What's wrong with Fiji??

Fiji in two acts

What is wrong with Fiji??  Nothing that will kill you in two minutes?  What kind of place is this?

After six months in Australia, where we fretted over funnel spiders, death adders, sea snakes, estuarine crocodiles, red-backed spiders, box jelly-fish, and the like, Fiji is a vacuum of death!  We scanned the mangroves for those beady croc eyes, the thick forest floor for the angular head of the deadly brown snake … nothing, not one damn deadly thing!  Oh, yes, there’s the stonefish that will sting your foot if you step on it and “Fiji toiletpaper,” some poison ivy sort of stuff, but really, this country is too damn safe!  We're suffering gruesome death withdrawal.

Our time in Fiji, with friends Robin and Bill, was divided between Vanua Levu and Taveuni, two largish islands to the north of the “mainland,” Viti Levu (Levu means “big” in Fijian).

After a night in a hotel close to the international airport in Nadi, we took a short flight to Labasa, the main town on the north side of Vanua Levu.  We were met by a taxi arranged by our hosts outside of Savu Savu, on the south side, for a 90 minute drive through the spine of mountains.



The trip started off on a sour note, as friend Bill discovered that a pouch of money had been pinched from his checked bag, but off we went to the Salt Lake Lodge, a funky sort of place run by a Kiwi couple, Sonia and Andrew.  They were the proverbial Rolling Stones, gathering no moss. They’d bought the land a while back, built and opened the lodge, then left for three years, and returned to reopen it last year.  And now they were looking to sell the place; what was next was a little vague, although they owned some property near Aukland they had a mind to develop some day.

Salt Lake Lodge was quite beautiful, set on what looked like a river but was actually just a narrow inlet to a tidal lagoon.  We could watch the 6-foot tides shift the “river’s” flow from left to right and then back again.  Quite dramatic.  It was quiet … well, except for the road crew working about a quarter mile way to build a paved road road with Chinese funding.

Our "bure" at Salt Lake Lodge

The lodge consisted of two “bures,” cabins, on either side of a kitchen hut and covered pier.

Host Andrew showing us how to use
a coconut shaver

Being a 30-minute taxi drive from town, Savu Savu, meant we spent our four days mostly exploring the area right around the lodge.  We kayaked up the inlet into the lagoon, surrounded by green green green hills.

Natewa Bay

We hiked along the isthmus formed by the lagoon and Natewa Bay, the biggest bay in the South Pacific, we were told, something like 45-50 miles deep and 25-30 miles wide.  At the end of the walk, we had a fine, refreshing swim.  We also met a family gathering and chopping copra (a type of coconut), which was then trucked to a plant to make into coconut oil, apparently quite a sought-after commodity.

Fijian "umbrella"

Kate at the inviting entrance to the neighboring resort

On the way back, we wandered into a larger resort, with bures huddling the cliff overlooking the bay.  It’s owner, a woman, had died a year ago and much work was being done to renovate it for sale.  From the photos on a wall in the bar, it was clear she had a following all over the world … including George Harrison (of the Beatles)!

At the resort's bar - look closely,
those glasses on the shelf are Green Bay Packer glasses

Savu Savu town.

We did venture into town a couple of times, for groceries (we – mostly friend Bill – made delicious meals), to eye the yachts in the harbor (Savu Savu is a boating place, where if you’re white, you’re assumed to be a yachter), to get internet connection, and one night for dinner.

On the bus to the ferry to Taveuni

It was a relaxing time for all of us, forced perhaps by the daily rains.  But we were a bit happy to take our leave of Salt Lake for the neighboring island of Taveuni, taking an hour bus ride to Natuvu where we would catch the ferry across the Somosomo Strait.