Well my last blogpost cut off unexpectedly...here is the rest, I hope...
And - we have found Mark and Leah and all is well!

… They all had scopatches but…they apparently didn’t work for some of the benighted crew… They started ahead of us on the 3 hour walk because we had to go back to 2XS and get equipped for the expedition – warm clothes for the top of the mountain, head torches, bottle of water etc etc.
It was a most beautiful walk, through the thick lush forest. Magic, as Vin Patel would surely have said. We met lots of people along the way, walking to and from the soccer ground where celebrations were taking place for Independence Day. Most of the players play in bare feet, and very nifty and vigorous they are! We were very pleased with ourselves because we overtook the New Zealanders (YES!) and we got to the top in less than the three hours we had expected. But…it was a long hard walk to the top… Lots of people passed us, from resorts, in comfy 4WD vehicles as we trudged our way up from sea level to the rim of the volcano. The guide books say Yasur is the most accessible active volcano in the world, and indeed, the cars parked at the bottom of the track, and it was only a 10 minute walk up the hill from there. Amazing!
I don’t think I can do justice to the experience. It was absolutely breathtaking, terrifying, wonderful. We met up with some of our young friends from Infinity, who were equally enthralled and fascinated. The volcano roared and rumbled and bellowed and produced the most spectacular fireworks imaginable, right over our heads. We stayed until it was nearly dark; it was very cold there, and started to rain, so we tore ourselves away from the spectacle and walked back down to the car park. Stanley wasn’t there yet so Pete and I walked back down the track for about an hour until he caught up with us. This was a strategic error; we should have kept on walking. The ride back, wedged into a twin-cab ute tray, was excruciating. There were ten of us jolting along together with nothing to hold on to… the man next to me, one of the nicer new Zealanders, was pleasant and polite and I really didn’t want to say to him, “Ummm…is that knife in your pocket…” He had some sort of large Leatherman system on his hip and it dug mercilessly into my thigh… I think I am branded for life…
All whingeing aside…it was one of the most extraordinary things I ever expect to see, Mighty Yasur!!
28th July 2011
We left Port Resolution, which was starting to feel like home, at 6am and had a beautiful cruise to the next island, Erromango. It is – are you surprised – just beautiful, gorgeous forest right down to the water’s edge. Erromango is much less populated than Tanna – between 1000 and 1500; Tanna has ten times that number. We could see mobile phone towers on the hills so I optimistically took my computer into the village…maybe there would be WiFi!! Well…there wasn’t…
But it was a lovely little village, with a fresh water river, children playing, women washing clothes on the rocks, others fishing. And everyone wreathed in smiles of delight at our arrival… One of the men, Frank, asked if he could come to Port Vila with us tomorrow, with a few buckets of wood. (??) Ofcourse we said yes. We will see if he clambers aboard at 6pm…
We were happy to meet the former chief (Jif) on the island, William Mete, and his wife, Martha, who plied us with bananas and pawpaw and a big root vegetable which I am sure will take all the gas on the boat to cook… They have a little guesthouse behind their own little house, and showed us very proudly.
Friday 29th July
(Frank the hitchhiker didn’t show at 6am…)
We have arrived – finally – in Port Vila. All very pretty but…no marina (sob) and I can’t get internet connection (double sob…)
Also I can’t find Leah (my niece) or Mark (her boyfriend (sigh sigh…)