A Few Days Off

Tadd & I had a few days off again... so back to the mainland.

This time we went to check out Lautoka, the "Sugar city", the second largest city in Fiji. It's in the heart of the sugar cane producing area... the season for which is just about to begin. All over the country you see overgrown railroad tracks... but apparently they won't be overgrown much longer!

Lautoka's on the water, but not exactly a resort kind of coast.
Our reason for going was for the cinema... one of only 2 in the whole country! Tadd needed a dose of movie popcorn and I wanted to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4!

After a couple of days and 2 movies later we headed back to Nadi... and the nearby hotsprings. We'd been planning to go for a while... but hadn't managed it so far. So another tiny bus that drove happily along the dirt track that is the local road system beyond the Queen's Road.

Unlike many places in the world, the hotsprings haven't been developed yet!

Basically you're in the middle of nowhere, in a field and there's a mud pool.

The local guy told us to rub it all over for it's softening and rejuvenating powers... so we did!

Nice!

Then you wander past the molten hot pool (78C) and on to the cooler 50C pool to wash off.

Then it was back to Port Denerau to catch the ferry back to work... quite a difference this uber-modern tourist location is to the rest of the country!!

At least there are always some nice boats to look at!

We weren't wild about going back... but at least we brought some wine back with us!

A Break in Fiji

Only a few weeks after our return to work in Fiji, we got a few more days off... we had to go check out the first every Port Denerau International Jazz & Blues Festival.

 Denerau is the swanky part of Nadi, where all the big resorts are... and many visitors never see more of the country that this part... in which case they have no real concept of Fiji at all... at the port there is a Hard Rock Cafe!! amongst a bunch of other very nice restaurants, bars and shops... so not Fiji!

But we made an exception, and went to check out the music. The whole thing was a little disorganized, but some of the musicians weren't half bad... mostly from the New Zealand, Australia and the US... with a few locals.

One of our favourite artists was Erica "Sunshine" Lee. We listened to her set both nights we went there... and I said I don't like country!!

 

This lady did a good rendition of Billy Holiday... with her musicians who we named the Craigslist boys... as they were about 40 years younger and didn't seem to sure what was all going on... but seemed to be enjoying the free beer and the prospect of the after parties (so we heard).

Once we tired of the festival (the same acts played all 4 days), we went off to check out one of the local marinas, in hopes of finding some cruisers who might want some crew while exploring Fiji.

We stopped off for a bite of lunch at the Sunset Grill next door to First Landing and the Vuda Pt Marina.

After that trek around on buses and trucks, we decided to head back on our last day off to do some exploring of our own island... Check out Mana!

 The local village that sits right behind our backpacker place... classy stuff that the kids walk through to get to their rooms!

We wandered up and over to the north side of the island to see what was what.

Another spectacular beach, of course.

And a stone building!!??

Or not! Apparently, Survivor Fiji was filmed here a few years back... but no one bothered to take down the stupid set...

But they definitely picked a good spot for it.

 Back to diving!