Schlagwort-Archive: backpacking

Vanuatu, World Trip 2018-19

Espiritu Santo: Beaches & Blue Holes

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We landed in Espiritu Santo in the morning after an early flight out of Port Vila. Taking a bus to Luganville was easy, finding a free hotel room for us was not! Due to some agriculture festival, everything was fully booked. Luckily, a friendly guesthouse owner let us keep our bags at her place and also booked us on a bus going to Lonnoc Beach for the afternoon. Instead of just waiting around though, we took a minibus to Million Dollar Point for some snorkelling. Million Dollar Point is a spot where the US military dumped a whole shipload of war material after Vanuatu couldn’t afford to buy it from them at the end of World War 2. I didn’t expect much, but it was actually really really cool!! There were ship wrecks, tanks, cars and more. It was lots of fun to snorkel around and dive down in between! One of the wrecks was busy with groups of fish, some of them very big. A very enjoyable snorkel site!!

 

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Later on, we went to Lonnoc Beach by minibus, where we set up our tent for the first time! Yayy! It was a beautiful spot for our first camping experience – right next to the beach. Next day, we walked to Champagne Beach which we had all to ourselves in the morning. It’s truly one of the most beautifully white beaches I’ve ever seen!!

 

Champagne Beach
Lonnoc Beach
First camping!

When it got more crowded around noon, we left and walked to Hog’s Harbour – a little village with not much going on. Unfortunately there was no restaurant and only a little shop, so we were once more forced to eat at the expensive restaurant of our accommodation. It’s easy to save money in Vanuatu by camping, but unfortunately the places hardly ever have a shared kitchen, so you end up having to eat out, which was often double of what we paid for camping! A bit odd, a bit annoying.

After Lonnoc, we hitched a ride to Port Olry where we camped once again right next to the beach. Awesome! Weather was a bit cloudy that day, but the beach was still really beautiful! Yeps, Santo definitely has some great beaches to offer.

 

We had a busy program on Santo – so next day morning we woke up early to take a minibus back to Luganville where we went for a dive on the famous wreck of the SS Coolidge. Unfortunately our dive center ended up being really bad, so instead of the originally planned 2 dives, we only went for 1 dive. Even with shitty equipment and a careless divemaster, it was still good to see though and an impressive wreck to dive! The water wasn’t very clear on that day, so I can imagine with better visibility and a better dive shop, this would be a really awesome experience.

 

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The rest of the day we just relaxed, set up our tent in the back of Asia Motel’s garden and went for a walk to the local market. South Pacific markets are beginning to get a bit repetitive at this stage, but it was still nice to see this part of Luganville! We generally quite liked Luganville, only in the evenings it was hard to find any restaurant. Luckily the Asia Motel DID have a shared kitchen!

 

Camping at Asia Motel
Luganville market
Luganville market

On our last day in Santo, we wanted to visit some blue holes. Hitching a ride up to near Matevulu Blue Hole was not easy, but in the end a friendly guy dropped us off at a kayak rental place – the best way to reach this blue hole is to paddle there along a pretty river! It was further than expected and against the current, but after about 40min we arrived. Wow! We were suddenly surrounded by very blue water and there were some cool swings to jump in and have some fun. Which is exactly what we did! Very much recommended!

 

Next, we paddled back and hitched a ride further to Nanda Blue Hole. Here the water was of an even deeper blue and super clear! With our mask we were able to see all the way to the bottom. Really cool!! Both blue holes were pretty in their own way, so I’m glad we went to both of them!

 

Hitching a ride back into Luganville was harder than expected, but in the end a sweet lady took us, showed us her cava bar and didn’t even want to take any money for the ride! Unfortunately, a little wound Mathijs had gotten after diving with Uepi in Marovo Lagoon, and which we had not paid much attention to until then, suddenly got badly infected and his whole ankle got really swollen! Shit. We were due to fly to Ambrym next day for some volcano trekking…

Solomon Islands, World Trip 2018-19

Solomon Islands – Summary & Pictures

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People: The locals in the Solomon Islands are were friendly and helpful. We just had to get used to the slower (much slower) rhythm of life. Everything just takes a liiiittle bit longer than at home. We barely met any other tourists, and no other backpackers. The tourists we met were mostly (Australian) divers, staying in upmarket dive resorts.

