Vanuatu

What a remarkable place was Vanuatu. I bragged about the private swimming pool we had, the deck overlooking a coral lagoon and the warm and balmy weather. But this is what the tourist thinks make a good holiday. Sure, the luxury was amusing and novel, but here is what I actually enjoyed about Vanuatu.
There must be something about island folk which they all share in their genes. Visiting Jamaica some years ago was my first island experience and it was as laid back and magical as purported to be through anyone’s imagination. Just the name conjures up a sense of chilling by the beach with daiquiri in hand. Travelling around the south pacific these past has amplified this impression, regardless of the island. Samoa and Niue made me envious of the simple lifestyle which produces such happy smiles and healthy lifestyles. Vanuatu blows them all away, with a charm and seduction I wasn’t expecting. Before travelling in that direction, I read that people from Vanuatu have been judged the happiest in the world by an international grade – two years running! A likely story, I chuckled to myself, just wanting to get the tourist dollars I bet. But walking around the streets and villages, in areas that often have no electricity or running water, and all you see are big flashy smiles. Children running around, playing and laughing, and not an iPod or Nintendo Wii in sight. Adults sitting and watching the kids, cutting wood or just talking quietly amongst themselves before exploding in riotous laughter. Youths displaying the typically slow walking style I call the ‘tropical shuffle’ while walking to a market. It was so refreshing to see that we don’t all live in a hectic and stressful world and that maybe, we can all be like that. I know I am romanticising the island way a little, but do we really need everything us civilised westerners have? Do we really need to do everything we do in a day to validate our existence and to make us happy? We have a different lifestyle which will not tolerate radical changes. But I realise there are little things we can do to emulate an island style. I plan to smile more as I pass people, not avert my eyes to the ground or star vacantly in a shop window. I can walk a little slower when I am around home or doing the shopping. Really, who am I hurrying for? I can take pleasure in what is outside, not the television, this computer, or even a book. If I can do little things like these, then what I have learnt last week will always remain with me. One of life’s lessons.

Queensland...are you still there?

I'd like to be thankful that the previously mentioned tropical depression passed Vanuatu and didn't ruin our tropical vacation which is due to begin tomorrow.  But then I see the news and how the storm turned in to the largest cyclone to ever hit Queensland and has had a devastating impact on thousands of people, and I begin to feel selfish.  What a trade off - a holiday inconvenience or wide spread damage of my homeland?  I wish I had been in a position to have made a choice.

Mother Nature Vs Johnny Ray

We are off to Vanuatu next week…..we hope…..we plan to anyway……another tropical island in the warm and azure South Pacific…..but then here’s the story.  Like my previous post, Mother Nature has been busy this season whipping up lots of goodies in her kitchen.  Her specialty this time of year is cyclones.  It’s a bit like us humans when we cook soups in winter or roasts on Sunday, certain foods for certain occasions.  Well, Mother Nature cooks up cyclones in summer and she never disappoints.  This year however, she has been extra busy with the help of her Latina gal-pal, La Niña, creating extensive flooding throughout Australia as well as cyclones almost on a weekly occurrence, or even as extreme as now with three cyclones on the go at once!  So, please Mother Nature, I know you love whipping things up to show us all how magnificent and creative you are, but please don’t send any in Vanuatu’s direction.  They’re on a diet.

A sunburt country no more....

When it rains in New Zealand it really does a good job of it.  My last post, too long ago to be forgivable, I lamented the long dry spell which had been cast upon this alluring green landscape, threatening to turn all things brown and parched.  As nature would have it, not long after that it rained, and then soon after that again, and again and again and…..well you get the picture.  The total rainfall over the last few weeks is close to 300 mm of life giving precipitation thanks to a series of dying cyclones which have been carried south from the Coral Sea off Australia and tropical pacific regions to the north of New Zealand.  This pattern is set to continue, shaping the summer up to be one of the wettest on record for the North Island of the country.  Now that I have said all that, it won't rain again now………

A sunburt country...

When leaving my 'sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains' and moving across the Tasman, I never imagined that the word 'drought' would be used to describe New Zealand.  I understood New Zealand to be the land of green grandeur, rolling hills of lush grass, substantial rainforests, lakes, glacial streams and waterfalls.  Water, water, everywhere. Our first two summers here were described to us as ‘dry’ and drought ridden, which we couldn't balance with our Aussie appreciation of the terms.  The fields remained green the creeks still flowed and it continued to rain enough to maintain these elements of the New Zealand environment.  This summer has changed all of that.  By the end of autumn, the rolling hills had already begun to look unfamiliar to the impression I had acquired up to this point of time.  The local landscape has begun to appear more like our Aussie farm in autumn as the rain dries up and the greases all die – not yet brown, but no longer green either – a painful moment between seasons when I would realise the cool and comfortable winter has passed and the harshness of summer is about to strike.  So, the desire for more rain which played out its annual cycle in Australia has followed us to New Zealand.  You can guess what I will be hoping for Christmas this year……..