7/6/2010
Day 1,
We left home about 3.30am to catch a 6.30am flight up to Sydney where we boarded our flight to Port Vila, we were pretty excited to be finally getting away for our honeymoon but we had no idea how difficult the start of our honeymoon was to get. 
3 hours after leaving Sydney we were to our final approach in to Port Vila, just before the wheels were to touch the tarmac the plane surged forward and we shot back up in to the sky. The pilot came over the PA system to tell us he couldn’t sight the runway and would go around for another try. Same thing happened the second time and as they dont believe in third time lucky they set off for Fiji. On the one hour flight to Fiji we were given immigration cards and told we would stay there the night and try for Port Vila in the morning.
Well, that wasn’t going to happen, on arrival in Fiji they wouldn’t let us off the plane so after sitting around for about 45 minutes they told us they were flying us back to Sydney.
As this point in time I was just about ready to tear the heads off the pilot and try landing in Port Vila myself.
Well we arrived back in Sydney at about 10pm and still didn’t really know what was going to happen. We were told to go to the Pacific Blue check in counter where we would get some more information. Once there and lined up a woman from Pacific Blue started calling out names, ours were called pretty quickly and we were given details of where we would stay the night and our flights for the next day to Port Vila via Brisbane.
So far the honeymoon is pretty crappy .
Day 2,
left Sydney at 6.30am for Brisbane. Arrived safely.
Left Brisbane at 10.30am and actually made it to Port Vila 
We were so relieved once the wheels touched down, as you can see I was still pretty grumpy.
It was so nice to step off the plane in to warmth.
Got to the hotel and we were very happy with it, everything was just right and the place was beautiful.
After unpacking we hit the resort bar and had a few drinks and got a little drunk, oh well, we were on our honeymoon.
We met a nice couple from Harvey Bay and would see them again a couple more times before they left.
We had a nice dinner at the resort and after two events of the last two days we made it to bed at 9.30pm.
Having our room right by the beach made it a little difficult the first night as we could hear the waves all night but we got used to this a couple of days later.
Day 3,
Started the day with no hot water, we soon discovered that we were not the only people effected by this but we got a new hot water service by the afternoon so it was all fine.
In the morning we took a walk through the water and I managed to scrape my leg badly on the coral. We then took a bus in to town, the buses are privately owner and have no specific route so they will drop you off wherever you like, you may however have to go a round about way to get there if there are others on the bus. We didn’t mind as we got to see bits of Port Vila we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Once in town we changed some money and did some shopping including some grocery shopping which was a bit strange as everything is different over there.
While in town we stopped so I could have a smoke and while sitting on the ledge of a shop window we both felt our first earth tremor.
In the afternoon we took a long walk down the road to see what we could find, 
well what we found were lots of friendly dogs and even friendlier people. We have never been somewhere that has so many friendly people. They dont have much but I guess they are just happy living somewhere so beautiful that they dont care.
That evening we again had dinner in the resort and were surprised by how many of the staff and locals loved our tattoos. Port Vila used to have a tattoo shop but it went bust a few years ago.
Day 4,
The weather was much better today but we weren’t worried about the light rain from the last couple of days as we were just happy to be in paradise.
We booked a hire car for the next day and also booked a buggy tour for Friday.
We headed in to town again to see the cruise ship that was in port and to shop a little more. Mostly bought some tacky souvenirs and pirate dvds. We found Jill’s cafe today and they has awesome thick shakes and lovely staff. We each had a massage in the afternoon and in the evening we attended the Melanesian feast at the resort and tried some Kava.
Pretty gross tasting stuff and it made out mouths numb. The locals are right in to it and there are Kava bars everywhere.
The feast was very good and the singing and dancing from the locals was great to watch. They also talked about how their culture is disappearing, personally I blame the fact that they only ate the fist missionary that came there, they should have kept eating them and then their culture would be stronger today.
Not many flies in Vanuatu!!!
Day 5,
Picked up our hire car in the morning and took a drive around the island (well as far as we could get around it as there was a bridge out ¾ of the way around)
Getting out of town we had to drive over Klem’s hill which is very steep but great views from the top. While driving around we visited, The Sky deck which is a rotten wooden platform up a very steep hill above a locals house. The view was spectacular, once back down the guide showed us his wife chopping up kava for the evening. Cazzie held a large kava root and had a good sniff.
We also checked out a large cave next to the beach that was used during WW2 to store stuff.
We had lunch at Sara’s beach restaurant, fish curry with the company of a dog and a chicken.
Driving around the island was a great experience, was nice to get away from town and be in a completely strange place. The people we came across were very friendly even if they all were carrying machetes.
Once we got back we had dinner by the pool in the resort.
Day 6,
Buggy tour day, this was one of the most fun things we did and certainly the dirtiest as we ended up caked in mud by the end of it. Our driver was late so we had to do a mad dash to catch up with the rest of the tour, this was a good thing as we got to flog the buggy to catch up. Driving through villages got the young kids excited and they would all run out and high 5 us as we drove past.
Half way through the tour we stopped at Tara beach for some snorkelling and an awesome bbq lunch. On the way back was when things got really dirty as we drove down some tracks with big mud bogs that we drove through at speed to make the mud fly.
