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!