We finally made it up to the crater of the worlds longest, continuously erupting volcano .... hooray! A bit of a hard 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 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 leaving wash-aways, detouring around even rougher spots disappearing into deep gullies and along simple wheel ruts. Between partially vegetated black ash dunes 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.
To the Entani tribe, who protect this mountain, it is sacred: the name Yasur means ‘god’. But before we could approach the mountain, a special ceremony was performed by the villagers to seek blessing and permission. We also had to get the green light from the Bureau of Meteorology who continuously monitor the volcano's ferocity from up 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 'quiet' at Level 2, but four days later (after the earthquake strangely enough - a connection there you reckon!!) it had gone to over Level 3 and the area was off limits to visitors, way too dangerous. Our visit was obviously meant to be!
What an amazing adventure our short stay was! From the day we arrived until leaving the island five days later, not only had we gazed into the fiery maw of a very volatile volcano, we experienced a series of shocks from a magnitude 7.5 earthquake off the coast, and small tsunamis smashing well beyond the high tide line just in front of our bungalow. That night and the following there were storms and torrential rain we only got one of two drops through the roof. It was a little exciting to say the least!
But back at the volcano, it 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 shooting high into the sky only to tumble back in to the hellish vents from where they had been spat out - fiery offerings to the dying sun. 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 (me stumbling!) back down to the 4x4s - in the dark.
Remember the movie ‘Tanna’ well this is where the two lovers died. 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. More anon. .....
We were treated to a couple ceremonial dances by the Entanai tribe. Once these were performed only by men but today everyone joins in. Light level low hence poor resolution.
Mt Yasur quietly smoking.
The ash plains are a panoramic moonscape. Fascinating!
The mostly blackish ash is broken by swathes of pinkish and yellow harden lava and on the fringes the jungle ever so slowly creeps in.
The rock is a strange consistency and the colours interesting- all comes from the belly of the earth.
Behind this massive ash dune is the crater. The slopes attract a few dare devils including Jacky Chan.
Are finally the crater was in sight. One final, we’ll almost, climb to peer into the maws of this fiery giant.
I struggled a bit getting up the slope but Lindsay was there encouraging and behind was Daniel one of the village guides just making sure I was OK. What a wimp - but I did it!
Close to the rim - all smiles.
This is to show you the safety railing around the crater!! Thin bamboo sticks nailed together and painted white. Hmmmm .....
And this shows how steeply the ground fell away from the ‘guard rail’. If you went over that would be the end as it’s a slippery slope straight into the vents. Needless to say we didn’t lean on the rails!
A bit of a panorama shot
The entire time we were there the volcano huffed and puffed, groaned, cracked and roared. Quite terrifying yet mesmerising.
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