Gaua

Back from Butmas for one day and we now had 2 weeks holiday and had decided to visit the Banks and Torres islands in the north.

First was Gaua, a round island with a lake in the middle and a volcano in the middle of the Lake. It last erupted two years ago and 1,000 people were evacuated from the west coast. Today it is quiet though for two of our days here it left a smoky haze in the sky.

We stayed at Weul's Guesthouse which I am giving a separate blog to as they are desperate for advertising and so have said I would arrange a searchable blog for each of the guesthouses we stayed in. So the blog may sound a little disjointed.

Namasari village

Vanua Lava in the distance

We did not do much in Gaua, went for a walk or two and visited the clinic for half day supervision and generally relaxed.

Then on Sunday visited the nearby secondary school which had it's annual visit from the Anglican Bishop. All were on best behaviour, all sang lustily during the service and incense was liberally wafted about.They had killed a cow so everyone was invited to lunch. We were about to park ourselves under a tree when the tannoy invited 'Dokta and Missus' to the top table. We had a good chat with Bishop Nathan who is from Guadalcanal in the Solomons.

After lunch we were presented with a splendid slapstick play depicting 'savages' meeting the modern world which had the audience falling off their chairs. This was followed by a dance routine to MJ type music.

 At the airport we met Whelma, country director of VSO and Jossie the finance officer who were on their way to Sola on Vanua Lava.

On Monday we caught the flight upto Mota Lava which took us 100miles NE to the Torres before flying back to Mota Lava. Hence the topup of fuel whilst the pilot sits back and chats to ground staff. Bushknives, chickens and bottles of liquid are taken on board and once inside the Twin Otter people lounge about and few do up seat belts despite advice from the pilot.