TRADING PLACES: CHIEF PETER’S ISLAND IN THE SUN

David Ellis

TURNING 21 is always good reason for a party, and out in Vanuatu they’ve been doing just that to celebrate the 21^st anniversary of one of the country’s more-popular little bolt-holes with Aussie holidaymakers.

A bloke with one of those romantically-titled jobs of South Sea island trader, Peter Nicholson and his wife Sue built this little haven after falling in love with Vanuatu during their years shipping everything from beds and bathtubs to tinned food and toys, car parts and clothing to far-flung specks of dirt and coral known as the South Pacific islands.

They’d originally planned to become restaurateurs after upping house in Sydney and moving to Port Vila, but turned their attention to the tranquil little Iririki Island in the town’s harbour after learning that the government was keen to see investment in a resort on the island – that until Independence a few years earlier, had been home to the British Resident Commissioner, a British community hospital, a shipyard and a dairy herd.

The Nicholsons decided to move into the abandoned British Residency which they’d been assured was vacant and livable, but when they arrived they discovered the remnants of the old dairy herd had already taken up residence.

After cleaning out a tonne of cow pats and painting the place with disinfectant, they got onto Australian building pre-fabricators George Hudson Homes and had them ship-up 72 kit-form farés (bungalows) to the Nicholson’s design.

Iririki Island Resort opened to much ceremony on March 21 1986, but it was not without its moments as it involved Peter having to go through a nerve-testing event before a vast crowd, in which he was required to catch a war club thrown vertically across a fat pig roasting in a traditional ground-oven.

If he unhesitatingly caught the club from the head of the island’s traditional landowners, Chief Graham Kalsakau he would officially become “Chief Peter of Iririki Island.”  If he fumbled and dropped it, well…

Fortuitously it was a good catch, but within six months the Nicholsons and other resort operators in Vila were devastated: overnight, air services from Australia were slashed to just two a week leaving resorts almost empty.

But ironically rescue for Iririki came in an unlikely form from two Gold Coast developers, one an Ansett Airlines pilot named Dick Holt who used to fly to Vila, and the other former Geelong AFL player Rick (“Ricky”) Graham, who decided that the resort was worth investing in.

Then just three months later came another blow: the most devastating storm ever to lash Port Vila, Cyclone Uma almost wiped both Vila and Iririki Island off the face of the earth during the longest night of locals’ lives. With winds up to 200kmh and rain measured by the metre, Sue Nicholson and their few remaining guests huddled in the resort’s blacked-out concrete toilet block until the roof caught fire, when they retreated to a sodden, windswept refuge under the building.

Peter meanwhile was trapped in their house watching the roof slowly peeling off; after 10 agonising hours Uma passed out to sea, and daybreak revealed fewer than a third of Iririki’s 72 farés still standing.

It took a year to get the resort fully operational again; the Nicholsons helped spearhead the ultimate establishment of Vanuatu’s own much-needed airline, Air Vanuatu, and stayed on until 1991 when Rick and Ngaire Graham took over Iririki as owner/managers, turning the island into a ‘child free’ sanctuary for those adults “not wanting to spend their holidays baby-sitting other people’s kids.”

The Grahams sold out in 2001 to a group of Melbourne investors who late last year renamed the island Iririki Island Resorts & Spa, added 61 new Deluxe Rooms and tri-level Penthouses for couples and families, put in one of the South Pacific’s biggest ‘horizon’ pools, built an extra restaurant and café to supplement the existing premier Michener’s Restaurant and Bali Hai Café, and extended the watersports facilities.

To holiday in a choice of either the Farés, Deluxe Rooms or Penthouses on Iririki Island – the name means 'safe haven' in the local dialect – see travel agents, phone 1800 641 803 or check out www.iririki.com