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The older the plane....
...the bigger the moustache. An old Air Chatham plane (a bunch of islands to the east of NZ) masquerading as an Air Fiji plane. My Christmas holiday started in Labasa - the main town on the second largest island, Vanua Levu. My fellow travellers and I spent the first day looking around town. Labasa is a big centre for the sugar cane industry here so it wasnt unusual to see huge trucks spilling over with sugar cane trundling through the main street in town.
Next stop was Savusavu - about a 3 hour bus ride from Labasa. Its only about 70kms from Labasa to Savusavu but given the steep hills and the age of the bus, we averaged around 20-30km/hr. It was a great way to see some of the countryside and the smaller villages. Savusavu is a bit of a sailing capital so a few nights were spent at happy hour at the rather rustic & tiny yacht club. It had a great view over the harbour and was a nice place for sunset and a few Fiji Golds.
We had Christmas lunch at a small resort just out of town. It was a great day as we got to make use of the pool and all the guests, expats and locals at the lunch were a great crowd. We were even
Labasa
View of the river & mountains from the guesthouse. treated to a visit by Santa - complete with red sulu and a rather dodgy cotton wool beard. Hot tip - double sided tape doesnt work too well if its hot & humid. Lunch was a combination of traditional (turkey, potatoes etc) and Fijian (dalo, dalo leaves) with trivia questions and a few games of heads & tails. The rest of our time in Savusavu was spent snorkelling and swimming and just lying around reading.
After Christmas, I headed over to Taveuni - the island just to the east of Vanua Levu. Another 3hr bus trip with free fake tan application (ie I arrived on Taveuni completely covered in dust & dirt thanks to the absence of glass in the windows on the bus but it was worth it for the cool breeze) followed by a 1 hour boat trip across Somosomo strait. The next day I met up with friends from Australia and we checked in to the house we had rented for a few days. It was amazing and we couldnt quite believe how nice it was. My birthday was relatively low key with some drinks & dinner on the deck followed by an unusual tasting pudding
bought at the local market which we later worked out was made from cassava and not quite as sweet as we thought!
More friends arrived the following day and we headed to Bouma National Park for a hike to some beautiful waterfalls. The next next day we headed to Lavena on the eastern side of the island for a coastal walk - again finishing with a swim in a huge waterfall. New Years Eve was spent walking up Des Voeux Peak (the second tallest peak on Taveuni) - well some of us actually drove up due to some mean blisters acquired during the coastal walk (I have since thrown out those dodgy reef sandals as I never want to wear them again!) The walkers left at 5am and the 4WDers left at 8am via the amazing roti stand at the airport for the best roti parcels in Fiji for only $1.50. We had been buying up big each day for lunch and were a bit disappointed when the stand was closed at 8am. Not to worry - our driver knew where the roti making legend lived so drove us to her house and we bought the roti parcels straight
from the source! The walkers were very excited to see us drive up at 9am with a bag of roti for them. They were also very glad we were there to give them a lift back down the peak in the back of the ute.
New Years Eve celebrations were at a restaurant just down the hill from where we were staying and it was a great night of dancing and silliness. Everyone was waiting for midnight but a few minutes after midnight nothing had happened so a friend & I just started counting down from 10, everyone else joined in and there you have it - Happy 2008! New Years Day was a bit rainy so we just slept in and enjoyed the view and the pool.
We then headed across to Dolphin Bay Divers Resort on Vanua Levu for two nights. One of my friends did her advanced scuba course and a few others did some diving while the rest of us snorkelled, walked to a lookout and read by the beach.
Our last night was back on Taveuni at a guesthouse at the southern end of the island. It is run by a Fijian-Indian
family so dinner was a great curry followed by a bollywood movie based on There's Something About Mary. The snorkelling just offshore was fantastic and a great way to spend my last morning on holiday. I flew back to Suva that afternoon and my other friends flew back to Nadi that day and the next day for the rest of their adventures in Tonga, the Yasawas and the Mamanucas.
PS - I was going to use the map function but it appears Taveuni has either disappeared from Google Earth or has been strangely distorted.
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