Paradise So Close!

Location: Erakor Island Resort, Erakor Island, off Efate Island (Capital Port Villa), Vanuatu.

Arriving on Erakor Island, a 10 min (car and boat) trip from the capital Port Villa, was nothing short of a revelation. How can paradise be, only a 3 hour flight from Sydney and I not know about this till now?

Toddler Travel:

Travel time - 3 hours in the sky.

Childcare - A kids club on Erakor Island Resort that focussed on dinner time entertainment and catered to all ages was terrific. An inspired English and French speaking Vanuatuan local, Patrick keeps the kids super happy and is a wonderful guy.

General Facilities - A fun play fort and a sandy beach which our little guy could wade into the clear blue water and sit without the worry of waves was perfect. If you wanted to wheel a pram around the island, it could be easily done.

Parent Perspective:

Location - I couldn't get the smile off my face for 3 days, simply because we were living the dream. We were walking around on sandy paths feeling integrated with the island, swimming on sandy bottom shorelines, living in a beautiful spa villa hut, eating delicious food. We could SUP or kayak around the island and see through clear water to the coral, home of starfish and small tropical fish. The food was excellent for Vanuatu standards, sometimes breakfast was delivered on 'island time' but worth the wait.

Day Trips:

Must see places to visit on Efate include The Blue Lagoon, Mele Falls and Eden Beach.

Click on the image above to view photo gallery.

Swim, Ski, Surf - Vanuatu, Japan, Hawaii

Three destinations, three of us - Amy, Oli and little Max.

Firstly, back to gratitude... for everything, for family time, for our adventures, for love, for time, for time and time.

Yes, time is the very thing that I'm always chasing, especially now that I'm a parent. I want to slow it down and make each moment last forever and sometimes I want to speed it up. Like, I'm so tired, please can we all hurry up and go to sleep. Or, can we have more family time? Can we have more alone time? Far out, Max is growing so fast - where did all that time go? I need more time for meditation, he wants more time for exercise, he needs more time to finish off his dinner...

This year without any mindful planning, except that 'it just so happens', we're travelling a bit. It's very lucky and I'm going to clock this as 'time'. Through sharing some thoughts about this, here in my blog, I'm going to really notice the time we have.

Our travels, will sometimes be just us three, sometimes with our family, sometimes missing the family who can only Skype in with us on these journey's but who are always with us when see and do stuff we wish we could share with them! Other times, it's going to be with wonderful friends.

And so, it begins...

Vanuatu.