Vanuatu Holiday, Day 3

I made it!  I woke just before 4 am, had the breakfast I had picked up the day before, got ready and took the ferry across to the mainland.  Fortunately the ferry runs 24 hours a day, so you just go down and someone will come along and pilot the boat across -- great service.  I was riding just on 4:30.

I soon remembered that I'd forgotten to bring any money, but fortunately I found an ATM and could get some cash from an ATM.  I was going to buy some fruit along the way, but I never saw any.  Later on, I discovered that all the fruit had been destroyed by the cyclone and there was very little available.  It didn't really matter, though, as I'd brought enough Gu and other food, as well as two full bottles of water, which lasted me through the entire journey.

The trip into Port Villa was straightforward, but once I got there I promptly got lost and headed way too far south.  The roundabout I was supposed to turn at wasn't actually on the main road, but was set back slightly so I didn't see it in the dark.  Then, to make things more interesting, none of the streets are signposted!  After wandering aimlessly around Port Villa for about half an hour, and asking twice for directions, I finally found the ring road heading east just on 6 o'clock.  From there, the road improved steadily, and I was well out of town before the traffic began to build up.  Stage one completed.

The road around the eastern side of the island is must flatter than the one on the western side, but just to make up for it I had a headwind for about 35 km.  Never mind: the scenery was amazing:

I had lots of fun just riding through the desolate bush, through tiny villages and past the occasional "resort" -- at least, that's what they called themselves, but they looked more like a collection of shacks.

The damage from Cyclone Pam still very evident.  About half the houses had tarpaulins over their roofs, and there was lots of twisted roofing iron lying around, as well as uprooted trees:

The villagers had started to collect the rubble, but it's all just lying around in piles on the side of the road.  One of the schools I passed was using a tent as a classroom, and the road was washed out in a few places, bringing it down to one lane:

Fortunately there was hardly any traffic, so it didn't really matter.  There were also shipping containers dumped periodically on the side of the road, which I found out later were used as shelter during the cyclone.

The eastern side of Efate island is where all the agriculture is.  I saw cattle, goats, a pig wondering along the road, as well as plenty of chickens.  A group of farmers I saw were riding on horseback.

After heading north along the eastern side of the island, I reached the northern side which had beautiful views of massive offshore islands, as well as the inland volcanos.  The road was mostly flat, but still the hills took their toll, and when I started heading back down the western side of the island the hills got steeper and nastier. 

I passed a roadside stall selling World War II memorabilia, which I'm sure Quinn will want to check out.  I also saw a school that had been completely destroyed and was being rebuilt after the cyclone.  Most of the people on the island seem to work as farmers, hacking areas of farmland out of the bush with fire and machetes, planting crops, and harvesting them.  Dirty and laborious work, but at least they've got food to eat.

I got back to Hideaway Island around 11, having ridden for just under 6 hours.  It was a great ride, and while I felt tired I wasn't too exhausted to take the family out to Port Vila in the afternoon for some shopping.  I took Oscar snorkelling briefly before it got dark, and then in the evening we had dinner at the bar on the mainland beside where the ferry comes in, which was having a Fire Dance evening.  It was quite a show, though of course very noisy:

I think I'll only tackle the full ride around the island once.  I'm not keen to ride through Port Villa during the day, and I don't really want to have to climb those nasty hills again after so much riding.  But that doesn't really matter -- as long as I do a regular ride of maybe an hour a day, I should be fine.  So I'll concentrate on relaxing more, and spending time with the family, only sneaking in rides when I can.

All told, I rode 125 km and climbed just over 1,000 metres today -- it wasn't exactly a flat ride, though it was made more challenging by the steepness of the gradients (one close to the 18% grade I rode the first day I got here), as well as the fact that the nasty hills were all in the last 30 km:

When you're riding a hill that steep, your bike effectively becomes like a singlespeed -- gears don't matter any more.  If you had a lower gear, you would have changed down 3 or 4 times, but you don't, so the only question is whether or not you can grunt your way up.  It's that steep that if you stop you'll never be able to start again.

I made it up the really steep hills, though it hurt, and my core is tired now from the strain.  But I made it!  While I'm tired, I'm very happy I did this long ride.  It was quite an adventure...

Vanuatu Holiday, Day 2

If yesterday's ride was in cycling heaven, today's ride was closer to cycling hell.  A constant stream of trucks, vans and cars, rough roads with potholes, and being enveloped in car fumes, smoke from fires and chemical smells from the nearby industrial businesses made riding distinctly unpleasant.