Food: We had some really good food in the Solomons – mainly at Lasa’s place in the Marovo Lagoon – but most of the food was rather average. We ate lots of fish, often fish and chips, and local veggies and rice. Many places offered self-catering facilities, so we frequently cooked for ourselves too – which was mostly simple dishes given the lack of variety in most supermarkets. We had to be flexible about what to eat…

Weather: Challenging. It rained almost every day for a bit, often over longer periods of time, sometimes even days in a row. And it was dry season! I must admit, at times we were just sick of not being able to count on sunny weather…

Costs: Including all the diving, transportation etc we spent just a little over 60€/day (per person). Nothing was really cheap, but the biggest parts of our spendings went to activities (diving, snorkelling, boat tours etc) and accommodation – even though we always stayed in the cheapest available places. I don’t think we could have saved more, since we already took the ferry all the time instead of flights as most other tourists do.

Accommodation: As mentioned, accommodation was expensive, usually around 30€ for the double room, sometimes even with shared bathroom. Although we were usually the only ones in every guesthouse, so only had to share with ourselves 😉 Still, expect only very basic rooms for that kind of price…

Infrastructure: Pretty much non-existent and gave us a headache sometimes. Luckily we could align our itinerary with the weekly ferry schedule which saved us a lot of money. Almost everything goes by boat or ferry in the Solomon Islands, unless you have the budget to fly around!

Illnesses: Besides some smaller stomach issues here and there, all was fine. Only Mathijs got a small wound which unfortunately kept bothering us for quite a while afterwards still…

Safety: I never really felt unsafe, although I would not choose to walk around Honiara by myself during the night. No reason to do so anyways! Also, once I got rather scared during a boat ride. We got stuck in a storm and the waves were quite high for the little boat. I did not feel like our boat driver had it under control… As I am here to tell the story today, you see it ended well though 😉

Itinerary: If there is a typical itinerary for such a remote, untouristy place, then I guess we followed it. We took the ferry from Honiara to Gizo, then backtracked step by step to Noro/Munda, Seghe/Marovo Lagoon and back to Honiara. I do think Malaita would have been interesting but I’m not too sad we missed out on it. I don’t think I will go back to the Solomon Islands, since it was all in all quite expensive and a big effort to organize – and we have seen the main things now.

Highlight: Marovo Lagoon, above and below the surface.

Lowlight: The bad infrastructure, MV Anjeanette and as in places – Honiara.

Click on the photo below to see my full photo album of the Solomon Islands:

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Solomon Islands, World Trip 2018-19

Marovo Lagoon – where jungle meets ocean

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In order to get from Munda to the Marovo Lagoon, we had to take the local bus back to Noro and board MV Anjeanette once again, heading back from Gizo to Honiara, via Seghe/Marovo Lagoon area. What may sound easy ended up being the most annoying trip of our time in the Solomon Islands so far: No one in Munda was able to tell us with certainty what the departure time would be. We heard anything between 8 am and noon. In the end we decided to be at the port around 9 am in order not to miss the ferry. We waited. And waited. And waited. And waited…even more. At 1pm Anjeanette finally showed up and we excitedly boarded the ferry thinking we’d finally get going. Wrong. It took another 2 h for the ferry to get unloaded until we left Noro port at 3 pm. The trip to the first stop – Ughele, the market town – went rather quick and we got some dinner there. However, what followed afterwards were about 4 more hours of a rather choppy ride during which I felt quite sick. Needless to say we were more than done with Anjeanette when we arrived in Seghe at 10 pm – FINALLY. I cannot believe what should have been a rather quick trip ended up taking us over 12 h in total! Welcome to the Solomon Islands. Lol.

Also, in Seghe the ferry didn’t moor to the pier but just stopped in the middle of the lagoon, with all small boats coming up to it to pick up/drop off people and cargo. So we had to clamber out of the big ferry and into the moving small boat in the pitch black, with our heavy backpacks – an adventure by itself!

Next day, we woke up in our half open over-the-water bungalow, with bird sounds all around us. Pepele Lodge is a beautiful place, simple but very clean and charming. The owner Lasa took us on his shopping drive around the lagoon which was very nice since we got to see the beautiful landscape already a bit and we stopped by the weekly market in Seghe.

In the afternoon we rented a kayak and paddled a bit around the area – the water was super calm and flat like a mirror! Very peaceful. We were on the constant lookout for crocodiles though, knowing there are some in this area. And sure enough later during our last morning at Pepele, we spotted a big one cruising by, not too far from our lovely hut!

