There are a number of waterfalls on the main island Efete in Vanuatu.

Some of these are very accessible as they are right next to the road such as this one.



Others are a bit more of a hike, but definitely worth it...such as these ones at Mele.

Unfortunately the access to the falls is not being very well managed. They have cut steps into the limestone and scrubbing the surface to avoid people slipping when walking. Unfortunately this also erodes and changes the waterfalls and I think they should put a walking track adjacent to the falls instead.

One day we hired a driver to take us around the island.

One of the places we stopped was the Blue Lagoon which is a small semi freshwater lagoon with large lime stone deposits making the water very blue to look at.



We also stopped at Turtle Bay which is supposed to be a turtle sanctuary...but for what it is (tiny) and the knowledge of your guide (none) very over prised.

But they did have some live coconut crabs.



Some baby turtles



And a couple of large turtles in a very small and dirty enclosure.

The hotel we stayed at was in a great location at the back of the lagoon with a little private beach.





...and a Tam Tam out the front.




It was great using some of the watersport equipment such as kayaks and catemarans







And it had a golf course which we didn't get a chance to use.



Mostly we would just relax or swim when around the hotel.

You would think that a country with access to some of the best seafood and freshest produce would have fantastic food.

Although the food was Ok, we didn't find it fantastic and generally very over prised.



There was plenty of restaurant in and around Port Vila and some of them serving specialties such as coconut crabs and flying foxes.

We tried the coconut crab...but it was overcooked and dry and had surprising little meat on it (no meat in the body itself).




So we stuck to more traditional seafood which most often was battered and deep fried.



And as usual Aiden got into the free kids menu desserts

This weekend we went up to Lake Macquarie with the family to stay for a couple of night at a resort. I didn't take a lot of photos because we either didn't do much or were too busy with the family.

I did however take this one photo one evening at Katherine Hill Bay.

The beach at the hotel was full of really big and colourful star fish....couldn't help but take a few snapshots.

Lucas is now 7 Months and for this month we decided to take his Monthly photos while he was on his first overseas trip to Vanuatu.

This series of photos was taken at Eton Beach on the east side of the island of Efate in Vanuatu...he loved the water and had a hard time to understand that it is unpleasant to eat the sand and drink the salt water.

He is now almost able to crawl...he just needs to figure out that it is not enough to just move the legs...you also have to move your hands.

I know it was a couple of months ago, but I only now got around to processing it.

Here is another photo that I took of Lucas when he was 4 Months.

The other night we went for dinner at Marks place. He asked us if we could help him take some photos of the kids Axolotls...our response was 'Their WHAT??'.

Anyway, it turns out to be some sort of Mexican Salamander and he'd attempted to get some photos using his point and shoot camera, but wanted something better that he could print and hang on the kids wall.

Here are some of my efforts:

When Lucas doesn't have any toys to play with then his favourit pass time is to suck his feet. Here is a quick snapshot from the other day when he was at it again.




He's now got two teeth, so hopefully he wont chomp off his toes.

Again this year I went into the city to have a look at Vivid Sydney. This is a festival of light and music in the city around Circular Quay, The Rocks and the Opera House.

On the first few days of the festival it was raining a bit, but one evening when there was a clear night I went into the city leaving Kim and Aiden at home.

I managed to get a couple of good photos I think although I spent way too much time on photos of the opera house and therefore ran out of time.








This was the third year of the festival and I found this years festival much more creative than the previous years.


Anyway, here are some of the more interesting photos from the evening.

This weekend we made another trip to Centennial Park to go for a walk, have lunch & coffee and take some photos. Is it becoming a regular event so expect some more post in the future.

This Sunday the park was car free, meaning that everyone had to park outside the gates rather then drive into the park. It meant that there was a lot less people in the park which made it even more enjoyable. The trees as beautiful with their golden yellow and red leaves.


It is currently Autumn in Sydney and lately the weather had been fairly miserable and even this Sunday when we went to the park it looked a bit dark and gloomy at first. Fortunately the grass and leaves were fairly dry so I could do our 11 Month photos of Aiden. At first he didn't like the leaves at all, but after a few minutes he warmed up to the idea and started having fun playing with them (and eating them).








He is very funny at the moment, he is starting to crawl a lot faster and would try and get to the camera so I had to keep crawling backwards to keep the distance between us.

Friday night Kim, Dylan and I joined a number of Kims friends on the Abba cruise on the Sydney Harbour.

Dylan had completed a writing assignment we gave him a couple of weeks earlier (to write a 500 word essay about our easter holiday) and as a reward we took him along on the cruise.

The boat was a fairly small boat (almost house boat sized) and probably fitted around 80 people onboard. The Abba band was pretty good. The singing wasn't brilliant, but still very good entertainment and they managed to get the boat rocking. We even managed to get Dylan up dancing (even though we didn't give him much choice).




^{(oh...this photo is intentionally blurred...I tried to create a cool effect by zooming while I took the photo with a rear-curtain sync).}


It was a beautiful calm night, so it was nice to once in a while go up on deck to enjoy the view of the city line. Vivid Sydney had just started so Circular Quay, The opera house and The Rocks was all lit up. I will be heading in there one of the next few nights to take some more photos (I tried to take a couple of photos from the boat but Abba was rocking it too much ;-) ).



