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Published: August 6th 2007
Our boat was supposed to leave at 10pm. We didn't realise that is was Fiji time and therefore it left at 2am! After a very bumpy journey, we finally docked at 12pm at Vunisea harbour (Kadavu's main port) - what a nightmare!
We took a short speed boat ride to Gaola Island, arriving at our "resort", Reece's Place. Again, we were the only travellers there and would be for the next 4 nights. We were shown to a wonderful cabin that would be "our house". The place was run by the Reece family and had such a homely feel about it. The day that we arrived was Tess, one of the daughters, 18th birthday. We were invited to join their celebrations that night. We drank Kava with the men, whilst the ladies prepared the meal and then enjoyed an amazing feast and kept being encouraged to eat more... what were we to do!
The next day we went to church in Vunisea. The service was conducted at the Post Master's house. After the service we lounged about and had lunch. After more lounging, we went for a walk to burn some of the food off! It was a strange
feeling for us to do nothing all day. We felt very restless! But as Maria, Mrs Reece, pointed out, Fijians don't do anything on a Sunday.
On monday, we were taken by Sharon (youngest daughter) and Walter (aspiring boyfreind) to the nearby reef. This was the most amazing snorkelling we'd ever done! The reef was massive and so colourful. Unfortunately for Bex, the waves were too rough and she was a bit sick. This was doubley bad for her, as while she was resting, Dom spotted a shark at the edge of the reef! He gave chase for about 30 seconds, before bottling it and heading back to the boat. We should have some excellent photos, which we will put on the blog, once we are in Sydney (as it can't be done here).
Our last full day on Galoa Island was very special. We were taken to the nearby fresh water lagoon by Sharon and Tess and their friends. We felt like we were really experiencing Fijian life, as we splashed about with the locals. That night we were invited to watch a film (power coming from a petrol engine generator!) with the whole family.
We
were so sad to leave Kadavu as we'd had such a fantastic time. The boat journey back was just as horrendous, taking 11 hours, 4 of which were spent loading/unloading cargo at another port on Kadavu. We eventually arrived back in Suva, where we went straight to a hostel and crashed out.
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Maike Hansen
non-member comment
Stay in June 1989 with Bob Szemioth
Hi, I stayed at Reeces place in 1989 and it was really unknown. I spent my days there with my former boy-friend Nabil and we enjoyed our stay there totally. We met a lot of people all over the world, all backpackers. The boat rides to the reef with our diving instructor Bob Szemioth were gorgeous. I met Bob a lot of years later in Hamburg, but I never came back to Fiji. Nowadays I am supposed to go at least to australia this summer (with my son and my friend) and I am very lucky because I will meet my 13 years old daughter there who moved to a 5-month-stay to Australia. M.