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On our 2nd day at the Marovo Lagoon, Lasa’s brother brought us to Uepi Dive Resort where we had scheduled 2 dives for the day. We were lucky: it was a sunny day and we were able to dive the 2 dive sites we were most interested in: Elbow Point and Uepi Point. While the evasive hammerheads unfortunately didn’t show themselves at Elbow Point, we spotted our first ever leopard shark – a big one, resting on the sand! There was also an eagle ray and some grey reef sharks to be seen. Great dive! And after lunch, Uepi Point ended up being even better!! During just one dive, we saw three different species of sharks – grey, black and white tipped reef sharks, a blue spotted stingray, some moray eels and to finish off a turtle! The coolest part were all the sharks of course, I couldn’t even count how many we saw anymore!

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We then had a day of chilling and walking to the nearest village – on small muddy trails that I don’t think we’d have found without the help of Lasa’s kids. It’s a nice little village though – worth a visit, even though there’s not much going on. I guess most people were hiding from the rain too.

Luckily sun came out again next day as we had booked a snorkelling trip with Lasa. In the course of the day we visited 3 snorkel spots and were dropped off at Matikuri Lodge in the end. The snorkelling was really cool, and the boat ride itself amazing!! We first drove a bit South of Seghe and then through the „passage“ – an overgrown tunnel of trees which all small boats going from Munda to Marovo Lagoon and vice versa have to pass. It was one of the most beautiful boat rides of my life! It just doesn’t come out that well on the photos, so you just have to take my word for it.

Our first snorkel spot was at the end of the passage, where boats get out into the open sea – a cool spot with low visibility unfortunately. Still, we spotted a turtle and some sharks! The topography of this site is amazing, it must be really beautiful in clear water conditions. The next spot was called Ravu (Penguin Reef) and we tried to attract sharks by making sounds with an empty water bottle under water. At first we thought it wasn’t working, but suddenly there they were! And loads of them!! Around 10-15 grey reef sharks of different sizes showed up out of the blue, some – including a big one – came very close! It almost became a bit much even for us shark lovers 😉 But definitely a really cool experience. Lastly, we went to the reef off Bahoro Island where a fishing boat crashed into the reef some years ago (noone died). It’s a really cool wreck standing vertically against the reef. Mathijs free dived down a bit, but I’m pretty much stuck to the surface since my ears just won’t equalize when free diving. Unfortunately I had packed my underwater camera somewhere in my big backpack, so no underwater pics of the day!

After some picnic lunch on a deserted island, Lasa dropped us off at Matikuri Lodge – a lodge in the South of the Marovo Lagoon. This is where we spent the next couple of nights, unfortunately mostly stuck in the seemingly never-ending rain… We tried to go snorkelling on the house reef twice, again trying our shark bottle trick – but with not much success. The visibility was also really low due to the rains. In a rain break, we explored the island a bit, first following a trail in the jungle and then walking along the coast. The Solomon Islands are really the place where jungle meets ocean!

The island would be amazing for sure in dry, sunny weather. Heavy rains meant we were stuck to chilling, reading, playing cards and sleeping long most of the time though. On our last day, the weather finally cleared up and we went to two nearby islands for snorkelling. The first place was not that great – low visibility, most coral dead – but suddenly a huuuuge ornate eagle ray showed up right next to it!! It’s wing span must have been at least 3m and it stayed with us a bit until it got scared and quickly ‚flew‘ away. We read up about it later on and found out it’s one of the rarest rays in the world, an endangered species!! I feel soooo lucky to have spotted such a rare animal. Next, we spotted some massive bumphead parrotfish – so all in all a really good snorkel spot in the end.

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We then continued to another island to relax a bit and snorkel more. Here, we saw the occasional reef sharks but visibility was low again. What was amazing though was the coral garden – some of the most intact and beautiful corals I’ve seen! A good end to our time in the Marovo Lagoon…

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From here, we took our ‚beloved‘ MV Anjeanette once again back to Honiara, a 16 h overnight trip in choppy waters. In Honiara, we had 1.5 days mainly to get ourselves a bit organized, do the laundry, book some flights etc. Traveling the Solomon Islands has been an adventure but weather and infrastructure (or lack thereof) made it challenging at times…