4th stop Fiji

Oceania » Fiji
August 28th 2008

Published: August 28th 2008

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PaulandJanet

Fiji

From our balcony

Bula! Everyone says hello as you pass them in the street. Never expected to come to Fiji. This is where Australians go for their holidays. We were often asked in Hawai’i if we were Australian. Here it will be even more likely. Our room has a balcony with a mountain view. It also has a bed with a lovely welcome! Unfortunately the first thing has to be to apply insect repellent. Everyone gets bitten. That done, we’re ready for each day. The main industry here, apart from tourism, is sugar, & the sugar cane is harvested then transported through our resort on a little train. Little but long. Paul counted well over 100 carriages of cane going through and that happens several times a day AND in the night. Luckily our room is some way from the track & we face the other way too. Other people are woken in the night. The cane is taken to a sugar foundry some distance away. We walked along the track (not to be done at home) to see what we could see and passed an oil refinery then a police station and found a marina with some posh boats so we stopped for

Fiji

Strange transparent mountain range?

drinks before our return walk.
We took a boat trip to some other islands. We taxied to the main marina on the island where we were staying & went on a catamaran to transfer to a two masted schooner, the Seaspray, built in Scotland in 1920s. As we boarded we were given champagne & fresh fruit & told to help ourselves to drinks all day. Drinks; beer, wine, soft drinks were in two ice trunks on the deck & even with about 50 people on board they didn’t run out. Seaspray took us to the island of Manuka where we visited a traditional Fijian village, were welcomed with a Kava ceremony, then were shown through the village, including a look at the boarding school. when we returned to the boat the captain & others were busy cooking a superb barbecue of fish, sausages & chicken, with a fantastic spread of things to go with it. We sailed on to an uninhabited island, Modriki, the island used in the film ‘Castaway’ where we wandered around amongst palm trees & Janet tried a bit of snorkelling. The corals & the fish are beautiful, but getting to them from the beach was not

Fiji

The wlelcome bed

easy wearing flippers and moving over sharp rocks & corals as well as fighting against the waves. Wouldn’t have missed it though. Guess what… we were greeted with cakes & cookies as we boarded for the last time. That was some day.
The next day Paul went on a fishing trip. Just he & the boatman went for about 6 hours & returned with some very tasty fish that the chef prepared to out liking for our evening meal. While Paul was out Janet spotted a mongoose, an animal introduced here to deal with the snakes. It was successful as there are no snakes. The mongoose, however, is multiplying & having to find alternative food!
We had another brilliant day out. This time we were picked up by boat from our resort on a choppy sea & sped to Beachcomber Island, leaping off the waves as the boat hit them. We spent the day enjoying the most beautiful place. We both think Nibby & Matt should come here. It’s an island resort, can be walked round in 10 minutes & has everything you can wish for on holiday. We went out on a glass bottomed boat to view the corals

Fiji

Another day

& fish. Some went snorkelling off the boat too. We had superb food in the resort. Janet decided to take the plunge & go parasailing. It was brilliant. She would certainly go again. Our fast boat broke down so it couldn’t take us back to our island. Instead the speed boat that took Janet parasailing took us back as it got dark. WOW!! We had to hang on tight. There were two crew & 4 passengers (all a bit bruised by the end of the journey) & we really did fly over many waves. The massive Fijian man piloting often yelled to see if we were all there & all OK. That was quite an experience. We loved it.
Left early next morning, both with a very respectable suntan. Off to the wintery part of our holiday, in New Zealand where we will probably fade considerably. However you can’t beat NewZeland……….

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