Fiji Adventures

Well, we have been in Fiji almost 12 days now. We had no internet access until now. I don’t know why we think we will have good internet access on this trip, since most of the places we are going are developing countries, and internet is the last thing these people need, as they are living in huts. In any event, I will try to sum up our stay here on the beautiful islands of Fiji.

The trip started off a bit of a disaster….note to self: pack a change of clothes on the plane for the kids! The 3 younger kids peed in their pants 3 hours into our 10 hour red-eye flight, (they were sleeping) and as I said earlier, we did not have a change of clothes with us. GROSS.
Then after we arrived in Nadi, Fiji we thought we scored at the rental car desk, when the girl there was going to give us a minivan at the mid-size car price, because they had run out of mid-size cars. But when we tried to start it, the battery was dead, so instead they gave us a manual transmission pick up truck. Paul was funny, he eyed the girl and said, “It’s not supposed to rain is it?” She hesitated and then said, “No.” So we threw our luggage in the back of the truck, piled the kids in the back and headed off with Paul shifting with his left hand because the driver’s side was on the right. In Fiji, you drive on the left hand side of the road, thanks to the British. Anyhow, of course, half an hour in, it started to rain. So we drove about an hour in the rain to our first hotel. Our stuff wasn’t too wet, the rain was drizzly, not a huge downpour, but it figured. Paul said, “The truck is fine, as long as it doesn’t rain on the way back.” which of course it did, but I digress.

So we spent our first 5 days in Korotogo on the Coral Coast on Viti Levu (the main island of Fiji) at Vakaviti, in their slightly run-down, spacious 2 bedroom apartment across the street from the beach. It was perfect for us, I think it was the owner’s house and he was away vacationing with his family, so we had legos, books, DVD player and satellite TV (for a few days, until it got cut off because they hadn’t paid the bill). They had this great veranda overlooking the ocean where we could sit and read or have a cup of tea. So pleasant! The best part was that they gave us the 5th night free, so I think we paid $53/night! Here is a picture of the apt. and the view from our veranda.

While we stayed there, we went to an Eco Park to see native Fijian birds, iguanas & plants. The kids held iguanas and snakes & fed sea turtles there. Paul went scuba diving and saw reef sharks & turtles. He said it was a 7 out of 10 dive. It was rainy or overcast the first few days, so at our beach across the street we looked in tide pools and collected sea stars and crabs.

The last 2 days were sunnier, we snuck into the 5-star Intercontinental one day and enjoyed a day at their beautiful, kid-friendly pool and snorkeled at their white sandy beach. We did 2 hikes, one to a waterfall and one to some sand dunes.

Here is Jacob’s journal entry on the day we visited the sand dunes:

The Sand Dunes
6 soldiers trekked through the forest to aid a company working to destroy 2 gun emplacements. Suddenly we saw the sand ahead. As we emerged from the forest canopy, Elise fell wounded by a sniper. Charlie, Henry and I took out the sniper and Dad carried Elise. Soon we came upon a field of wreckage where bodies and equipment lay on the ground among which was one gun emplacement completely destroyed. We heard shots ahead and hurried forward to assist in the battle. We flew into a trench and started firing at the few surviving enemies. Then we advanced and I blew the gun in half with a grenade. Finally I raised a flag of victory.

The day we left Korotogo, there was a torrential downpour. We had no choice but to load all our luggage inside the cab of our truck. The boys sat on top of our luggage and Elise sat in the front seat with me, we were wedged in with all our daypacks. We were cursing the Budget rental car girl the whole way back to the airport. From there, we caught a 7am bus that took us to the port and then got on the 8:30am catamaran that went out to the islands. It made a lot of “stops”, where it would stop in the ocean between some islands and small skiffs would pull up alongside and people would transfer on and off the boats while riding up and down in the waves then take the people back to their resorts. We rode the catamaran for over 5 hours (it rained the whole time and the ocean was choppy), but luckily when it was time for us to get off at the last stop, it stopped raining.

We ended up staying 6 nights on the small island of Nacula, part of the Yasawas Group of islands. I didn’t know this, but Fiji has over 300 islands. Just in the Yasawas, there are over 30. I thought it would be more like Hawaii, a few big islands and maybe a few small ones like the Channel islands off the coast of California, but it’s different. Fiji has a couple big islands, then tons of these little islands with one or 2 resorts built on the beach and indigenous villages on the islands. There is a slick little backpacker-type island hopper pass that you can buy which includes all the boat rides and accommodations on a bunch of different islands. Most of the people we’ve met fall in this category, they’re in their early 20’s and they bought the island hopper, so they come and stay 2 nights then head off to another island resort. The catamaran is expensive, especially since there are 6 of us, so island hopping isn’t really feasible for us, so we decided to stay put and just enjoy this little slice of paradise.

We stayed at a rustic? resort called Safe Landing in a cute “bure”, a thatched hut, right on the beach. By rustic, I mean 1) we have electricity only 4 hours/day from about 6-10pm when they run the generator, 2) we have a small water tank on top of the bure that is heated through solar panels and that’s all the hot water we get. On overcast days, the water is lukewarm, on sunny days it’s slightly warmer. And, 3) we’ve been drinking collected rainwater the whole week, no fancy bottled Fiji water here. It’s comfortable, there’s a hammock right outside our door, the beach is beautiful, we’ve snorkeled everyday, and we’ve gone on some neat excursions, like an afternoon 4 stop snorkel trip for only $25 USD for the whole family. With food included for the 6 of us, it cost us $150 USD/night, not including the excursions, so it wasn’t too bad. The water was amazingly aquamarine blue and the visibility underwater must be 40-50 feet.

We're feeding the fish here, can you see all the zebra fish in the water below the kids?

Next stop, Christchurch, New Zealand.