G’day my name is Dawn and my fiancé, Gavin, and I just had the most fabbo holiday in Vanuatu and I just want to tell you about some of it. The first thing that surprised us was how close it is to home. It’s just a couple of inches up ways on the map or, in time terms, just a voddy & orange, a meal, two white wines, a pee and a Baileys.

That’s us having the seafood platter next to the harbour at the Rossi… Oh it had everything, it had lobsters the size of, well, huge crayfish, the crab was as tasty as and as for the oysters, well… two of them worked for Gavin and one got over the line for me, which was a bonus.

That’s Nicole and Ricco, we went over to their table to say hello, they had the seafood tower… anyway they told us they were getting married the next day but they wouldn’t tell us where for some reason coz it was a secret location, just like the Vanuatu TV show Survivor. But we tracked them down, it was the least we could do, they were such a lovely couple…

As you can see they did indeed make a lovely couple although I wouldn’t have chosen a dress like that - I mean, don’t get me wrong it looks nice on her but not something I’d choose myself and you think Ricco would’ve tucked his shirt in. But they were a real nice couple and cheeky too because they played a little trick on us. They said they were having their reception at the Rossi but they were really at Tilly’s because when we went to the Rossi but they weren’t there, but we found them, bless her bridal bouquet…

It seemed sort of strange how we didn’t see them after that, and it was a pity seeing they were in town while we were there, but I guess being newlyweds they were as ‘busy’ as… which we pretty much were too, but we were at it hammer and tongs outdoors.

We went sailing and snorkelling at Hideaway Island where they’ve got a really cool thing called the world’s only Underwater Post Office and it’s got an official sign telling you just that and you can send a waterproof postcard but we didn’t bother because we reckoned we would have got home before it. Oh! And must tell you about the Coongoola Cruise, which is just fantastically fabulous! When you go on it you get to do snorkelling, fish feeding, have a beach barbie, go the turtle sanctuary and see amazing fish and dolphins plus see where they shot the TV show Survivor… Shit I wish we’d done that one, pardon the French, but it was one of those mornings that presented a hangover of ginormous proportions on account of because we had a big night checking out the nightlife, which incidentally was also fabbo.

We went out dancing and partying we went to heaps of places and met heaps of locals, and had a little flutter at the casino which was so fantastically glamorous that I felt like a James Bond girl, sort of, you know, without having James Bond there…or Halle Berry…or a vodka martini…shaken or stirred… but you get the drift. And later on we got into a few cocktails called “fluffy orgasms” or some such, which inevitably let to karaoke, as it can do.

Gavin reckoned they never heard I Will Survive done quite like that, but I wanted to make them TV people at the bar feel at home, not that we knew for sure they were from Survivor but they had American accents so we got their autographs just in case. And guess what - this was the night Gavin proposed!!!

Well, sort of proposed. When we got back to our resort Gavin went the grope and I said, “Gavin, if you ever want to do it again, you’d better do the ‘say I do’ thing” so he did it saying, “Let’s do it darling, love ya.” He couldn’t remember it in the morning but I do and that’s all that matters really. Anyway, that day we hit the town…

See my hair in this one, I had it done down at the markets where the local women braid your hair for you, which was a lot of fun until Gavin came up with a nickname for the women and called them the “Braidy Bunch”, which is mildly amusing when you hear it once but can wear thin after the sixth or seventh time.

So we shopped about and they had this bra made from coconut shells, which are shells that come from coconuts and they call them a “basket belong titi”… sounds rude but it is the real word… honest…and they’ve got beads and baskets and batik type stuff… They really are super markets – oh, not supermarkets as in supermarkets but super markets as in markets that are super… just like the Queen Victoria markets back home really, except these open 24 hours… and close on Sundays… and are only run by women… and sell food like lap-lap and live pigs and Vanuatu souvenirs… so they’re really nothing much like the Queen Victoria Markets really but you get the drift.

And one of the best souvenirs are authentic World War Two Coke bottles, which are bottles of Coke that were drunk by the American soldiers in World War Two…and you know they’re authentic because back then Coke put the date they were made on them like this one had “1943”, which Gavin said was digital time for just after seven-thirty last night – sometimes he makes me wonder – but they are only about six bucks and with the benefit of hindsight I wish we had of got one.

Anyway lunch was beckoning as it did for us daily because they have some amazing food and wine and bubbly… That one was French I think. Special Reserve or something because I just said bring us a good bottle of bubbly for a special occasion. I thought it was appropriate to remind Gavin of his little romantic down-on-one knee gesture. In fact it was actually down-on-two-knees, which was possibly not such a bad thing considering, and that’s Zilo, our waiter, pouring. We got to know Zilo by name because he wears a nametag.

This was Gavin’s big treat, to go big game fishing. See, it’s really big over there and you go out to the Marlin Highway and it’s called that because it’s like a highway under the water where all the marlin hang out. And that particular fish, I was informed, is a 25 kilo wahoo… or as Gavin was heard to remark (on several occasions), a “wahoo serious”. He gets on my wick sometimes.

And because Vanuatu has some of the best diving in the world Gavin insisted on an introductory scuba lesson, which apparently comes with the unwritten rule that you hold on to something when you hand your tank up. I don’t’ dive because I reckon it could really turn your make up into muck up, which wouldn’t be a good look at all. And here’s Gavin in his famous shirt that we got signed by one of the people in Survivor and it could well have been the one that one because he told us he was the ‘Best Boy’ on the show. We don’t know whether to have it framed or flog it on E-Bay.

And you know what – everyone over there lived on what’s called ‘island time’ or, as the saying goes, “the coconut will fall when it is ripe.” And I guess that would be definitely be the case unless, well, like if someone climbed up and picked one, or a bird with a big beak pecked the crap out of the stalk, or someone chopped the whole tree down…so really, I’m not sure why it’s a saying but as you can tell, Vanuatu sure is a mysterious place.

So, you really have to go to Vanuatu and I promise you’ll have a fabby time just like what we did and to sign off now just like they do in postcard-land – weather wonderful; wish we were there! TTFN