Fleurieu Magic: Let's armchair travel to Fiji

Since overseas travel has been unobtainable for over a year and looks like being so for the foreseeable future, I've been poring over my old photo albums, soaking up the scenes and reminiscing as memories come flooding back. It only takes a glimpse at a particular photograph and I can clearly remember how I was feeling, what we were doing and where we were, much like Proust's remembrance of things past, though I think his memories were triggered by taste and smell. Anyway, added to the richness of the photos is the rather detailed account in the diaries I kept for every trip. I do remember spending ages at night in our hotels making sure I had written up every visit, sight and experience we had had that day. I'm so glad I did that as I've mentioned in quite fulsome detail the people we met, the food we ate and amusing or scary incidents that occurred!

And so.... we are off to Fiji. It is 2006 and we are living in Melbourne. We have decided to spend Christmas away. Of course, the first suggestion of a white Christmas in Austria was quickly squashed as our coffers were not that overflowing. It was finally decided that it would be Fiji, sufficiently different to Melbourne. We found a travel agent that advertised as 'specialising in Fiji' and began negotiations. Steve wanted to do something a little different from the normal tourist route so decided that we would spend a week on the smaller island of Vanua Levi leading up to and including Christmas and my birthday, then a few days including New Years Eve at a resort on the main island on the Coral Coast. Much to our delight Kate agreed to come with us.

So far so good. We were booked into Daku Resort, a former coconut plantation in the town of Savusavu on Vanua Levi. The following photo shows part of the town.

Our resort was just up the road from the famous Jaques Cousteau Resort, but infinitely cheaper. The cottages dotting the property were the workers' cottages but we were in the larger overseer's house which had three bedrooms and a huge siting room. As you can see, we were surrounded by coconut palms, banana palms with huge green hands of bananas, frangipanis, ginger plant, orchids and hibiscus.

The following morning we had settled in and my diary records:

It is warm already. The sky is a gloomy-grey with some blue peeking through. It is humid. My hair is all a fizz. My skin feels damp and soft. A gentle breeze is wafting through the palms outside and I can hear the gentle lap of water in the lagoon.

Just re-reading that has transported me far from our rain-sodden freezing cold South Australian environment. However, as I read on through the diary, rain is just what we were about to get. It rained steadily each day and whenever we had to walk anywhere we came back exhausted by the humidity and constant rain with wet clothes (even though we were encased sauna-like within our plastic raincoats) and with wet and muddy shoes. Hardly a relaxing Pacific island holiday!!!!

But things started to look up when we set off some snorkelling. Once again the diary brings my memories to life:

'... lots of pink and blue coral and a variety of brightly coloured fish - yellow, tiny blue ones, black ones with stripes; I loved the pulsating anemones. The reef suddenly ended and I could see huge darker fish darting below in the drop off.

Later that day we wandered along the shore near the resort. I remember being fascinated by the steam rising from the rocks by the bay. I'm afraid you can't really see the steam in this photo. We learnt later that the town is powered 20% by geothermal energy.

It was time now to get ready for Christmas. We had made a pact that every present had to be wrapped in whatever was to hand - we had brought our presents with us but no wrapping paper as we didn't want to introduce lots of paper rubbish. So... some presents were beautifully wrapped in banana leaves, and some were in presents themselves - Kate gave us each a book wrapped in a Katmandu towel, I gave Steve a book wrapped in pyjamas, and a book for Kate wrapped in a sarong (yes, we love books!).

We had envisaged a sumptuous feast at the resort restaurant on Christmas Day but it was not to be: the owners had given the staff the day off to go to their villages and be with their families. Luckily we had been forewarned so had bought provisions when we had gone into town the day before. Most of the shops had been shut for the holidays or else offered huge 50 kilo sacks of rice, copra and coconuts, but fortunately we found a small supermarket open. So our Christmas lunch consisted of 2-minute chicken noodle soup, baked beans, tinned peaches, pretzels, jelly beans and Sprite, followed by a cup of tea and a New Norcia nut cake.

Highlights of our time on Vanua Levi included:

A visit to a black pearl farm where we snorkelled amongst the pylons encrusted with oyster shells, and I bought a small dark grey and blue pearl. I remember being amazed at the colours of the pearls that ranged from blackish through peacock shades to gold.

Selecting my pearl.

As an aside - one of the tourists on the pearl farm tour was, to us, the spitting image of Renee Zellweger. She spoke like her, looked like her, and had the same mannerisms. Her husband was a rich stockbroker back in New York and she was holidaying with their son. So, not Renee. Here she is with Steve and Kate. (Her real name - Mary).

A jungle walk to a village was next on the agenda. Only Steve and Kate went as I had become violently ill after the visit to the pearl farm. It seems that after lots of rain you DO NOT DRINK THE WATER. No-one had told us, but in retrospect, it seems pretty obvious. Anyway, Kate set off with my camera and recorded the day for me. I'm glad I didn't go when I looked at the terrain they had to fight their way through.

But they loved the village and the villagers. Here Kate has her first coconut drink.

Kate loved all the animals roaming around the village but especially these penned piglets.

My birthday dinner was celebrated at a lovely restaurant right on the bay.

My birthday photo with Kate. I was 59.

A visit to a nature reserve. A day or so later we set off for town to catch the bus to Labasa for Waisali Reserve. My diary documents our adventure in some detail:

Although we were half an hour early in order to get a seat. when the bus arrived it was packed, with standing room only, and quickly rumbled away. A man said he would talk to drivers of utes and negotiate for someone to take us, which is what he did. For $60 we were driven to the park (and picked up in a couple of hours). The trip was over the mountains along a winding road with spectacular views of hills, villages, bays, rivers, cows, goats, pigs and horses. We arrived at the entrance and as we had been warned, the gate was locked. But we had also been told where to find a way in by climbing over a gap in the wire.

After that exciting start, I remember walking steeply downhill on a gravel path bordered by thick, jungle vegetation and flowering plants.

We came to a waterfall and had to wade across a stream to get to a picnic shelter. It was very humid and I won't include the photo of me looking absolutely knackered, eating our picnic lunch. The water had a temporary cooling effect and then we had to climb our way back. Luckily our driver was waiting for us.

The following day it was then off to another resort on the main island - the Garden Island Resort - where we stayed for a couple of days. Sadly, the resort did not live up to either its name or our expectations - no one said it was opposite a stinky timber processing mill, nor that the island was covered in mangroves, nor that mosquitos loved tourists, nor that you had to catch an infrequent ferry to the nearest town Lautoka, nor that most of the shops would be shut there, nor that it would be stinking hot. So much for our travel agent 'specialising in Fiji holidays'!

At least Kate now had a bure entirely to herself, as did we.

We spent the first day or so exploring (nothing to see) so went swimming and general lazing around.

On our second day we caught the ferry, wandered around a bit but, as the shops were closed, felt a little deflated. We escaped from the heat by visiting a Hari Krishna temple and sitting on the cool tiled floor while the Hari Krishnas smiled and nodded to us in prayer! We nodded back. But we did enjoy our rest in a park where a father serenaded his children with a ukele.