Once back at the resort as walked fully clothed in to the ocean to try to get some of the mud of us and our clothes. We clothing is still mud stained!
In the evening we went on a village tour and learned a little about how the locals live. It was interesting but the village we went through was pretty well to do, I would have liked to see a village that was a little more traditional.
That night we went to a local nightclub after dinner in town with our new friends Bec and Liam. The nightclub was hysterical, so cheesy. The music was terrible and we sat there drinking $5 spirits and laughing at the music. The hightlight was when Bec and Liam ordered Flaming Joe shots, I have no idea what was in it but they run a line of zippo fluid up and down the bar and around the shots and light it!!!! No fire codes there I guess!!!
Day 7,
This day we took a bus out to the Mele Cascade waterfalls. This was an amazing spot. The higher you go the better it gets. An unbelievable beautiful place. The walk up at the start was hard but it got easy pretty quickly and the water crossings were easy.
There was a lookout not far from the top and the view was awesome.
Once we got back in town we took an hour tour on a Zego boat.
Best described as a bathtub with an outboard motor, they were much fun. Our tour guide gave us a little history lesson along the way. It was amazing to hear about how much land is Australian owned there and how bad some of the chiefs decisions can be. There is a village at the habour and they used to own a couple of small islands in the harbour and land in town which they got rent from, due to their wealth their village did well and swelled in population, at some stage the chief started selling all the land and now they have nothing left and 3000 people living in the village. Financial planning is important people.
While out on the zego we spotted a sea turtle!
After that we hit the supermarket again and then back to the resort for a swim.
Dinner was in town again and we had Pizza, I wanted coconut crab but they werent available so the owner of the restaurant made a booking for us for Tuesday when their shipment was due and reserved one for me.
Day 8,
We decided to do two tours today, probably not the best plan in hindsight but we did it anyway. First up we headed off on a river Kayak and turtle feeding tour. Our driver was a little late and then seemed to not know where the hell he was going. This wouldn’t have been a problem but we had another tour booked for the afternoon. What was supposed to be a 20 minute drive took an hour and then he was late picking us up to go home. The place for the kayak tour was pretty ghetto. It was run down and shabby but we still had fun. First we fed the sharks, then the turtles. The turtles were very cool, one was 150 years old and slow but the other was much younger and nearly took my fingers. We hand fed them both pawpaw which they loved.
Kayaking was kind of fun, well once I was completely wet from Cazzie splashing me (I sat behind her) we settled in to it and had a great cruise around.
Our tour guide Chris was a nice guy and he spoke a lot about the black magic from another island in the area. Basically they believe you can die at the will of someone if they say your name while burning stuff. Tip:- dont give anyone your real name!
After that we did a 2 hour rainforest horse ride, Cazzie wasn’t real keen on this as she doesn’t like horses but she did really well on her super speedy horse Tornado (sic), I had a horse named Kel who sweated a lot but he was cool. It was a beautiful ride through the rainforest/jungle and it finished with me riding Kel in number 2 lagoon bareback.
Day 9,
Coongoola cruise day, this was recommended to us by a few tourists and I am glad it was. We had the best day!!!! This was an all day tour, after driving about 40 minutes we arrived at ta beach where a little punt picked us up and took us to the boat anchored off the coast. From there we motored out to the south side of Moso island where we went to a Hawksbill turtle rehab and breeding place. Once there we checked out the breeding tanks and got to handle the larger turtles. Before touching the larger turtles we were asked to water our hands in salt water and some dingbat girl asked where the salt water was!!! Hello!!!! try the water right behind you!!!!
While we were there they released two back in to the ocean, one was keen but the other required a little encouragement.
After that it was back to the boat and then we went around to the north side of the island, from there we took the punt to a private beach where we could just relax or go snorkelling, we did both 
after an hour or so it was lunch time and they had a huge spread set up. The food was pretty good and I had never seen cucumber slice the size of saucers before.
After lunch we snorkelled again and there were so many fish, it was awesome. A funny thing happened during our first snorkel, some woman that wasn’t paying attention almost ran in to me and as I turned to move away my flipper moved near her face and she thought it was a shark fin and completely freaked out. It was so funny, I laughed my head off.
Day 10,
Our last full day.
We checked out the museum and then walked around the back streets. Was interesting to see one side of the street was in some cases a slum but the other side was a resort or upmarket private home.
After walking around for ages we had another shake at Jill’s and then headed back to Breakas to relax and watched a couple of movies.
Dinner time!!!! Finally got my Coconut crab, took about an hour to eat it and it was messy as hell but fun. Certainly something you should try if you are there.
Day 11,
Homeward bound.
Just chilled around the resort until it was time to be picked up and taken to the airport.
Cazzie and I weren’t seated together on our flight to Brisbane which sucked and then I only had about 20 minutes before I had to board my flight back home.
Catch you all on the flip side!
It was a great way to spend an afternoon, got there just before 4pm and left at almost 8.30pm, about 20 people from different walks of life. It was fun watching them intermingle.
Been doing some fun stuff 
