The Wondering Wanderers

Considering that we want to start doing some overnight hikes, we thought it best that we do a couple of shorter hikes first so it won't be such a shock to the system when we eventually do an overnighter ;) We managed to rope our good friends Matt and Carly into coming along as well and it gave us a good opportunity to test out our new boots :D For our hike, we headed to the Sunshine Coast to check out the Great Walks that one of Kate's co-workers told her about. The Queensland Government has been working on a "Great Walks" project for a while that provides walks of various lengths for those keen to experience a bit of the outdoors. The Great Walks are split up into various sections and you can pick which ... read more

Wednesday was the day we were to go on the South Seas Adventure Cruise/Fun In The Sun/Coongoola Cruise - we were given 3 different names throughout the course of booking and confirming this tour, but hopefully they were all the same thing. Either way, we ended up on a boat called Coongoola. We were supposed to be picked up at 8:10am so we made sure we were there 10 minutes early and we waited... and we waited... and we waited... and then a bus rocked up but alas, we weren't allowed to go on this bus (why? I do not know! For some reason, they don't organise the buses by resort, they just put random people from various resorts onto the one bus - talk about dumb!) so we waited and waited and then waited some ... read more

Today we headed to Hideaway Island :) It seems we picked the perfect days to do the majority of our tours, as it was just us on the bus to Hideaway Island. This suited us to a tee and meant that we got some one-on-one time with the driver and could get to know more about what life was really like in Vanuatu. Hudson (the driver) was from Ambrae and moved to Efate in search of work. Work is very scarce on the outer islands so most people have to move to Efate if they want a job. We had been talking about doing a trek around one of the volcanic islands (Ambryn, which is near Ambrae) at a later date so Hudson was able to give us quite a lot of info on this and ... read more

In the morning, we arose late then ambled into the restaurant for our daily buffet breakfast. We have to say that the breakfast at Iririki Island Resort is absolutely DIVINE! Every day they have a selection of cereals (including bircher muesli with yoghurt), both fresh and preserved fruit, a couple of different types of bread as well as a fruit loaf and pastries (mm... chocolate croissants and these yummy custardy type pastries with sultanas in them), and a variety of hot foods (they usually offered two of the following in the heated containers: bacon, spiced sausages, potatoes, quiche, scrambled eggs with tomato and onion) with a chef on hand to cook your eggs to your liking (fried, scrambled, omelette - you name it, he cooks it!). The fruit over here is unbelievably good. Pawpaw/papaya (the yellow ... read more

At an hour unacceptable to most, the Wondering Wanderers arose and underwent final preparations before the taxi arrived to whisk them away to the airport. Ahh... Vanuatu... we couldn't wait! We arrived at the airport uber early, as we had a few tax refunds we wished to lodge and we didn't know how long the queues would be. When we rocked up to the TRS/Customs Office on level 1 at Brisbane Int'l, the office was empty - so much for the crowds we were expecting! Getting our receipts stamped for items we wished to check-in was a breeze so we ended up having a lot of time to kill whilst a) waiting for check-in and then b) waiting for the call to board. We managed to score a luggage trolley with a few magazines on it ... read more