So on my last Tuesday in town we (M the NZ student midwife, V the British tourist, and myself) decided to go exploring together by taking a rental car and drive around the island. The total distance is approx 160km or 100 miles. The rental car was a funny little Daihatsu "I wish I were a 4wd" mini SUV, but it had the high clearance that is necessary to safely make it on some of the unsealed roads. So M and I started by heading over to p/u V at his resort which was outside of town on the number 2 lagoon (or Emtem) on the NE side of town. We then set out heading SE on the main road around the island, this was unfortunately a mistake as we forgot to head to the market to pack our pick-nick, and we were to find that there were very few places to stop and eat along this side of the island.
We decided to take a offshoot unpaved road south to visit the white sands beach area, Tamanu, and hopefully find a nice spot for lunch. The road was quite bumpy and brought me back to being a kid a driving around the high dessert area in California to visit my cousins. My travel-mates complimented my driving and were happy to let me stay behind the wheel as it was a manual transmission and they drive on the right side of the road in Vanuatu (in NZ and Britain they both drive on the left.) We saw what looked like an abandoned resort and stopped for some pictures. We then stopped at a place in White Sands and they had a swimming hole and the main tourist attraction was turtles- they wanted 2000vt (US $20) per person to see them.
We all made faces and the guy lowered it to 1500vt, but we all agreed it was still too much, we decided to head to the bar for a soda (200vt/$2 each) and to enjoy the view. We were all getting quite hungry by this time so decided to head out, we continued on the unpaved road which was now running east along the ocean and stopped at Beachcomber resort for some very expensive mediocre food. There was a 3 piece band that started playing as soon as we walked up (with a donation sign of course.) They played a lot of pop rock in the traditional string band style of the island which is related to Reggae. It was quite amusing. The resort was known for it's natural hot springs on the ocean shore, but funny enough the inside one was empty and but there was a large swimming pool that overlooked the beach.
We then headed back on the unpaved road north back to the main highway around the island. It was stunning, to our right was the ocean and the left was bush (jungle) filled with Banyan trees, and covered in vines. We passed through sporadic traditional villages, where the people would stop smile and wave at us, skinny dogs would try to jump in front of the car, and pig's & chickens would run for cover.
We also saw many Ni-Van construction crews who were working on sealing the road around the island. We didn't stop much along the road back towards Port Vila, just pulled over for the occasional photo-op's. We were also hoping to stop at the cascades in Mele which is on the north side of the island near town and wanted to get there before dusk (5pm) came and with it the increase in mosquitoes.
We enjoyed our AC and kept driving when we got to North Efate the roads became quite hilly and curvy... and the little Daihatsu complained as I had to down shift into 1st gear to get up the hills- I think I can, I think I can- but it made it. Unfortunately we didn't make it to Mele until dusk so we decided to pass on visiting the falls as it is known for it's hungry insects. We did enjoy seeing the locals walking home from work or outings as we swooped back SE on the road back to Port Vila in time to see the sun starting to settle lower in the sky. We decided to head to Erakor lagoon before heading back to our hotel for some supper.
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