Day 334-337: Adventures on a tiny island

And then it rained. And rained. No, that's not fair, on the afternoon that we arrived in Taveuni and checked into a little wooden hut at Beverly's Campground the sun was shining and we were soon scraping ourselves over the coral in low-tide. That evening the owner of Beverly's insisted we have dinner with the family...and then it rained.

For the best part of 2 days.

Fortunately also staying at Beverly's was a lovely Spinnish [Finnish/Spanish] couple who eased the disappointment of constant wind, heavy rain and no electricity and provided some much-needed direction. They even had a guide book! Preparation indeed! And so just as the rain was clearing we jumped on the bus to Lavena.

A note on the buses; before coming to Fiji we'd heard a lot about “Fiji time” an expression that basically means (I think); we'll do it some time but there's no telling exactly when and it'll probably be later than you think. A kind of nice, acceptable expression of inevitable lateness. So when our flights arrived bang on time, early even, we figured the aviation industry might be apart from this trend...but then the 10:30 bus arrived at 10:30 and the 2 o'clock return was waiting patiently at 1:50 … what's happened to Fiji time?! It's not going strong on Taveuni I can tell you that much.

Anyway, the bus rumbled through small villages, crossed swollen rivers on very dubious-looking bridges and climbed steep hills through lush greenery and along coastal paths to deposit us, about an hour later, into the little village of Lavena. There is only one guest house in Lavena and – to be honest – if there was another it would have a tough time taking custom from The Lavena Lodge. With turquoise walls, super friendly staff and a breath-taking view out to see the lodge also provides tour-guides and conservation assistance to the local sight-seeing spots.

It was here that we learnt of the cyclone that had been bringing all the lousy weather our way – fortunately it was in Tonga and heading away from us so, we were told through a high whooping laugh that it seems is the birthright of Fijian women, that though it was windy “you won't blow away from here!”

Another day of mostly-indoor relaxing with Kimmo and Fatima (the Spinnishes) before Friday morning greeted us with blue skies! There were ominous looking clouds lurking over the mountain but it was time to seize the moment and take the beautiful Lavena Coastal Walk to the Wainibau waterfall. And boy was it worth the wait! The walk there was fantastic but the real highlight was sliding down the fast-flowing waterfall into the whirling plunge pool. It took a bit of a tricky climb up the rocks next to the fall but what a rush!

The rain even held off and allowed us to enjoy the walk home – via a short serenading session by some of the outrageously adorable local kids - and some more snorkelling too.

Such is the way with fate sometimes, that the day we were to leave Lavena the sun came out and lit up the bay in that picture-postcard kind of way that you might expect from Fiji. It was a shame it didn't look like the first pic (above) all the time we were there but it did give us the opportunity to take some great pictures. Actually, because Robs camera died in Suva, we have to say a big gracias to Fatima for sharing her snaps with us.

Day 331-333: We're on Fiji time now (we were before we set off)

If preparation is the key to success then the beginning of our excursion to Fiji is probably most akin to locking yourself out of the house in your pants, just as it begins to rain. We could see that shiny key of forward-thinking and thorough itinerary-making but it was just out of reach.

Never on this trip have we arrived in a country with such a vagueness of intentions or lack of research. We had in our possession a short message of recommendations from a friend – but even that was only recovered from the internet and scrawled into a notebook (from which we could regurgitate our intentions to disappointed-looking airport attendants later) at the last moment - thank you Auckland Airport for 15min free internet.

When we touched down in Nadi we were greeted by a 4-piece band in bright Hawaiian shirts that broke from their cheery tune only to shout the traditional Fijian greeting “bula!” as one passed. Oh how the false sense of security warmed us. Once through baggage and customs we were directed by a very large Fijian man towards a his smaller female counterpart to “help us with our holiday” - hang on! we'd only shook his hands and already he knew we were British and we were here for a week from New Zealand...these guys were good.
The disappointment in our assistant face was clearly visible when we confirmed that we intended to go to Taveuni – a small island to the West of Viti Levu - and not to the Yasawas Islands – the usual holiday hotspot.
“We'd like to get there as soon as possible, maybe today?”
[broad smile] “Ooooooh no, not today...you can go to Yasawas today”
“We really want to go to Taveuni – what would be the best way to get there?”
“Why you want to go to Taveuni?”
[white lie] “We're meeting a friend there” - if India taught us nothing else; you always have a friend already waiting for you in the hostel / bar / town you want to go to. Eliminates so much hard-sell.

And so, to cut a long story short we ended up almost buying plane tickets to Taveuni for the next morning, then deciding they were too expensive and so reverting back to our friends original suggestion of getting an overnight boat from Suva to Taveuni. Then we missed a bus to Suva. We eventually caught another bus to Suva about an hour later, arriving in the total darkness of 8PM to be told that we'd also missed the overnight boat. I had remembered one guest house's name in Suva from a glance in the Lonely Planet book in an airport shop (thus completing 365's Fiji research) and so we were dropped at Raintree Lodge, about 7 miles outside of Suva centre.

Fortunately, when we woke up in the morning, as has seemed to often be the case on this journey; everything – somehow - fell nicely into place. Raintree Lodge is a beautiful guest house; our room looked out onto a lily pond, there was a lovely swimming pool and the super-helpful staff pointed us in the direction of the best way to get the most out of Taveuni.

We were to fly the morning after and then fly directly back to Nadi on Sunday to catch our flight back to Auckland. Though the more expensive option, it turns out the boat is both long and fairly unenjoyable and since we'd only a week in Fiji we didn't really want to spend 4 days of it in transit. Plus, this meant we got to spend the day in Suva...which is no bad thing.

The town is a crazy kind of mix of traditional and modern. We caught the bus into town, a beautifully ricketty ride with perpetually-open windows and cramped seats that deposited us into a dusty bus stand. Food stalls, drink vendors (Mmmm...ice cold juicy) and people everywhere – so far, so familiar from Asia BUT turn the corner and a huge silver building plays host to flashy coffee shops, designer clothing outlets and Liquid nightclub.

Predominantly a harbour town, the views out to sea are just incredible. Take a wander through town and some fairly tired-looking gardens and you'll reach the Fiji Museum [canoe above, clock tower, left]; a wonderful way to catch up on the history of the country that we now found ourselves so unprepared and standing in. Thanks to the large Indian population, we even managed to find ourselves a delicious Thali lunch. Yes, it had been a bit of a stressful start but I could tell we were going to love it here in Fiji.

Moral of the story here? A one-week holiday cannot be treated the same as the kind of lengthy and relaxed jaunts around countries that have become our habit these past 11 months...some planning is advisable.

Or is it? What is the least prepared you have ever started a trip? And did it make or break your trip?