Fiji the friendly islands - Bula Bula, Vinaka

After a VERY bouncy, wet and rough journey on a small boat to another island called Ovalau, we landed at the old colonial capital of Fiji, a small town called Levuka. Another very laid back sort of place - to get out of the jetty area we had to walk through the harbour masters house as the gates were locked - no one seemed to think this was odd or unusual! Every one just said 'Bula'

It feels very much like stepping back into the past. The town has now gained World Heritage Status, which hopefully will help to preserve these lovely old buildings. The volcanic hills made a spectacular backdrop to this friendly little town.
Levuka Unesco
We stayed in a gorgeous B&B with ever so friendly hosts John and Marylin, and enjoyed seeing local villages with our guide Nox.

 

 

 

Apparently these pigeons are the descendants of the original colonial pigeon post birds!

We visited a local catholic high school - St John's, which reminded Shona very much of the school buildings where she taught at OLSH on Yule Island PNG, so many years ago.

 

On the gable end of the classrooms a world map had been painted with notes on where the students were from, it included UK, USA, Japan and many European countries as well as many from other pacific countries.

 There had been a recent 'outage' of electricity for 1/2 the island!!

 I wonder if Rhian will teach in a school with such high aspirations!! The kids look very happy!

 

After leaving the islands we went back to the main island and spent a couple of days near Sigatoka, where we visited a rather quiet Hari Krishna temple, bought lovely fruit in the market and ate a superb vegetarian indian lunch.

A gentile taxi ride back to Nadi airport and we were on our way home - quite an adventure!

Fiji - welcome to paradise.

To escape the winter cold after hearing all about the heatwave back home we decided a wee trip to a tropical island was in order.

Graham and Diane had enthused us with their adventures in Fiji last winter, so we were keen to see it for ourselves.

We arrived in Nadi (pronounced Nandi!) and the airhostess said 'welcome to Paradise' as we touched down! We had decided not to hire a car but use buses and taxi's, so we waited in warmth and brilliant sunshine for the air conditioned bus for Suva the capital.

Unfortunately by the time we go to Suva it was raining and dark - a local 3rd world bus station in the dark and rain is a very confusing and noisy place! We also made a mistake with our first nights accommodation - not worthy of Lonely Planet - we shall write to them to let them know!

It got better after that!
We were sitting in the front and realised the bus driver was watching the film on a monitor as he drove - a bit disconcerting!

 At least the Sunbeam buses all have windows unlike local and school buses!

 This is a place not to stay in Suva!



This is the place to stay! The Grand Pacific - beautiful. We did manage a lovely coffee and breakfast there!

Suva is a big city and very like ones in Malaysia etc, we enjoyed eating in Hawker Centres and visited the main museum, where they have ocean going canoes and interestingly a section of the original rudder of the Bounty (as of Mutiny on the Bounty)

From Suva we got a taxi to Bau Landing where we were to get a boat to the island of Leleuvia off the east coast of the main island of Viti Levu. We were quite surprised when we go to the landing down a long dirt road to find there was nothing and nobody there! The taxi driver waitied with us until some other people arrived who were going to another island on a local boat. It was very 'Fiji Time' a small boat arrived with the school children from Bau island and some of their teachers heading home, so we had a chat to them.

Eventually a truck arrived with provisions for our island and then the boat arrived - as you can see it was overcast and very windy!

After a bouncy wet trip we arrived at the island. X marks the spot (too small for the map!)



A beautiful if windswept tiny coral island, which took all of 20 minutes to walk right round.

 At low tide it was fascinating walking out on the reef, where during the day we had been snorkelling amongst a rainbow of tropical fish, including comical clown fish, elegant angel fish and huge parrot and long thin fish (don't know their names!!)

The coral was superb too. The photo above is from the website as we didn't have an underwater camera unfortunately! See Graham and Diane's blog for some good photos of the same reef. G & D Blog. Thanks to you both for the recommendation to stay on this tiny island.

We did have some sunny weather but it remained windy for our 3 days in Leleuvia. Apart from extreme relaxation we did enjoy some local cuisine, including superb fish, cooked fern leaves, local ceviche and a Kava or two with the lovely staff.

 A new dorm for back packers was being built using pandanus leaves for the roof

The high point for both of us was the first dive we have done in 15 years - both of us were a bit nervous especially as the swell was very high. We both had a dive master with us and although the visibility was quite poor we did have the excitement of catching a large green turtle (about 20 years old). One of the dive masters wrote on a pad underwater to reassure us it was being caught for tagging not eating! It was very strong and put up quite a fight before it was put in the boat.

 Here you can just see him swimming away from Seru the dive master after being tagged.

A baby turtle had also been rescued and was being protected until it was large enough to release and have a good chance of surviving in the wild.

A beautiful restful island.



True Kiwi entertainment

June is the time for three iconic Kiwi events, the national Field Days, the NZ hosted FIFA U20's and Kiwi mating season (the birds of course!)

We started off our weekend with a Kiwi Night Walk in the Ohope Wildlife Sanctuary, led by two members of the local Whakatane Kiwi Trust. It was a very different experience being out in the bush at night, especially sitting with a group of 15 people in silence and darkness just listening to the night and watching the stars through the creaking Punga (fern) and Rimu trees.
Kiwi calls
We did (eventually!) hear 2 male Kiwi calling very loudly and very close to where we were. Kiwi are amazing birds where the egg the female carries is huge and looks about half her size - it can only fit because the two halves of the breastbone are not joined in the middle so the chest can expand to accommodate the egg!
Kiwi facts

We also saw some huge Wetas - cricket type beasties. We were lucky to see 2 of the 3 main types in NZ, Tree and Cave Wetas - the cave ones have smaller bodies but enormous long legs and can jump a very long way!
This one is a tree Weta with Malcolm's hand for size comparison!

The next day we popped over to Mystery Creek (near Hamilton - great name!) where the Annual National Farmers Gathering called the Field Days is held. Everyone who is anyone goes to Field Days - a truly national institution. It is actually a bit like our County Shows without the animals - just HUGE GYNORMOUS tractors (the one below costs the same as a small house!), happy farmers wearing Swandri and lots and lots of 'things' to make cows, sheep and farmers smile!

 Tractor pulling was a very serious business and the competition was fierce!

 Happy cow- with automatic milking on demand!

 Even the police cars were dressed for the part!

 Lots of tasty things to try as well, including a very passable whisky!

Then back again to Hamilton on Sunday to watch the one of the semi-finals of the FIFA U20's world cup. We watched the up and coming new stars of Brazil and Portugal. Luckily the awful FIFA scandal has not spoilt this competition here in NZ.  It was an even match which went to penalties, with Brazil winning - they went on to win the U20 World cup. Portugal played well but their goal kicking was woeful!