At dawn and dusk the island fills with March Flies – a large fly roughly the size of a bumble bee, but green in colour! They land on you and will draw blood, but don’t leave a sting like a mosquito. They are quite docile so when they land on you it is possible to swat them! This meant that once everybody was awake, we were all doing the ‘March Fly Dance’ slapping our legs and arms like lunatics! Funny to watch but irritating at the same time. One morning we killed 15 during breaky!
After some cornflakes with warm milk (nice!) and a market-traders wash (a wet wipe and fresh deodorant – even nicer!) we were back in the vans again. The next drive was mostly over the hard sand beach so Manda decided it would be a good opportunity to practice her off-road 4WD skills. She drove for around 20 miles along the 75 mile beach which makes up the whole east side of the island. There was even some pretty extreme off road sections which she took in her stride. The whole group agreed she did an amazing job. Before long we arrived at the bottom of a section which had very deep loose sand. Our guide instructed us to select ‘Low Range’ and 2nd gear and ‘Don’t be scared to use the accelerator.... a lot!’ Mand hit the gas and we snaked our way through the sand, the engine revving to a deafening pitch!
We had made it and Mand was extremely pleased with her efforts! We had arrived at Champagne Pools... a section of beach with a natural rock structure just off the shore line. The large waves crash over the rocks and into the salt water pools, causing a Jacuzzi effect in the water – or champagne bubbles as it is cleverly marketed! We had a little swim but the water was very cold and had stingers in it so we spent most of the time catching some rays with the rest of the group.
After a couple of hours we headed back through the boggy sand to the start of a short walk. The ‘short walk’ turned out to be about 15 minutes up a steep hill in the midday sun. Not very pleasant. Although when we emerged at the top we were 65m above sea level on land that stuck out in to the Pacific Ocean, with beautiful views. The place was called Indian Heads and on a calm day you can clearly see sharks, rays, dolphins and wales out to sea. Today the sea was rough so visibility was poor!
Back in the vans again Rhod navigated us back down the beach to our lunch spot – Cathedral Beach. Here there was a little shop and some picnic benches. We devoured our remaining pasta and Gav treated himself to an ice cream. There was some impressive wildlife at this stop = Iguanas the size of dogs roaming round and some VERY large spiders in webs. At one point Gav was talking to Courtney about their dislike of spiders whilst looking at a very large example. At the same time a large ant ran up Gav’s leg and he screamed like a girl, thinking it was spider!! That was very funny but what happened next turned the group into hysterics again. Around 20meters away a large iguana had crawled up a tree and one of the German ladies from our trip was talking a nice close photo of it. Gav’s scream startled the Iguana and it fell from the tree on to its back, right next to the German lady... this then made her scream!! It may have been one of those moments that ‘you had to be there’ but in our tired state it made us laugh!
Lynsey, one of the English girls, decided to have a go driving after lunch. She had never driven anything bigger than a little hatchback and that was more than 2 years ago! After some good encouragement from the group she was on her way and took us too ‘The Pinnacles’ which is a large rock formation – very rare on this sand island! It reminded us of Pancake rocks in New Zealand. Very pretty.
Only a couple of minutes further down the beach, there was a very large shipwreck of the Maheno; a luxury cruise ship that was larger than The Titanic. Bought by the Japanese it was being towed to Japan when it got washed ashore in a storm. It has never moved since. A third of the ship is missing as it was used for target practice in the Second World War. Before this, people actually lived on the wreck and it was used as a school! It is now half under the sand but is still extremely impressive to see the big waves crashing through the tattered frame.
To finish a long day we headed to Eli Creak – a fresh water creek pumping out 4 million litres an hour! It was refreshing (and well overdue) to have a wash in some clean fresh water! Our guide blew up a double inflatable mattress and we floated down the creek under the canopy of the trees, feeding the march flies to the fish as we went!
We headed back to camp just in time as there was a massive storm heading our way. We all huddled under the tarpaulin canopy of the cooking area and the rain pelted down. The canopy started to flood so we had to keep emptying it. Unfortunately our private tent (‘the honeymoon suite’ as it was nicknamed) didn’t stand up to the storm and got flooded! Gav emptied our bags out tent and kept wonderfully dry with a bin-bag dress! Which meant that we ended up gate crashing a tent with Rhod and Alex (2 people from our car)! It was a very hot uncomfortable night!!
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