No one died on Aneityum Island after the cyclone. They say they are the only island where this happened – because they had a plan.

You could see what destruction the village and villages had to cope with. Many buildings remained unbuilt but village life goes on. They have amazing resilience. The head of the tourism committee there, Kenneth, told us that they are proud of natural disaster plan. They have rules – no drinking water for three days after; work together; mainly, stick to the rules.

They’ve gone back to building their houses pre-missionary days. They last longer. They use traditional ways of food preserving food which includes making a kind of cheese from scraped out and minced green bananas that lasts three or four years. They suck water from stone baked sugar cane.

We went on a “Yes, very easy, four hour return walk” to a waterfall with Kim and Peter, and an Australian researcher visiting the village. This turned out to be a seven hour walk that was really a bush bash and river boulder treacherous climb, returning in the dark. Dean and I were in our element – all those Tararua tramps. About half way through I did say, “I’ve had enough now” but we still had an hour to go.

We were the first people to do the trip to the waterfall since the Cyclone. The tracks weren’t really there. Nature was broken but growing back.

We had two guides – one who went ahead and cut the track or chose the less dangerous route, the other who stayed with us. They both wore bare feet and didn’t take any lunch.
The waterfall was the tallest I’d ever seen. Hennie, one of our guides, jumped straight in with her clothes on, looked up to the top and bashed the water a few times with her fists. She had the best laugh.

The end of the walk back ended up being at dusk through the village. Some little kids had just had a wash in the river and were wrapped in towels. They ran after us then hid, squealing. “Bye bye,” they shrieked. We stood still and watched them jump up in different places like rabbits in a field. We laughed and beamed. I knew I’d remember this moment.

That night we had too much red wine, homemade fish and chips and crashed, a little scratched and bruised, but wonderfully exhausted.

The next day we found out that we could have been taken to the wrong waterfall. We possibly went to the bigger waterfall in the middle of the island! I don’t think their outdoor safety requirements are quite the same as New Zealand.

The day we left I wanted to talk to Kenneth more about what they are doing in the tourism space. But there was a big meeting on to sort out some land disputes. We were told it could go on for a couple of hours or a couple of weeks. Island time.

We’ll be back here in the future.