traceyp
Tracey Joined: April 8th 2008
Logged in: March 25th 2009
Logged in: March 25th 2009
Travel Blog Posts
World's 7th best beach!
July has been a busy month! As soon as I got back from Nauru, I met up with some friends visiting from Australia. First stop was Natadola Beach for the day. According to the sign on the Queens Rd, its the 7th most beautiful beach in the world. Stocked up with roti parcels and a pineapple, we had a great day just lying by the beach, swimming in the blue water and catching up on all our gossip. The next day we headed to Nananu-i-ra - an island just off the coast of Viti Levu near Rakiraki. The landscape from Nadi to Rakiraki is so different to that around Suva. The land is a lot drier, there are more sugarcane fields and the mountains seem to rise up from nowhere. We spent the next few days ... read more
Dinner!
There is nowhere like Nauru. It is a fascinating place but its recent history has been rather tumultuous. A very brief history - Nauru was inhabited by Micronesian and Polynesian people around 3000 years ago. Nauru was annexed by Germany in 1888 and phosphate was discovered in 1900. After WW1, Australia, New Zealand the UK became trustees of the island. Japanese forces occupied Nauru during WW2 and after the war, Australia, New Zealand and the UK continued their trusteeship of the country. Nauru became independent in 1968. In 1989, Nauru took Australia, NZ and the UK to the International Court of Justice over their actions during the trusteeship period. The main issue was the devastation to the environment from the phosphate mine. The compensation case was eventually settled out of court. Phosphate mining generated a huge ... read more
Before the start of the match
One for the rugby union fans! On my way to Nauru, I had to transit in Brisbane for a few nights. Michelle picked me up from the airport and we headed straight to Suncorp Stadium where her colleagues at work had scored a corporate suite for the Australia v France game. I was quite glad to be in a suite - a Brisbane winter feels quite cold when you've just stepped off the plane from Fiji and no longer own closed in shoes or a warm jacket. It was a fantastic view from the suite with an uninterrupted view across the field. I think the surrounding patrons were a bit surprised to see a suite full of women at the rugby or maybe it was the incessant chatter coming from our box during the entire match! ... read more
Tivua Island
A few weeks ago, my sister Michelle came to Fiji for a visit. I showed her all that Suva had to offer including the Pure Fiji Day Spa, a traditional Fijian lunch at my work, great Indian food, the pancakes at Raintree Lodge, happy hour at the Holiday Inn and "Fiji Idol" - Suva's own vocalist competition as part of the Fete de Musique. Then it was off to Nadi for a 4 night cruise around the Northern Yasawa Islands - the chain of islands to the north west of Nadi. First stop was Tivua Island - only 30mins from Nadi - for some twilight snorkelling. That night we sailed to the very top of the Yasawa island chain to Yasawa Island. The following day, and the days that followed, took on this pattern: eat, snorkel, ... read more
Air Fiji
"You are almost late!" Air Fiji check in counter guy Checking in at 7.30am for my 7.45am flight to Nadi and only being "almost late" - I love Pacific time! If any of you miss being able to visit the cockpit during plane trips these days, I highly recommend flying with Air Fiji on one of their EMB-110 planes. If you are seated in the 1st or 2nd rows, you can watch the pilots adjust all the important switches and levers as well as have a look out the front window if you lean into the aisle a bit (like I did). I quite like flying on these small planes and the retro fitout just adds to the character. Unfortunately, I dont seem to have as much luck with Air Pacific's range of ATR planes. For ... read more
Highlands outside of Suva
A random collection of photos from around Fiji - I was a bit slow getting into this blogging caper so the photos go back to the start of my trip in June 2007.... read more
Navua River, Navua
Last Saturday I headed out with the Rucksack Club for a day on the Navua River, about 45 mins from Suva. We headed out on longboats for about an hour upriver - passing by villages, fisherman, cows and the odd underwater excavator. We stopped for lunch at a waterfall about a 5 minute walk from the main river. To get to the second waterfall we had to walk through the stream - sometimes with the water up to our chests - but it was worth it for a refreshing swim under a 20m high waterfall. Back on board the longboats we headed down river to catch our bilibili. A bilibili is a traditional Fijian raft made from bamboo posts and tied together with rope. You steer a bilibili standing up with a long bamboo pole - ... read more
My lounge room
I have long been jealous of my friends' blogs that have the text & pictures right next to each other. So when you are rabbiting on about beautiful sunsets and palm trees (a rarity for me of course ;-) the reader can see if you really telling the truth or just full of crap and trying to make them jealous of your tropical paradise as another cold Canberra winter starts setting in. So I have succumbed and will be trying this out for a bit. Of course names & places will be changed to protect the innocent and if I feel like a rant not suitable for the general public there may the occasional, old school group email. A new blog is a good segue to my new place. My flatmate moved back to Australia at ... read more
Leleuvia Island
'Oh no' I hear you say! Not another weekend escape to a beautiful tropical island. Yes this time to Leleuvia Island - the slightly bigger, more developed sister island to Caqalai Island. The island was hosting an art exhibition on the Saturday night - the paintings were amazing and the opening night included singing and dancing by a local dance group. I'll let the photos do the talking but if its any consolation it rained just about all weekend. A storm blew in just before we were about to leave so we were delayed a few hours. But when we did finally set off the driver of the boat was wearing a full length wetsuit - a fairly good indication we were in for a rain soaked boat ride back. ... read more
Nagado Village
I spent the Easter long weekend with the Rucksack Club in the Viti Levu highlands. This trip was to Heaven's Edge about 2 hours inland from Nadi. On Good Friday the plan was to walk from Nagado Village to Heaven's Edge. No one was really sure how long it would take to do the walk with estimates of somewhere between 2 hours and 9 hours! We started off around 10am and it was a good but tiring walk through the mountains til lunchtime. An hour later, 5 of the group went with one of the guides on a 'shortcut' up the mountain. I stayed on the main path with the rest of the group because even though my star sign is the goat (Capricorn) - nimble as a mountain goat does not really describe my talent ... read more
