It seems like the whole island comes to the “airport” each time a plane lands on the outer islands of Vanuatu, for the teenagers it seems like their equivalent of hanging at the mall in my country! Photos of the faces of people I come across in my travels take me right back to that [...]
Stranded on Espiritu Santo
Fact: one broken down plane can halt the whole Air Vanuatu network. Silver lining: I get to spend a couple of unscheduled days on Santo, courtesy of Air Vanuatu. Other silver lining: the Matevulu Blue Hole, Santo. The Blue Holes of Vanuatu Santo has a number of blue holes, as do other islands in Vanuatu, [...]
How to fail to reach an active volcano and still have an adventure!
When someone says “air taxi”, I have a mental image of some kind of private jet. Think again – how about a 1974 Cessna, which just squeezes in me and my five travelling companions, and one young, very professional, Kiwi pilot. The good news is I get the co-pilot’s seat. We are doing a quick [...]
Done the chicken buses? – now try the chicken planes in Vanuatu
Vanuatu is a group of 83 islands, so I am a bit surprised that boat or ferry travel between the islands doesn’t seem to exist. To island hop in Vanuatu, I need to take to the sky. And the further away from Port Vila I get, the smaller the planes get, with more locals and [...]
Running away to the island of Rah
It’s a beautiful view of turquoise sea, coral lagoons, and rich green rainforest as we come in to land on the small grass airstrip on the island of Moto Lava. I am in the far north of the group of islands that makes up Vanuatu. But this is not my final destination. Moto Lava has [...]