Vanuatu Dreaming v2.0

When I last left you, we'd arrived at our honeymoon destination and had just begun settling in to our beautiful waterfront accommodation in Vanuatu.

We chose this particular resort for a few reasons. The first was that it was nice and close to the airport, since we didn't want to travel too far on this trip. The second? It was self contained, and meant we didn't have to leave if we didn't want to. Perfect! How about an island tour?

These are a few of the other bungalows available on the island. The first picture shows the jetty-front bungalows, and the second are the garden view bungalows. Iririki also has deluxe apartment style hotel rooms that look towards the pool or the ocean. Our own bungalow was around the other side of the island in a quieter location.

The island has a jetty that links up to Port Vila, which is the only way on or off. It also has it's own beach, which is nice and cosy. It's white and sandy, but there are loads of rocks and coral that surround the coast, so you need reef shoes if you want to swim.

For a relatively small island, there were a lot of hills! We cut through all the trails and found the best shortcuts while we were there. It was very tropical, huge butterflies were everywhere and the trees were gorgeous.

The island has a special section known as Snorkeller's Cove. You have to walk down some really steep steps and there's a beautiful, beautiful patch of clear blue ocean that's perfect for snorkelling. We saw loads of crabs and fish while we were there. And the water! Wow. So clear.

As for the pools.. well, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Put it this way: I could hardly pry myself away from big 3-tiered one (yes, 3-tiers!) while we were there. It was just that good. This was the smaller horizon pool at the Bali Hai Bar.

And this! This was the mother of all pool complexes. It was a short walk away from our bungalow, but it was SO WORTH IT. There were three levels. The top level featured a swim-up bar. The middle level was huge. The bottom level was also huge. And whether we were just lucky or if it was off-season, there were never huge crowds at the pools. Quite often, it felt like it was just us there.

What's that? More awesome pool pictures? Absolutely!

Coming up next: the obligatory 'us' pictures!