Yes, I rode towards the main town on the island, Port Villa.  I started riding at around 8, just as the children were heading to school, and seem to have encountered rush hour:

It was so unpleasant that I turned off the road to Port Villa and instead explored a side road that eventually turned into a dirt track:

That was interesting, as I saw lots of evidence of the damage Cyclone Pam had done to the island: collapsed houses and other buildings, damaged roofs, houses that had been completely flattened.  Even five months later, the damage is still very obvious:

I only rode for an hour today, just a recovery ride from the big climb the previous day.  Afterwards, I went snorkelling with the children, and we saw the usual panoply of tropical fish and other animals.  The reef around the resort had been quite badly damaged in Cyclone Pam, and we could see the work they had done to try and rebuild it.  I also saw clams, anemones, clownfish, Moorish Idols, zebra fish, a titan triggerfish, lots of barracuda, a weird yellow trumpet fish, and a thing I think was called a bird-nosed parrotfish:

As well as the fish, we got to explore the underwater post office.  The main underwater post office at the resort was damaged in the cyclone and isn't working any more, but they've put up a postbox beside it.  At low tide it's not too hard to swim down to it (I even swam through the old post office building), and you can stand on top of the building if you can keep your balance.  At high tide, it was too deep for Tighe to swim down to:

Unfortunately, one of the bottles of sunblock we had brought with us was defective, and both Ruth and I got quite painfully sunburned.  My back is now a delightful pale scarlet, and the back of Ruth's arms and legs are also badly burned -- you get sunburned in weird places when you're snorkelling.

I also managed to get a bit cooked in the sun today as I was watching Oscar play in the water, so I seem to be suffering from a bit of hyperthermia too.  Maybe that explains why I was so exhausted this afternoon -- we all went to bed around 7:30 pm, except for Ruth who stayed up "late" sorting through the 292 fish photos we had taken today.

I'm planning to get up early in the morning and try riding the whole way around the island.  My lights are all charged up, and I'm hoping to get past Port Villa before dawn to beat the traffic.  It's going to be a long ride, and it could be pretty tough going if the hills I encountered yesterday are any indication -- but I should be back by mid to late morning (all going well) and I won't have that awful road to ride along during the day, so hopefully it'll just be another wonderful ride through this tropical wonderland.

Vanuatu Holiday, Day 1

We arrived at around 2:30 in the afternoon, and Ruth had to pay $30 for a permit to bring in the block of cheese she had brought for us to eat -- that's one expensive block of cheese!

We're definitely on Island Time here -- it took nearly an hour to get picked up at the airport and taken the 10-minute drive to Hideaway Island, where we'll be staying for the next week. It's a nice little resort, just off the coast of Mele Bay.

Hideaway island, just off the coast of Mele Bay.

Our ferry ride out to the island.

Looking back towards Mele bay from our room on Hideaway island. 

With an eye on the time, I immediately set to work assembling my bike while the rest of the family went snorkelling. I finally started riding just after 5 pm, and knowing it was going to get dark around 6 I didn't have much time left, so I made the most of it.

The main road that goes around the island was built by the United Nations, and has an excellent surface (unlike the secondary roads, which are all either dirt or have massive potholes). The only problem with the road is that the local farmers (who didn't want to lose their flat lands) refused to let it go through their farms, and so instead the road goes around them -- straight up and down the steepest cliffs I've ridden.

About 2.5 km into my ride I reached the first hill -- an 18% grade!! That first hill, known locally as Klehm's hill after a local farmer who used to live there, was the longest and most painful, but by no means the only steep climb I encountered. I rode 10km north to a convenient turnoff before heading back again -- I climbed a total of 400 metres in that first 10 km, and another 100 metres on the way home again. It's anything but flat around here...though from what I understand this is the hilliest part of the entire island.

If you look carefully, you can see the road climbing up the hill.  It's steep!

The view from the top, looking down on Mele bay and Hideaway island.

My turnaround point, 10km north of Mele bay.  Notice the lovely potholes in the secondary road, which soon turned to dirt.

I got to ride back down the insanely steep hill in the dark, which was "interesting". There were people walking home with machetes, obviously from working in the bush all day.

There aren't really farms around here like we think of them. I saw some chickens, but that's about it. Lots of banana and coconut plants, but it's all pretty wild-looking, with people living in huts in the middle of what we'd think of as a jungle.

The cicadas on the way home were deafening, and a bunch of kids wanted to high-five me as I rode past in the near-dark. There was a little bit of traffic, but not much really, and the cars travel slowly. Apart from the hills, this is a cyclist's paradise.

I learned that you greet people with "Hello" during the day, but "Good Night" once it gets dark. It felt weird saying "Good Night" to strangers on the road, like I was putting the children to bed, but that seems to be the custom around here.

The view of Hideaway island when I got back from my ride. 

Everyone is very friendly and relaxed, and the children seem to be having a ball. I can't wait to relax, go snorkelling with the family -- and do another ride -- tomorrow.