It was time to explore the island of Efate by car. This island has a rugged coast line with a single road that circumnavigates the entire island. There are fast flowing rivers, cascading waterfalls, isolated sandy bays, lagoons, and white and black sand beaches. The coastal road meanders around the perimeter of the island.
This is a long post as I shared all of our stops on this all day adventure. Here is a recap of the places we stopped on our day around Efate:
- Secret Garden and Cultural Center
- Tanna Coffee Cafe Distribution House
- Mele (Tebakesa) Cascade Falls
- Roawia Turtle Snorkeling Adventure
- WWII Museum
- Top Rock Views and Snorkeling
- Hot Hot Natural Springs
My friends on Moana (Rena, Chris, and Helena) rented a mini moke for the day and I came along for the adventure.
Secret Garden and Cultural Center
We did not have an itinerary or any specific destinations. We just wanted to see what we could see along the way. Our first stop was the Secret Garden and Cultural Center. Unfortunately, it was closed and had been closed since covid. It was destroyed during Cyclone Pam and has not been rebuilt as there is no labor on Vanuatu. Evidently, Australia and New Zealand recruit young Vanuatu workers and pay them more. So the young people don’t want to work in their own country. The woman who lived and worked here was lovely and super happy for the company. However, we could not walk around as everything was falling to pieces – so very sad.
Tanna Coffee Distribution Center
Tanna Coffee is pretty famous here in the Pacific. We visited what we thought was the distribution place while we were in Tanna. However, we found out that was an offshoot of the original Tanna Coffee which has a distribution place in Efate. Terry the owner was very kind and gave us a tour.
Terry employs 16 workers who are responsible for a plot of land in Tanna. They grow, harvest, pick, ferment, pulp, and prepare the coffee beans and then send them to Terry to complete the processing, packaging, market, and promote the final product: medium roast, dark roast, and expresso.
He cooks/bakes his beans in these machines below. 25-30 seconds for medium roast. Another 25-30 seconds will destroy the bean. Expresso is just half medium and half dark roast. The beans below show the “raw” bean, then the dark roast (shiny with a little natural oil), and the medium roast.
Time to Cool Off at the Cascade Falls
We stop at Mele Cascades aka Tebakesa Spring Pool and Bar. There are several, clear, aquamarine pools that you can enjoy along with dozens of small cascading waterfalls. We arrived on a Sunday and even though it was open, the restaurant and bar were closed. No matter as it meant fewer people so we had the place to ourselves.
I loved that these local young boys were taking a bath.
The facilities include changing rooms, showers, toilets, restaurant, and bar and lots of seating areas. The fee to get to the pools was $1500 Vatu but if you wanted to hike to the waterfall you had to pay the Chinese owner $3000 Vatu ($30USD). We opted not to pay for the waterfall.
The water was very refreshing and absolutely beautiful.
My leg is still healing from an infection so I could not actually jump in, but Rena, Chris and Helena had a fabulous time.
Roawia Turtle and Snorkeling Tours
We stumbled across Roawai Turtle Snorkeling Tours which was a nice surprise. Totally off the beaten path, not on the main road, and a wee bit hard to find. A super nice woman explained that they offer snorkeling tours where you can see their coral restoration project, nemo city, turtles, and giant clams. Afterwards she treated us to a nice lunch.
WWII Museum
This was incredibly disappointing and in my opinion, disrespectful to veterans. This super small building with “rust in peace” on the outside is a major tour destination and stop. Inside this disorganized shed are tons and tons of bottles. Mostly coca cola bottles. But among the bottles are a few relics which he claims are from WWII.
There is a good chance they are really from WWII as the U.S. had an encampment on Efate and several U.S. planes crashed right outside this bay. However, the displays are dirty, unkept, not labeled and totally disorganized.
Top Rock and Look Out
Terry from the Tanna Coffee recommended we stop here and we are sure glad we did. Had we not already had three swimming excursions, we would have snorkeled here too. This is extremely well kept rounds, with lots of signs, and well groomed paths.
You can go to the look out point where there is a local restaurant with spectacular views.
The hillsides are made of coral and the waters were crystal clear.
You can also go down to the water where you can snorkel in their fish filled waters and visit a cave.
Natural Hot Springs
Our last stop were the natural hot springs. These are not normal hot springs as they are not maintained, kept up or really very clean. But there were locals who braved the extremely hot temperatures (we dipped a toe and yelped).
A map around Efate.
Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind schedule. This blog post occurred in Mid-June 2024. In our last blog we showed you how Efate wow’s us with their fire show!
