Taking It Easy Isn't Hard in Vanuatu
Hot sun, warm seas and tropical breezes. Taking it easy isn’t hard in Vanuatu.
Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen… Thirty. I drop my towel on the sand and take three more steps. At my feet, low waves slump to shore as if they’re too relaxed to crash. I wade out and dive in, the water warmer than the early morning breeze. A two-anda- half hour flight from Brisbane and 33 steps from bed, I wash away sleep and float with the current off the shore at Aore Island Resort.
At breakfast in the open-air nakamal, where meals, cocktails and chilling out happen, the Queensland dad in front of me orders two of almost everything for his tween boys – jam and toast, papaya with muesli, juice, croissants, fruit platters and eggs. Ceiling fans fight the molasses-thick heat and I feel the tickle of sweat at my back and temples. “Everything goes pretty slow here,” says Lisa Gray. The Australian bought the 52-guest property with her husband, Brad, in 2016 and the couple is still adjusting to the rhythm of their adopted home. “Vanuatu is like a different world but everything works out. Don’t try to control it and it’ll all be fine.”
I relinquish control and flop down in a cane chair to gaze at the calm sea. Later, I gingerly back into a hammock strung between beachside coconut palms. On another morning, I hear rain but in the time it takes to look up from my book the squall has passed and the sun’s back.
Waiting for Aore’s shuttle that makes the 10-minute passage to Espiritu Santo – the bigger neighbouring island with airport, shops and villages – four times a day, I dangle my legs off the jetty. Below, the coral and fish are aquarium-obvious. “That big one gave me a shock when we were snorkelling under there,” says Derek, who’s here from New Zealand celebrating his 60th birthday with his partner, Cherie. “I looked up and saw teeth.” We watch together quietly until the boat arrives.
As we pull up to shore, Henry from Santo Heritage Tours (Luganville Bay, Espiritu Santo, +678 771 5786), wearing thongs and reflective sunnies, jumps up to meet me. The drive to Ri Ri Blue Hole takes about 20 minutes, along roads lined with homes, churches, chickens, coconut groves and schools, all barely holding back the vegetation that creeps over everything. “Most people in Vanuatu can speak eight languages, including French and English,” he tells me. “I can only speak three.”
Yano and Remy chat in a dialect I don’t understand as they paddle our canoe along the turquoise Mavutor River, so glassy I can see the sandy bottom and so still I can make out trees and sky on the surface. At the lazuline pool I float for 10 minutes in the cool, impossibly clear water, blue and green all around me but for the bright yellow canoe pulled up by the bank. Small birds scatter and swoop above, black butterflies bob by and all I can hear is birdsong, cicadas and my laconic guides laughing. On the return drive, Henry asks if there was anyone else at Ri Ri, one of the most popular blue holes on the island. When I tell him it was just me, he smiles in the rear-view mirror: “Good, good, good.”
I forget to wear shoes to dinner, which no-one notices, and in two days I eat two whole lobsters (because who wouldn’t?). The nakamal gets going as the sun fades – excellent local beef, fish and plenty of coconut show up on the daily-changing menu – before everyone drifts off to villas on the beach and nestled among the hibiscus before 9pm. Glass louvres let fresh air in, fans whoosh it around, woven lamps throw golden light to read by and a thatched roof softens the sound of the tropical rain.
On Santo again, I clamber into the back of a ute and perch on a bench seat. “Do you drive like this where you’re from?” asks Henry’s colleague, Francis, with a wry smile. Driving the hour of dirt road to Mount Hope, where I’ll float down a river with Derek and Cherie, plus Chaz and Polly from England, is like riding in a rodeo. Francis points out huge banyan trees and others used to make canoes while I cling to my seat and my hat.
After exertion comes relief as I go first jumping off a rock with my reef shoes and life jacket on. The cold is a shock but soon feels normal for everyone except Francis, who is shivering. “I don’t like this cold! Find me, sun!”
Like ducklings, we paddle behind him through a narrow gorge, green with dewy moss and almost hidden from above by overhanging branches, palm fronds and foliage. “Keep right! Legs up,” he urges as we pick up pace and slip over gentle rapids. “Keep left!” He directs us under a rock ledge and the mini waterfall splashing from it. Tiny white butterflies fill the air, as if a confetti cannon just went off.
As I struggle clumsily to stay in the line, flapping my arms and rolling onto my tummy, Francis (still shivering) calls over his shoulder: “Stop swimming, float with the current. Just relax.”
