Caro Downunder - Part 4, Blue Lagoon & Crazy Coconuts

October 05, 2018

Caro Downunder - Part 4, Blue Lagoon & Crazy Coconuts

One of the days we peeled ourselves away from our books and loungers to explore a bit more of the island of Efate, Vanuatu.

We hired a driver and his mini-van, which from memory cost us about NZ$160.00 for the day.

While we had a main destination in mind, as always it was as much about the journey, as the destination...

We passed palm trees aplenty, semi-wild horses, outer-worldly trees...

Local art...

And naturally we had to stop for roadside snacks...

NZ$1.00 banana bunches!

What we were ultimately in search of was a long, white, tropical beach like from the movies...

But first we had some other blue business to attend to...

The famous Blue Lagoon.

I was so dazzled by the turquoise, I couldn't even take a focused photo of Caro...

Now we were extremely lucky in that there wasn't one of the very regular cruise ships in town that day.

According to our driver, there are literally hundreds of people at the lagoon on those days - we only had to share with a handful of tourists and locals.

The best bit about the Blue Lagoon: jumping from the rope swings! After I convinced Caro to be brave and give it ago - we were both addicted. :)

Fortunately there aren't any photos of that, as it turns out neither of us are the most elegant of jumpers... ;)

After a brief rest, it was from one blue to the next: this epic white-sanded, turquoise-watered beach:

Now what we didn't realise before we arrived in Vanuatu - you can't just rock up to any beach...

As the land and beaches are still owned by local tribes, one has to pay "entry" fees in order to stay there.

Now I have no problem supporting the locals - especially if the money does actually get used for education and conservation purposes.

However, I did wish it was a bit more transparent, and that perhaps every tourist just had to pay a flat rate fee upon arrival, because even if it's only a few dollars each time, it does get a bit tedious having to "sort the financial side" of things, before actually being able to enjoy Mother Nature.

But no matter! Thankfully, in this instance we had our driver help us sort that out. But of course, as we had paid to be there, we had to make the most of it in the form of a private "photoshoot"... :)