I hope Nikon will soon announce the D800...my old D50 was really strugling this evening with the low light conditions and I didn't bring a Tripod along.

Last night Kim and I went to the James Blunt concert in the State Theatre in Sydney. Kim (and to some degree myself) is a big fan of James Blunt so when we heard that he was coming to Sydney we had to get tickets.

The concert was brilliant and it had a lot of energy to it. He played both some of his old songs as well as some of his new ones.




The stage was set up with all these LED panels so that they could project videos, images, colours and patterns onto them to change the mood depending on the songs played.

On the weekend we again went to Centennial Park to go for a walk enjoying a gorgeous Autumn day.


Aiden was a bit tired and wasn't really in the mood to have his picture taken.



This time we brough Dylan along for him to get some exercise (watching too much TV otherwise):

It is getting cooler here in Sydney...the last 2-3 days have been freezing with temperatures at 16 degree during the day (cooler at night). We have turned on the heater in Aidens room as he kicks off his blanket.

One advantage is that there are some beautiful leaves in Centennial Park...

Monday Aiden went to the day care centre (we send him to daycare once a week for him to learn to interact with other kids and more structured play) and the teacher there helped him create a painted "Mum" sign as a Mothers day gift (It is Mothers day on Sunday).

Kim was very proud and asked me to take a photo of it for her to post on facebook. My response was "Sure, I'll go and grap the compact camera"...to which she responded that she wanted a good picture using good lighting so I should go and get my big camera.

So I went ahead and took the following photo of the mum sign using some of Aidens toys as a backdrop.




...but Kim said that she can't use it because it is too good and isn't realistic enough...back to the pocket camera ;-) !

This Easter holiday the family rented a house at Lake Conjola 220 Km south of Sydney (past Jervis Bay). We drove down there Friday morning (about 3 hours) with all our clothes, food etc.It was a four bedroom house for 8 adults and 5 kids, so always something happening somewhere in the house. Aiden was a bit shell shocked on the first day until he got used to the surroundings etc. We had brought our travel cot (a tent) for him to sleep in, in our bedroom and this made it a bit easier for us to put him to sleep.

Every morning the boys went out fishing in Chong's tinny (aussie word for boat). I went along on the first and last day (the other days I valued my morning sleep) and on the first day I caught a 25cm bream...one of the two legal catches during the week. Chong caught a fairly large flathead on one of the other days.


The beach was about a 15 minute walk away from the house walking through the caravan park (On the first morning there was a coffee van parked there and much to Kims dissapointment it was gone all the following days). It it fairly cool this time of the year so none of us went swimming, but it was fun to run around and take some photos. Aiden is getting used to go to the beach and is now quite comfortable sitting looking at things (He has now finally started commando crawling after 10.5 months).
















And at the beach we also had some fun with some 'silly' time.







In the evenings we were playing blackjack...always interesting as we play for money and some days you can be really lucky and others really unlucky. We also played charade where each team should guess movie titles by only showing gestures...which to a large part ought to be X-rated (or as least KC's turns should be).




One of the days I did a bit of creative photography. I showed KC how she could make window blinds look like a nice sunset even though it was grey and overcast outside.





The place had a pool table and this inspired me to the following photo of Kim playing pool.



And I played with the kids colour pencils.




I also did one night photograph on the only clear night we had. I should have spent more time out there, but it was late and I though I'd have a couple of nights ahead where it would be possible.





This year we had agreed that each of us would cook one meal. My meal was Saturday lunch time and I was doing pasta and I has pre-cooked it from Sydney the day before so it was nice and easy. Kim was doing an Indian curry in the evening.

When we ended our stay Kims dad said that this is the best food he's ever had on our holidays together.

This weekend we went with the Heng's onboard one of the last Tall Ships of Sydney harbour called 'Svanen. The day before it had been pouring with rain but we were lucky that the day we had booked was dry and sunny most of the day.

'Svanen' was built in 1922 in Denmark in Fredrikssund of danish oak frames, where she traded as a grain carrier between Denmark and Greenland for the tuborg beer company until 1969. She and James Craig are now the last tall ships in Sydney (The Bounty was sold to china some years ago).




She ain't a big ship, but large enough to carry about 90 passengers.

The interior of the ship is almost in its original state. It is still possible to see all the hand chiseled timer in the cabins.



The ship itself is pretty much still operated as it was back then (although she now has a motor...not sure if she would have had that originally).



And all the rope work is still the way it should be as well.







The cruise lasted a couple of hours and during the trip we were served lunch, beer and wine. This was one of the special deals that Kim had found us so it ended up being a great day.

Every year there is an Ester show at Fox Studios...it is not as big as the show out at Homebush, but it is a lot closer to where we live and entry is free.

Last year and again this year we brough Dylan there as it is difficult for his mum to go there. We normally allow him to get 1 ride or one game at the show, but because we this year brough Aiden along he got three rides as we though we'd check how Aiden would reach to the rides.

