From Sept 3rd-Sept 12th, Jacques and I were in Fiji! It was a nice tropical holiday, and my little dose of "summer" before heading home for my second winter in a row. We flew into Nadi and spent one night at a place on the beach near the airport there. Our taxi driver that dropped us off, offered to pick us up in the morning and drive us down to the Coral Coast to the Hideaway Resort, where we'd spend our next 5 nights. It was much prettier on the Coral Coast than where we stayed in Nadi, but there was NOTHING around, they obviously tried to keep you in the resort! I was slightly disappointed that you could only go in the sea when the tide was high, since there was so much coral, the break was miles offshore and there was maybe a foot of water at low tide. But when It was high, there was great snorkeling and kayaking. We saw some Nemo fish right at the resort.
Breakfasts were AMAZING! Buffett of anything you could ever want at breakfast time and a guy making any kind of egg you asked for, showing off his cooking talents. We often walked down the road to this little "restaurant" I guess you could call it, where we made friends with some locals and got advice about the local bus (since it was SO cheap) and at out of the resort sometimes since it was much cheaper. We asked at the resort how much a taxi would be to the closest town, Sikatoka...they told us $50 return. So we just stood out front of the resort with some of the locals that worked there and waiting for the next local bus. It was $1.90 each to get there and a slightly fancier bus was about $2.00 each back! And either the buses were frequent or we just hit the schedule perfectly without knowing it! Each time we wandered out front of the resort to catch a bus, one appeared in less than 5 minutes! We even caught one to another resort up the road for dinner one night and then found out that they had stopped running. The security people at the Warwick (the resort we ate at) told us to stand and flag down one of the shuttle vans and they would take us back to Hideaway. But being dark, you pretty much have to try and flag down every car that comes by. Lots just kept driving, but the first one to stop was not a van, but a man in his pickup. Turns out his job was basically to drive this girl back and forth from Nadi to Suva all the time and he was just on his way to back from a trip so he gave us a ride for $5. A couple days later, we saw the same man making a pit stop in Pacific Harbor (about 1.5 hrs down the coast from where he'd picked us up)!
Our last day at Hideaway, we did horse trek along the beach, through a village and into the forrest up to a pretty waterfall. It was really pretty scenery and nice to see something away from the beach. Then we caught the bus along the coast, headed toward Suva, to Pacific Harbor, where we'd spend out final 3 nights in the Treehouse dormitory of the Uprising Resort. It was nice to be a little closer to a town (not quite as big or touristy as Sigatoka and walking distance from the Resort). We had many more eating options with much cheaper prices. And we found a place showing the Rugby World Cup opening ceremony (in Auckland) on a huge screen. They had even just brought in a solid hardwood table to complete their furniture earlier that day. We watched about 20 people unload this table weighing 1.5 metric ton. It was quite a process! It was nice that Fijians were so into their Rugby so we didn't feel too far away from the action, but we felt a little silly seeing it on TV when we could have easily been there in person!
Our second to last day in Fiji we took a jet-ski safari tour out to Yanuca Island in Beqa Lagoon. The ride out was a lot of fun, plus we had a lot of extra play-time on the jet-skis while we waiting for them to find one with a good battery for the guide to ride. I drove on the way out and since we were the closest to the guide (in our formation) he kept trying to spray us by swerving, so I decided I'd try to get him back...only I sort of forgot how how such a sharp turn could affect a passenger on the back...oops! Luckily, Jacques had a good grip and avoided being thrown off. He said it was close though! At Yanuca Island, we had lunch and there was AMAZING snorkeling. We saw many more kinds of fish of all different shapes, sizes and colors. The water was easily 20-25 deep in places but crystal clear right to the bottom. Driving back on the jet-ski, Jacques was a much nicer driver to me than I was to him, fortunately, I didn't need to worry too much about getting thrown off :)
Monday, we got a taxi from the Uprising back up to Nadi and actually right to Denarau Resort Island to check out all the high class resorts, restaurants and shopping before heading to the airport. We ended up paying half of what we did to get to Hideaway (which was only about a 90 min trip) and this was closer to a 3 hour trip! Crazy how prices differ so much. Local transportation was the best way to go! Getting from Denarau to the airport, a Taxi wanted to charge us $30 for the 10 min trip....we had only just paid about $40 for our 3 hour one, so we waited for the bus to come around, where we'd take it to the station in Nadi and switch to one going past the airport. The bus we rode to the airport was mostly full of school children on their way home. It stopped outside and we walked from the road into the airport, I can't say that I'd even walked up to the airport before! But it was easy and worth it since it only cost us about $5 to get there versus $30 by taxi! In general, Fiji was beautiful and nice and warm! Although, we only saw a bit of the southern coast of the main island. I would love to go touring all the little island groups just north of that island, I'm sure it would be a whole different experience!
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| Coral Coast, Hideaway Resort |
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| There goes a nemo fish! |
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| Happy hour torch lighting ceremony |
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| The Wicked Walu restaurant |
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| Moving the huge table! |
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| Table finally in place |
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| Pacific Harbor, Uprising Resort |
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| Hold on tight! |
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| most of the shells on the beach walked |
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| Staring competition with Nemo |
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| our final local bus to the airport |
