Fiji was great. Way different to what I imagined, the islands are really mountainous and craggy and not jungled as I imagined, mainly grassed or low bush.
It was quite luxurious as we even had access to composting toilets and limited running water for bathing on most nights 😉 When we were in the Whitsundays we went 6 days without a shower and had mostly very full ‘hole in the ground’ loos. The paddling was pretty easy. The longest day was 21km and with virtully no hassles with currents or tides it was a breeze for me and Riscy in our double kayak.
Snorkeling was very very good. The water was so warm you could swim all day if you could put up with getting wrinkled skin 🙂 The big attraction to snorkeling there was the coral would drop off into these huge deep chasms and fissures which provided lots of opportunity for diving down and getting views up under ledges. Riscy liked to go through underground arches, but I had to veto one particulary trecherous looking one, as I knew I wouldn’t be able to rescue him if he got caught down there.
Two nights we stayed in a village on the island of Tevewa, I wasn’t totally comfortable with being there, but most everyone else loved interacting with the villagers as they got on with their everyday lives. The little kids were great. We didn’t really see the school aged kids as they go to boarding school on the other side of the island during the week.
We participated in a kava ceremony. My impression of it is that it is a mild aneasthetic (like a throat lozenge) which tastes a bit like varnishy dirty water.
We stayed two nights on an uninhabited island. The hermit crabs reigned free, there were millions of them, the ground seethed with them. Can you imagine the sound of a million hermit crabs chowing down on a carpet of leaves and palm fronds? that’s what it was like, very hitchcockian.
We also had some resident goats. They are let loose, to breed and roam then herded up and taken to the main island for the indian population to eat. They cause some major soil erosion though.
For those who are interested in Geography, we paddled in the northern Yasawas which is a chain of islands north west of the main island. To get there we caught a catamaran called the Yasawa Flyier which stops at the many many resorts and backpacker beaches in the Yasawas.
Our last day in Fiji we visited the most amazing garden near Nadi (prounouned Nandi) called the Garden of the Sleeping Giants, the most beautiful garden I’ve ever seen. A wonderful collection of orchids, palms and ferns. It was pretty sad to come back to my own neglected garden 🙁
Photos will follow later. Cheers