The first ride that Dylan chose was a Camel ride (Although they are not actually camels, but Dromedary's).




Afterwards he was complaining about how smelly they are.


In the mean time Aiden was watching the action (It was a pretty cool day and he had been sick the week before so he was dressed in his bunny outfit).



We tried to get Dylan to look scary with some of the local performers, but I think this is the best he could do.



After this I took Aiden and Dylan on the Ferris wheel and the Merry go round.






These are Waaaaayyyy to scary for Kim, so she was waiting down on the ground taking photos.

A two hour boat ride north of Luang Prabang is the Pak Ou cave. Since we were traveling two families the best way to get there was to hire a slow boat just for us.



The flow boats are long narrow boats that are ideal for navigating the Mekong River. This part of the river is full of underwater rocks but the boats seem to navigate these treacherous waters with ease.

Having the boat for ourselves gave us more flexibility with regards to how long we wanted to spend at the cane and also meant that we have more room to move around.



The front of the boar is where the captain sits and steers the boat. After this there is a section for the passengers followed by a small pump toilet and then the living quarters for the captain and his family. Out the back there is a small kitchen for them to do the cooking.

The cave is upstream into an area full of limestone mountains.



The many boats moor at a long and wobbly floating bamboo bridge that takes you to the cave itself.





The cave itself is not big but it is full of small Buddhas that have been put there over hundreds of years. You can tell that this used to be an important place of worship.





Now however the place is so crowded with tourists (guilty here too) coming in on boats that it is hard to move around. I could not stop myself from taking this photo of Buddha holding up his hands to stop more boats arriving.



At the top of the hill the hill there is what I think is a more 'pleasant' cave. It is equally interesting and much less crowded because most tourists don's make it up the many steps to the top.

The traditional Lao Lau is still being made. Just north of Luang Prabang on the river there is a little village on the river called Whiskey village whos main income is from the production of Lao Lau.



When I was there two decades ago this is what the locals were drinking (now they drink beer instead). I still remember the foul taste from the home brew that was distilled in large oil drums after having been fermented in large clay pots. Whenever I see it I always wonder if distilling strong alcohol right next to an open flame is the wisest of ideas!?!?





The process itself hasn't changed, but these days most of the whiskey is sold to tourists and I tastes a lot more pleasant that it did back then.

The food in Laos is good. It is traditional cooking mostly still cooked over an open fire.





You see them start cooking the food well before sunrise in big pots.

The food itself is mostly a fusion of Thai and Vietnamese. It has all the noodle soups from Vietnam, but with the more street food and spice of Thailand. The picture below is a typical noodle soup with a traditional cube of coagulated blood.





We were eating a lot from small street type restaurants following the rule that is had to be popular with the locals. The logic behind this is that the locals would know what is good and would also be choosy regarding the quality of the food, so chances are that it would be fresh and not cause food poisoning (none of us or the kids had any issues on the trip).






There are some dubious food there, such as some of the meat BBQ where they sometimes have the meet cooked earlier on the side of the BBQ and then just re-heat it when you order it.







Also be careful with some of the food stalls where the food may have been sitting there for most of the day and often from the day before.





From a 'snack' perspective there are some personal favourites that I absolutely love such as the BBQ fried squid - the packet stuff is just not the same.



Also the Bamboo and coconut fried rice is delicious - they sell them at bus and train stations and especially the purple rice one is yummi!



The freshly made puffed breads over an open fire - they will use two rakes to flip them until they are done.

The temples in Luang Prabang are some of the most beautiful anywhere. Yes, Thailand has some amazing temples, but these are different. They are smaller, and more intricately decorated.

Luang Prabang is without a doubt the cultural highlight of Laos. The old part of the city is beautiful and there are good reasons why is has been heritage protected.

I believe it has the most beautiful temples of South East Asia - they are not the largest or even the oldest, but the amount of details that has been put into them is absolutely stunning.



In addition to this there are a lot of other very interesting things to see in and do in the city, which I will cover in later posts.

The city itself is situated between two rivers where one of them is the Mekong which is still fairly busy with slow boats and ferries (The chinese are building a large bridge across the river north of the city)





The section between the two rivers form the city itself which consist of four parallel streets each about a kilometer long.



Everything within the city itself can be covered on foot and in the evening the main streets are blocked for card and reserved for pedestrians.

The place is dominated by a big hill with a small temple and stuba on top. It is very popular with tourists to climb the hill around sunset. And there is a great view of the mountains from the top.







There are some things that have changed in the city since I was there the last time. The most noticeable is the amount of tourists and fine hotels - and here it is really the more wealthy middle aged Europeans you see. The main street of the old city is full of modern western European influenced restaurants, souvenir and antique stores.



Fortunately you don't have to travel further that to the parallel streets to fine more low key Laos places to eat.

Also, last time I visited, I stayed in a small guest house near the city centre called Tanoy Guest House. When I stayed here I became good friends with the family and the place was named after the oldest daughter who's name was Tanoy.

The place is still there and apart from a larger fence it looks pretty much unchanged.