Far Far Away Archives - The Barefoot Backpacker

Podcast #005: Vanuatu

2018/11/16 2018/11/17 0

Welcome to Episode 5 of my “Travel Tales From Beyond The Brochure” podcast. As mentioned last time, I recently went backpacking for 11 weeks. For almost a month of this, I explored several of the islands that make up the South Pacific country of Vanuatu. While I was there, it …

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Day Trips From Perth, Western Australia

2018/10/30 2018/11/02 1

I was staying at my friend Shelly’s place for a couple of weeks in Fremantle, Western Australia, and she had suggested we take some day trips around the region to see some interesting places. In the event, although we visited all these places, we made a couple of long routings …

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My First AFL Game!

2018/10/08 2018/10/08 0

AFL -> Australian Rules Football. It’s not a sport I know a great deal about, other than its existence, and it being traditionally popular more in and around the state of Victoria – Eastern Australia tends to prefer Rugby League which is a sport I’m far more familiar with, having …

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Drinking Kava in Vanuatu

2018/09/30 2018/09/30 0

Vanuatu is not a country noted for its beer. It has Tusker, a generic lager, which also comes in lemon flavour and is surprisingly perky and easier to drink than its blander brother. Instead, Vanuatu has a drink known as ‘kava’ (not in any way related to the French sparkling …

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Hiking the Volcanoes on Ambrym

2018/09/22 2018/09/22 0

Ah, Ambrym. The reason why I went to Vanuatu in the first place. Because while there are more accessible and spectacular volcanoes even in Vanuatu (Mt Yasur on Tanna Island springs to mind), I wanted a more spectacular hike, plus the thought of being able to camp overnight in the …

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Five Days On Gaua

2018/09/12 2018/09/12 0

My itinerary had me spending just under 4 weeks in Vanuatu, so obviously this meant I had time to look around at other interesting islands other than Malekula and Ambrym. One that caught my eye was an island in the north, called Gaua. There wasn’t much written about it in …

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Celebrate Vanuatu Independence Day With Me!

2018/08/28 2018/08/28 0

My trip to Vanuatu accidentally coincided with Independence Day; this was unplanned (indeed, I didn’t even know when Vanuatu’s Independence Day was until I got there!) and, I have to say, had the potential to be slightly awkward. As already noted, Vanuatu has a habit of ‘closing’ at the weekends, …

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Trekking on Malekula

2018/08/20 2018/08/20 0

“At top of hill now. You want stop for rest?” asked Jojo, our guide (*). We were about 15 minutes in to what would turn out to be a 5 hour trek through the jungle of north-western Malekula Island, and the trek seemed to start with a hill. A bloody …

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Nambas & Cannibals: Culture & History of Malekula

2018/08/17 2018/08/17 0

Malekula, the second largest island in Vanuatu, is noted in culture for two things, and they’re kind of related, though not in a way you might find on Fetlife or RedTube. When I say penis sheaths and eating people, I’m meaning things literally, not figuratively. There are 30 languages spoken …

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Malekula Island – An overview

2018/08/16 2018/08/16 0

When I was researching places to visit in Vanuatu, the island of Malekula stood out as a definite must-see; it seemed to tick lots of preference-boxes – hiking, culture, scenery, history. I’ll write other posts about these aspects specifically, but I ended up spending 7 days on the island and, …

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