Friday 3 July 2015

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!

1 comment:

  1. Lovely shots there! Shona may know my mother who was also a teacher at Yule Island ;-)

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