Up the creek, straddling

You can walk to the base of the Mele Cascades. Lee Atkinson took a short cut.

IN VANUATU, "ass i kam fastaem" means reverse or backwards. Say it out loud and it makes sense - "ass, he come first time". Say it out loud when you're perched on the edge of a waterfall, about to abseil, and the phrase takes on new meaning.

The national language of Vanuatu is Bislama, a type of Creole English with the occasional French word thrown in for good measure. "Ass i kam fastaem"was a phrase I used more than once on a half-day tour of the Mele Cascades, Vanuatu's famous waterfall. Whereas most visitors walk to the base of the 50-metre falls, stopping en route to cool off in the chain of rock pools linked by smaller cascades along the way, we opted to do it backwards - starting at the top and working our way down - ass i kam fastaem.

The journey began with a thigh-burning half-hour climb along a muddy, jungly ridge where, thankfully, the views across Efate towards Port Vila, Vanuatu's biggest city, gave us an excuse to catch our breath. By the time we reached the top we were literally steaming in the humidity; when the track became a waist-deep river, we had to wade through - no one hesitated.

Most in the group were first-time abseilers, so we learnt the ropes and gained our confidence at an eight-metre practice cliff that ended in a deep, clear and surprisingly chilly plunge pool. The rope-assisted climb back up a gushing cascade was more challenging than the abseil down, which felt like jumping into a swimming pool, backwards, while hanging on to a rope. By the time we headed to the top of the main waterfall, we were feeling good, in a wet and sweaty kind of way.

We tackled the drop in two relatively easy sections. Not only is the cascade the length of an Olympic swimming pool, it felt like an Olympic swimming pool was being poured on our heads as we slid down the rope, dangling down the middle of the falls and into the deep plunge pool at the base. The ultimate waterslide.

It's only when you look back up through the spray that you realise how high a 50-metre waterfall is - and how much water pours down the rock face. And it's only then that you can see the dark fathomless cave in the rock face we'd blithely jumped over without giving a thought to what would happen if we misjudged our leap. It's also only then that we all agree that it was a good thing we couldn't see from the top, or none of us would have had the courage to go over the edge. You don't have to abseil to get close to the falls - there are two walking tracks; one winding through the rainforest beside the falls, the other straight up the middle of the chain of cascades, rope cordons bolted into the rock to help you stay upright as you wade through the water. Either way, there are plenty of places where you can get wet along the way.

Back at our beachside resort, we toasted the day's adventure with a Tusker beer in the beachside bar that overlooks the wet-edge pool but it felt pretty tame after going over a wet edge of a very different type.

Vanuatu's resorts may be perfect for a "flop and drop" fun-in-the-sun holiday but abseiling down Mele Cascades gives the term a new twist - ass i kam fastaem.