mooquack.com

It sounds like something out of a book called ‘100 things to do before you die’, but today we managed to stand on the crater rim of a very active volcano and live to tell the tale.  Perhaps the book would more appropriately be titled ‘100 things that could cause you to die’?

The reason for coming to Vanuatu was Mt Yasur, one of the world’s most accessible volcanoes.  Indeed, from the accounts of people who have been to Hawaii and other such places, this volcano seems to be relatively unique in being remarkably active (erupting every few minutes) and still allowing tourists to the crater rim.  Not coincidentally, this relatively unrestricted access may have something to do with the delightful lack of OHS rules in third world countries…

I’d love to say we found ourselves out on the edge of adventure travel through reading books about the place when I was young.  Perhaps to claim that we had heard about it from fellow travellers whilst engaging in some other form of adventure tourism.  The more mundane truth is that we only actually found out about it courtesy of reality television - ‘Survivor: Vanuatu’ - but when we did a bit of research it immediately became a planned destination.

Tanna is a relatively small island and the distance from our accommodation to Mt Yasur was only about 35km but it takes just over two hours to get there because the roads are in fairly poor condition.  Everything you read about Tanna mentions the roads are appallingly bad but in reality, they’re not bad so long as there has not been a downpour recently.  As soon as there’s a downpour the road becomes a series of waterholes and it’s very easy to get 4WD vehicles bogged.  Our accommodation always sent two vehicles - one to pull the other out if it ever got stuck.  We did get stuck one day but not this day.

At the base of the volcano, we stopped on the ash plains for some time.  If there’s one criticism of the entire experience it was spending an hour on the ash plains for no particular reason.  We spoke with the accommodation managers afterward to find out why we spent two hours crossing the island to get to the volcano and then sat 500m away from it for an hour whilst our drivers sat and chatted.  It seems that they allow up to 3 hours to cross the island and if they get there sooner, they don’t go up because they don’t think it’s worth seeing during the day.  Trust me - it’s worth seeing during the day as well.  I suspect there’s a little bit of volcano-fatigue for the drivers and since it’s a live volcano, they’re probably minimising their risk of inadvertently killing a tourist by sitting out of the danger zone for longer but all six of us on the tour that day found it to be a most frustrating experience to come so close then sit and wait for seemingly no reason.  We went there on a second day but Di and I were wiser then so we used our group negotiation skills (did anyone mention ‘Survivor: Vanuatu’?) to get everyone back in the vehicle 10 minutes after we’d all got bored on the ash plain and essentially force the driver up the mountain earlier than he wanted to go…*evil grin*

We donned our protective gear at the base of the volcano (of course, the tourists dutifully wore the helmets and fluorescent safety jackets whilst the locals went barefoot, carrying their gear under their arms) and climbed up to the crater rim.  It’s a fairly steep climb in parts and only one tough part where the ash is not bedded down quite as firmly so you sink into it and make slower progress, but it’s certainly not impossible by any means.  When you reach the crater rim, it’s hard to believe you’re really there.  It was described by another traveller there as “so real it’s like a movie”.  It’s exactly what every kid (and Hollywood) imagines a volcano to be - dark and forbidding ash all around you, a large circular crater peppered with rocks thrown violently out in the past, and pools of lava bubbling at the bottom.

When an eruption occurs, there’s an enormous noise as massive amounts of gas blast the lava skyward so fast it creates a sonic boom.  The ground literally shakes under your feet and the only thing that distracts you from that is the impact you feel as the shockwave from the sonic boom hits you.  It’s an astonishing feeling to have a soundwave punch straight through you and feel your whole body vibrate from the impact.  At the same time as this is happening, of course, large amounts of molten rock are being hurled skyward in an amazing display of the earth’s power.  The image of the daylight eruption was actually taken by accident because of the explosion - I was just adjusting the camera settings to be appropriate for the light levels and trying to work out the right zoom level.   Suddenly the first eruption since we had reached the crater rim occurred and I was essentially unprepared for it since my focus was entirely on the camera.  Terrified I was going to drop the camera into the volcano, my hands instinctively gripped it tighter and since I had my finger on the button to take a photo, I managed to accidentally depress the button and capture the scene!

From our vantage point about 80 metres above the lava vents, it took less than a couple of seconds for the lava to be level with us, then it kept travelling skyward, high above us.  Most of the lava flying skyward is ejected within the confines of the crater so as it comes down, there’s no danger to viewing.  However, there’s always the chance that it’s not all contained within the crater.    The guides have simple advice about what to do when the volcano erupts - don’t run.  If you run, one of three things is very likely to happen.  Either:

(1) you will trip and fall all the way down the outside of the crater, or
(2) you will trip and fall all the way down the inside of the crater, or
(3) you won’t have your eyes on the sky and will be hit with lava as it descends. 

The appropriate thing to do - after having the ground shake beneath you as your tingling body punched with a shockwave attempts to regain the sense of hearing - is to calmly stay where you are and watch the sky to make sure none of the lava bombs are tracing a deadly arc toward your position.  If you can see that you’re about to be hit and experience a fiery and instant disintegration, you are advised to step to one side and allow the lava to land harmlessly on the ground.

A mere 7-10 seconds from the commencement of the eruption pass before rocks are thudding out of the sky and the sheer exhilaration of that short time window is beyond compare.  The volcano can easily eject lava bombs from the size of tennis balls through to Volkswagen Beetles so you never know what’s coming next.  On our second visit to the volcano, we had been at the rim only a few minutes when an enormous eruption hurled lava skyward.  We kept our eyes firmly skyward and watched as typewriter-sized lumps of 3000 degree Celsius molten rock landed close to us.  One landed 5m directly in front of us, whilst another landed 8m to our right, 4m behind us.  It is, without exception, the most intense feeling as molten death rains down all around you!!!  Words simply cannot do justice to the sensation and I was ecstatic - my greatest hope in travelling to the volcano was that an eruption would occur to the extent that lava was projected beyond our position, and I was not disappointed.

After sunset the colour of the lava becomes more intense due to the lack of ambient light and it’s the most magnificent fireworks display.  The white smoke still pouring out of the volcano takes on a pink hue, lit from below, and as we left the volcano and headed back to our bungalow we could see the pink glow in the sky which attracted Captain Cook to the island a couple of centuries ago.  Unfortunately for him, it was taboo at the time to ascend to the crater rim so he had to leave without managing to achieve what we did so easily this year.

I can’t recommend the opportunity to visit this volcano enough - the word “awesome” gets thrown around a lot these days but this truly is an awesome experience which will be with us forever.

 

February 12th, 2009 | Category: Travel, Vanuatu 2009 | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL