’? Well this is where the two lovers died, leaping into this crater. Makes you shudder. The Yakel tribe who played in the movie still live on the eastern side of the island - we visited them later in the week and met some of the stars of the movie.
From the Tanna airport we were whisked away to our tropical get-away accommodation at Friendly Beach with jungle greenery and flowers leaping out at us along part of the route. When I say 'whisked' the last stretch was more of a thumping, teeth-rattling ride along rutted roads of soft black volcanic ash continually being washed away and the road gouged out by torrential rain - we were on a tropical, active-volcanic island! (Most of the roads were pretty rough as we were to discovery but there are a few good roads linking parts of the island; these I believe were funded by China.) Isolation comes at a price - but comfort was to come! Our accommodation was tropics-idyllic tucked into the edge of the jungle overlooking a quiet beach and gently crashing sea.
We were staying in the southeast corner (circled in red) not so far from the infamous volcano, Mt Yasur
The road to our bungalow at Friendly Beach Bungalows. It was pretty and pretty steep!
Our bungalow was tucked into the edge of the jungle.
Our bungalow was basic but very adequate with a very comfortable bed protected by billowing, very effective, mozzie curtains. It was very romantically festooned with flowers fresh everyday. And the almost-openait bathroom was built straight onto coral and both beach and volcanic stones.
Our porch where I idled away many hours
'Our beach'
Sitting on our little porch alternating between gazing out to sea, watching the insects fluttering around the plants and writing, I felt a little like Alfred Russel Wallace and could imagine staying there longer - providing I had someone to bring me cool drinks! It was a veritable paradise. Tiny palm and papaya flowers, vibrant blowsy hibiscus flowers dotted the ground while ‘sea almond’ and ‘beach apple’ trees (my names for them) spread great branches like giant oak trees to shade the fringes of the beach. Bananas and papayas hung invitingly just a little beyond reach. With no one to spoil my reverie, I daydreamed - what luxury! I almost dozed off watching little grey and umber butterflies in constant fluttering motion - it was quite hypnotic. They were busily depositing their eggs on the hapless tree fern. The larvae of course would eventually eat most of the leaves before they have a chance to unfurl but c’est la vie!
Kids fresh from the cool sea dung themselves into the sand to warm up
Not far along the beach from us, young kids dived for shellfish and tiny fish then roasted them on small fires under the trees. I longed to join them, to go swimming in the rolling surf, but I was nervous of unknown currents and reefs. The black sands were warm under foot from geothermal activity deep or not so deep below. At low tide village people clustered around headland rock pools to wash their clothes. These pools were continually refreshed by deep warm freshwater springs - this is not uncommon at least in this location (we were afterall close to Mt Yasur). We were taken to another beach further around the headland where the same thing happens at low tide - warm fresh water bubbles up through the ground to fill the rock pools. The water in those pools is quite hot in fact it is hot enough to cook food (we had a demo!) but the villagers use the pools to wash in.
Villagers washing in the pools of warm fresh water at low tide
At this beach while Lindsay went walking out on the headland with a guide to visit hots springs, I went exploring in the jungle for fruit with a local. We found limes and cherries and delicious passionfruit. Talking fruit we tasted a number of different types of bananas and plantains. The cooks made delicious pancakes and other yummy things with the plantain which were all grown locally. We ate very well!
I collected a handful of tiny limes for the cooks in our kitchen
I also found another strange lime - dozens of seeds but it tasted wonderful
We found wild cherries with little flavour but the passionfruit were simply scrumptious
Everywhere we went we were offered delicious exotic food. At Port Resolution, the place named by Cpt James Cook in 1774, some
days after we arrived, we were treated to a feast of local vegetables and eggs
prepared by one of the local village families. This was served in a shelter by
the beach, a place reserved for special occasions, feasts, holidays, etc. The people are very generous sharing their food and are so friendly but
the littlies were a bit shy until I showed photos of our great-grandson - we
passed muster as being safe to look at!
Who would have imagined that we would visit all the Hebridean archipelagos this year? It wasn't planned that way, but we got to visit the Inner and Outer Hebrides in Scotland in June and finished the year visiting Vanuatu - named by Captain Cook as the New Hebrides in 1774! Why were we going there? To climb a volcano!
The archipelago is a smattering of 80-odd islands (over 60 inhabited) located on the Pacific Ring of Fire where the Pacific tectonic plate subducts below the Indo-Australian plate. Not surprising then that some of the islands have active volcanos. The islands appear like a densely-forested, wonky mountainous skeleton rising out of the ocean running north-southish - their origins are volcanic and some coral (built on volcanoes).
Like their northern hemisphere namesakes, the islands of Vanuatu were inhabited for thousands of years before the first Europeans, Spanish explorers, arrived around 1600. Not long afterwards, and shortly after Captain James Cook visited in 1774, the islands were colonised by both the British and French - anxious to teach the ‘natives’ how to live a better life! Familiar story. However .... in 1980, the New Hebrides gained their independence as the Republic of Vanuatu. Even so remnants of colonialism remain in the language. Both English and French are still fairly widely spoken and one or other is taught at school. While some dialects have been lost, there are still over 100 dialects throughout the islands, but communication between language groups is usually in Bislama (pidgin), a type of creole language.
The economy is poor and education beyond primary school level is a luxury which the majority can’t afford. Many of the men come to Australia to pick fruit and vegetables as a way of earning more money to send back home. The dream of many, both men and women, is to work in tourism either as guides or owner-drivers. It was pleasing to learn that the majority of the businesses are Vanuatuan-owned which augurs well for their future. They are such beautiful people.
We flew to Port Villa the capital of Vanuatu on the island of Efate where we were warmly welcomed with flower leis and taken to our hotel for the night - everything was arranged by our terrific travel agent Bev Edwards (bev.edwards@travelmanagers.com.au). The next morning we flew to Tanna Island, our destination. Such a glorious scene as we boarded the wee plane - we were surrounded by jungle-covered mountain peaks.
Boarding the plane for the half hour flight to Tanna Island from Port Vila on Efate.
Port Resolution named by Capt Cook in 1700s. He wrote about the smoke and ash from Mt Yasur
... and 200-odd years later Mt Yasur is still billowing clouds of ash
We were to spend a week on this wee scrap of paradise and it remains a special time of escape from the world as we know it. There we were looked after and treated with great care and dined as the locals do - only more richly I suspect - on the delicious fruits of the jungle and from the sea. We were there to see the volcano, Mt Yasur, which is the world's longest, continuously erupting volcano but more of that later. What follows is a bit of a kaleidescope of images and places, special and sacred, ancient and not so ancient. More of these things later and in no particular order .....
Not unexpectedly, the vegetation on Tanna Island intrigued me.
