#  >  > Non Asia Travel Forums >  >  > Pacific Islands Travel Forum >  >  Wayne Kerrs Vanuatu Voyage

## Wayne Kerr

Vanuatu was influenced a fair bit by the French until the locals woke up to themselves a few decades back, staged a mini revolution, and kicked the frogs out. The result is a cool little place not too screwed up by the outside world  good French food can be had for about a quarter the price of nearby New Caledonia and there's loads of WWII wreck dives if youre into that. Beaches aint too bad either.


^ Vanuatu is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire so plenty of active volcanoes about  earthquakes are common too and I was woken most mornings by a rattling hotel room  :Smile:

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## Wayne Kerr

A few shots of the capital city Port Vila


^ An ideal south seas setting


^ Downtown Port Vila at peak hour


^ The Waterfront bar and grill which is perhaps the most important place in town  one of the better places to enjoy a cold beer and the famous Vanuatuan beef  thanks Boatboy for the tip

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## Wayne Kerr

Vanuatu is a yachtys paradise and some very nice rigs there indeed. A guy I was with put a bid in on a 28 footer that had been left behind by some rich yank  some good deals to be had as Vanuatu was up until recently very easy to launder money in.










^ If sailing aint ya thing you can always jump a chopper to some secluded beach  :Smile:

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## Wayne Kerr

So enough of the big smoke … I had to piss of to the boondocks for a while to see a man about a hydro set-up … hydro power that is. They are doing alright but they don’t have that much freshwater in the townships and want they do have they’re doing quite a good job of polluting with shite … was quite busy earning a living and as it was my first time to visit the villages I didn’t get the camera out much … maybe next time.


^ They’re running all the power on Santo Island with this here stream … very lucky to have it with tourism numbers booming out there these days


^ Water runs down through these here pipes to the turbines and presto they’ve got power


^ This is where it all happens


^ I bloody hate heights but climbed up the bloody thing for a few happy snaps … forget the bloody earthquakes imagine what’d happen if I fell off the thing  :Smile:

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## Wayne Kerr

^ Typical houses out in that part of the world


^ The standard water supply and treatment facility of your average little village … the shitter is the tin shack and the well is the hole in the ground, only a few metres apart … very close to the water table as you can see from the stream … so not surprisingly people are getting sick all the time and the water running down to the coast at that clean … there’s about 700 set-ups like this is in one little water catchment area they’re trying to fix up a bit. Septics don’t works as they don’t maintain them and bang big holes in the bottom of them when they get full. The Chinese business man running the shit pump trucks just dumps it all the creek if someone does get their tank pumped. Looks like they might have to find a composting loo builder out there I’d say.

One upside is the papayas grow quite well with all the natural fertiliser  :Smile:

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## kingwilly

damn, I'm getting inspired to sort out a couple of south pacific threads too. just gotta get the old pictures converted to digital.

great work Wayne!

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## Wayne Kerr

After a few days of talking shite, well literally, I treated myself to a trip out to a beach that up until recently was only visited by cruise ships as the road in there was quite bad. There were no cruise ships about that day so we had the joint to ourselves.


^ View down on the coast


^ No people in that direction


^ Nor in that direction


^ a very lovely place to spend a day called Champagne Bay :Smile:

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## Wayne Kerr

^ The locals also put on an ANZAC Day service and expats made it from all over the place for a small gathering nearby the sea 


^ Army bloke setting a wreath off down the bay  :Smile:

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## Wayne Kerr

This part of the world turns on a great sunset nearly every arvo  hard not to have a few beers and enjoy.







All in all a pleasant little stay in a very nice part of the world  :Smile:

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## Chong Boy

Great pics Wayne, looks like a great place. That last sunset is stunning.
I would love to get the chance to go there

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## Mr Smith

Thank You Wayne for the great photos.  They sure bring back a lot of good memories when I was traveling around the Pacific.  Keep up the good posts and tell your boss you want more time off to take more pictures.

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## baldrick

if they are having power issues they should put in a few wind turbines.

nice pics

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## kingwilly

a good mate of mine, lived in Vanuatu for a couple of years, he loved it. 

all about the kava, apparently

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## Wayne Kerr

> all about the kava, apparently


Yep the Vanuatuan kava is the duck's guts from all accounts ... sit ya on your arse sort of stuff  :Smile:

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## Johnny Longprong

> I bloody hate heights but climbed up the bloody thing for a few happy snaps … forget the bloody earthquakes imagine what’d happen if I fell off the thing


The new and improved slim Wayne Kerr would be hardly a 3 on the Richter Magnitude Scale as I understand it.

Interesting stuff Wayne. Nothing like a bit of faecal matter in your drinking water, sounds like Thailand a bit.

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## Wayne Kerr

> Nothing like a bit of faecal matter in your drinking water, sounds like Thailand a bit.


