As I said previously, Scott and I are quite adept at moving house… Moving helps you keep the clutter out of your life. But this is the first time we have moved to another country.

I don’t know why yet, but here, like in the US, the steering wheel is on the left side of the car and you drive on the right hand side of the road. So when you have spent your whole life driving in Australia, it takes some getting used to! To make it a little more difficult, we bought a manual car, so the gear stick is moved with the right hand too.

So being in a flow of traffic is fine, but when you come to a roundabout, natural instinct is to give way to the right. Here we give way to the left. When I pull out onto a road with no traffic (which is not very often) I have to remind myself which side of the road to be on.

Port Vila is an interesting place to try to navigate… there are no street names, so if you need directions to somewhere it is like… “got to the top of the hill, go right and then turn left when you get to the grey wall…”

There are very few traffic signs, I can see the remnants of some long gone signs by the holes in the ground. It makes it interesting when there is a give way to the traffic from the street on your right! There is the faintest of lines on the road in some spots. All the locals know what is going on, it is just practice and time I guess…?

There is not one set of traffic lights, quite a few roundabouts, some strange give way spots and no street lighting. Don’t know how I will go if I’m out at night time!

The bus drivers can stop right in front of you, with no warning and pull into traffic just as quickly. The road rules are very ‘relaxed’ here overall. You see kids standing in the back of Utes all the time. I have to say though, most drivers are very courteous, if you need to turn left across traffic they will often hold back when there is a break on the other side to let you in.

just pull up anywhere

They just pull up anywhere…!

All this keeps you on your toes, new challenges keep your brain ticking over and keep you young right?… right…?

Will write again soon.

Cheers

Darleen

See you in Paradise