South Pacific - Fiji

Arriving in Nadi was a bit of a mess - we were supposted to be meeting a travel agent to pay her for booking the ferry, but our phone wouldn't work, we couldn't find her at the airport and eventually we gave up and caught a taxi out to where we were staying. It turned out she was there, in the coffee shop, but neither of us knew what the other looked like!

We were really in Fiji to go to the Yasawa group of islands for snorkeling. We had booked the ferry through the agent, and used Airbnb for accommodation. We immediately had a problem - our first homestay on Wayalailai island was asking for an additional $540 cash above that quoted on the website. We cancelled the (non-refundable) booking, reported her to Airbnb, and desperately looked for somewhere on the same island to stay instead (so that we did not need to change the ferry booking). We made a booking with Wayalailai Eco Haven for the same period, for even more money (it was the principle, not the money!). That sorted, we had a day to look around Nadi before setting off to catch the ferry out to the Yasawas.

When we arrived at the ferry teminal we had problem number two. The travel agent had told us that we could pay when we checked in. Sadly, that wasn't true. We hadn't paid in advance so our tickets were cancelled, and the ferry was full. A very nice woman working there told me she would try to get it sorted, and at the very last minute (and I mean the last 60 seconds) she issued our tickets and we raced down the wharf and up the gangway just as it was being pulled up. By some miracle out luggage made it onto the boat as well; that woman who made it all possible was amazing!

On the map I haven't identified the islands by name - that is because everyone refers to the accommodation, not the island name - even the ferry does everything according to where you are going to stay. There are no roads to villages, independant hotels or shops where you can wander around and find a place to stay. When you arrive at your destination on the ferry you transfer into a small boat owned by your accommodation host in order to get to the beach, and the places we stayed at all had wet landings; it is very shallow around the islands so the ferry can't get near the shore.

As it happened, Wayalailai Eco Resort was a great choice - really lovely people both running it and in the mix of travellers staying there. Geoff went swimming with sharks, and we had reasonable snorkeling off the beach in front of our bure. We went to Sunday service in the local village church, knowing that the singing would be quite special. We also took part in a kava ceremony at the resort, with lots of singing as the night went on.

We learned very quickly that booking the expensive ferry between the islands wasn't the necessity we had assumed - there are dozens of boats going between the islands all of the time. True, they are just open dingies, and you can get wet, but the seas are mainly flat, and everyone uses the local water taxis to get around.

Right from the start it was obvious that Fiji and its islands are staring climate change in the face. They are living with it every day. The islands are rugged, and villages are located right down on the beach and the lowest hills. They are experiencing both higher and lower tides - high tides are eroding the beaches, and low tides are exposing the corals - a lose-lose situation. They are also seeing lots of non-seasonal weather like the cold rain we had in Vanuatu, making life very difficult and uncertain.

We spent four nights in each of the four islands we selected in the Yasawas, So from Wayalailai we took the ferry up to Long Beach, another beautiful place with a friendly family running it. We were the only guests for the first two nights but that was fine - we ate with the family. Again, the topic of climate change was first and foremost on the minds of the people here - they had already lost trees to the sea, and were fighting to save their beachfront. While at Long Beach we took a snorkeling trip to Blue Lagoon, a place we would later be able to walk to from Sunrise Lagoon. We also snorkeled at the back of the island - that was the best reef ever - fantastic.

From Long Beach we went to Safe Landing. It had a slightly different mix of travellers - less backpackers, more families - but was similar in what it offered; a bure with cold shower, communal meals, trips and activities. Geoff did the three reef snorkeling trip from there, where you go out in a dingy, and are left swimming over a reef in the middle of the ocean while the boat goes off so the boatman can go fishing or shopping. He comes back, transfers you to the next reef, and putters off again. Kaye didn't go - she is not that confident a swimmer! One of the locations offers "diving with sharks" and it was true - there was a shark but it was a white-tipped reef shark and only about a metre long.

We also went to the Sawa-i-Lau caves from Safe Landing - not quite what I had envisaged, but rather spectacular. While at Safe Landing we met up with one of the people we'd travelled with on Vanuatu - it was lovely to see her again.

Our last place to stay in the islands was Sunrise Lagoon, just across the water. It didn't have the same beach as the other places - it faced out to sea and had no protection from other islands. However, it was a twenty-five minute walk (up and down) across the island to Blue Lagoon, where there wasn't great coral but there were huge number of colourful fish.

Once back in Nadi we had another day in Fiji, so went up the coast to Lautoka. It was a pleasnat enough town on the coast - nothing special, but we had exhausted the dubious pleasures of Nadi.

Fiji was a great place to visit. Most of the backpacker places we stayed at were within sight or easy boat trip of some seriously expensive resorts - several times a day we saw a float plane or a helicopter ferrying guests to these resorts. But as one of our hosts pointed out as we looked through the coconut palms to the lagoon in front of us, their view was no better than ours! Even though we were old enough to be grandparents to some of the people we met ot the backpacker accommodation we never felt excluded or surplus to requirements. We met some fantastic people - both local to Fiji and visitors - and would suggest to anyone thinking of going to Fiji to do so before it all gets washed away.

There are five slideshows for this part of the trip. Choose the slideshow that you want to see from the selection button. The slideshow will automatically change pictures, but you can stop and start this automatic display and choose individual pictures from the thumbnails or use the forward and back pointers to view the slideshow at your own pace. Swapping between slideshows can take a few seconds to synchronise, and you may miss the first two slides, but they will loop back again!