Mate ... Thailand and the rest of east Asia are streets ahead of this part of the world  :Sad:

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## MeMock

I was hoping you might get to Vanuatu.

I remember a great holiday when I was a kid there. We went down to the second last island of the group called Erramonga. Dad knew a local there so we spent a week or so there. Only white people on the island. Great memories.

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## Wayne Kerr

> I remember a great holiday when I was a kid there.


Would've been awesome back then mate ... hoping to get Wayne Jnr out here soon ... you gunna be around in Thailand in July mate?

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## Rural Surin

As per usual, this continuing South Pacific thread becomes inspirational Wayne. Good work. Rarotonga to Vanuatu.....quite the jump. Port Vila still remains south seas idyllic as does the body of Vanuatu. I believe under European colonial rule, the old 'New Hebrides' {now Vanuatu} was considered a Franco-Anglo 'condiminium', where the newly gained independent state {1980} had to negotiate with both European powers as a duel partition. Unlike it's neighbors {PNG, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands}, the transistion was not violent nor revolutionary.

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## Rural Surin

Waiting for the French Polynesia thread..... :Smile:

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## Rural Surin

> Originally Posted by Wayne Kerr
> 
>  I bloody hate heights but climbed up the bloody thing for a few happy snaps  forget the bloody earthquakes imagine whatd happen if I fell off the thing
> 
> 
> The new and improved slim Wayne Kerr would be hardly a 3 on the Richter Magnitude Scale as I understand it.
> 
> Interesting stuff Wayne. Nothing like a bit of faecal matter in your drinking water, sounds like Thailand a bit.


You have feces in your drinking water? You're doing something wrong....

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## MeMock

> Originally Posted by MeMock
> 
> I remember a great holiday when I was a kid there.
> 
> 
> Would've been awesome back then mate ... hoping to get Wayne Jnr out here soon ... you gunna be around in Thailand in July mate?



It was brilliant. The only toys on the island were two frisbees and old spaghetti tins with string tied to them which you would pull behind you over the rocks near the beach. Only one car and one road. We arrived in a little cessna, the runway was a classic! 

In July I sure will be mate but more then likely will be stuck in the shop in Ubon most of the time so you will have to visit me!

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## Johnny Longprong

How's your pidgin Wayne. Can you translate the notice on the floating dock?

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## Wayne Kerr

> How's your pidgin Wayne. Can you translate the notice on the floating dock?


Not bad ... reads along the lines of "this is a no go area please don't climb on top"   :Smile: 

Tabu (forbidden) place you no (klaemb) climb (antap long) on top ... not that hard 

What do you reckon this means "bagarap olgeta"?

Oh yeah and beer is just bia same as in Thailand so you should be just fine  :Smile:

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## TizMe

buggerred up altogether?

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## Wayne Kerr

^ yep and it is how the blokes at work describe my pidgin these days  :Sad:

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## JoGeAr

Yep. Translated into Aussie; It's all fucked !!

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## Rural Surin

Where are we off to next, Wayne? :Smile:

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## Propagator

> I was woken most mornings by a rattling hotel room __________________


Good thread again Wayne.


Re the above quote, you must get a less active bed partner  :Smile:

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## Bexar County Stud

Great pics. Will your travels take you to New Caledonia? Always wanted to visit that place.

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## patsycat

I watched a very interesting documentary yesterday and they have said that most of the islands shall be under water and forgotten within the next 50 years.  Sad, especially for the locals who will have to move elsewhere.  They are already sending their kids to school on the "mainland" as it were.  Which I believe to be New Zealand?  The water is coming UP under the islands and bubbling and flooding and they can't do very much about it.

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## porno frank

Looks cool a nice tropical beautiful place to visit.

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## Stranger

Great thread Wayne.

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## LooseBowels

Cool.
Reminds me of Fiji, Nandi, Suva etc.

I used to work withn a guy named Kerr, his nik was Huan.

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## kingwilly

A friend of mine worked there for a couple of years, he really enjoyed it.

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## IceSpike

Bula Wayne, the pics are awesome...
Gotta share more shutters on the local talent!
Livin the Dream.

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## Latindancer

Those Pidgin phrases remind me of how the Papuan people referred to Prince Charles as "Picaninny belonga missus Quin".
Also, a helicopter is "Mixmaster bilong Jesus Christ".

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## Sailing into trouble

Wayne the more I see the more determined I am to head out ASAP. Looks and sounds like a great place. Great thread.

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## Jun

Vanuatu great place ! spent 6 weeks there  back in jan 2000 . Visited Malekula and Espiritu Santo islands . It was fun wondering around Port Villa looking for nakamals places to drink Kava . Great pics

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## RickThai

Good shots.  Thanks for brightening up my day.

RickThai

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