Down to the New Hebrides Trench again

A fortnight ago we took a look at the Trench which Vanuatu regards as the approximate border between Vanuatu (Matthew and Hunter) and New Caledonia.

It certainly marks the border line between the two submarine land masses, of the Pacific and Australia: their maritime plates. We now include the map which Les Nouvelles has previously published.. The Trench is deep.

Bus drivers certainly had a lot of questions concerning the two islands (well, actually three because Matthew is like Matasso, with 2 land masses), and after last week’s story on these places transport drivers were interested in many aspects of the geology and geography of the two archipelago constituents of the N.H.

Trench which featured strongly in the lives of the people of the outliers decades and centuries ago. We have just had the anniversary of the planting of the Vanuatu flag on Hunter (Leka in local language) on 9 March.

The original historical standard raising and anthem singing was in 1983. The Vanuatu National Archive maintains a valuable file of the Trench and islands and Daily Post will bring interesting pieces of information to our readers as they are found.

French plaques had been placed on the two islands in the ‘Seventies after France declaring, with British assent, the Condominium as part of the New Hebrides Condominium, albeit France having a responsibility for mapping. Britain declared the official flag-taising in 1983 as operative for both Matthew and Hunter. They had been won by the now Independent Vanuatu, Britain accepted.