December 1-8 Vanuatu

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.