Bella's Work Trip to Taveuni

It was with much excitement that I headed to the Air Fiji office on the afternoon of Friday, 1st September. My task - "Two return tickets to Taveuni, first flight out Monday morning, please". "I'm sorry Ma'am, there are no seats available until next Thursday". "But...but...but there has to be!" There was not way I was giving my colleagues an easy out - they were all too keen to postpone this trip, I could tell. But there was nothing I could do.

Plan B was rolled. 18hr overnight boat it would have to be. Scheduled departure - 6pm Monday; arrival Tuesday lunch. 1.5 work days lost, not too bad.

So, my counterpart Isoa picked my up in the work vehicle we would take with us at around 5pm - boarding was scheduled for 4, but surely we still have plenty of time. We made it about 500m from the loading dock before we hit the jam. I wish I had taken photos to illustrate the chaos, as it really is hard to describe accurately. They were loading two different boats at the same time, both massive ferries that transport big trucks. There were two roads leading to the dock entrance...which converged at the dock entrance. Superb traffic planning that. The dock entrance was one vehicle wide. Absolute bottle neck. No traffic conducting going on, just every man for himself trying to muscle onto his ferry. People wandering in amongst all the vehicles. So anyway, long story short, we got onto the ferry eventually, but it was pretty obvious we weren't going to get away by 6, they still had lots of trucks to load. So we just settled into the lounge, ordered some dinner, and waited.

Before too long the speakers crackled and it was announced that our revised departure time was 9pm. I was mildly surprised that it would take quite this long to load the rest of the trucks, but ok.

At 9pm, the speakers crackled again. New estimated departure time? 3am. At this point they also admitted that the reason was actually 'engine trouble'. There was nothing I could do but retire to my little ship bunk and wait to wake up to the gentle sway of a moving boat.

I stirred a little after 6. "Hmmm, let's see...I certainly don't feel any different. Maybe this is a particularly sturdy vessel?" I'll admit it was more than a just a gut feeling when i looked out the window....and my suspicions were confirmed. I looked out across Suva Harbour, not quite believing that I'd just spent the whole night on a boat that never left dock. This time when the speaker crackled it heralded a promise of 7.30 departure. I went up on deck and occupied myself taking these photos. Somehow, my hopes that we would eventually depart remained in tact.



But alas, those hopes proved futile. At 10 am they finally admitted we weren't going anyway. Although they didn't admit that they had no frickin idea what was wrong with their engine, despite this being obvious to me. They assured everyone they could use their tickets on the next day's service, full of confidence she'd be running by then.

Thankfully I managed to convince my counterpart of my doubts and we switched to another boat company. We sailed at 1pm on Wednesday, arriving at our destination 7am Thursday morning. Only 3 working days lost.... This proved wise, as the original boat didn't end up sailing again until Friday evening. Why did they board the boat in the first place if they didn't have a running engine? Beats me. Why did they continue to keep us on the boat, stringing us along with false promises of departure for no less than 14hrs?!?! Beats me even more. All I can say is this is definitely my best Fiji story yet. Just sums things up nicely.

So anyway, Taveuni itself was pretty great. It's one of Fiji's larger islands, a population of (very) approximately 15 000, and there's a few impromptu towns popping up, so they sent us in to assess the situation and come up with a master plan to gently guide these townships in the right direction! More or less.

Lot's of cruising up and down the coastal road and 4-wheeling through the inland tracks to 'familiarise' ourselves with the study area. A few consultation (grog) sessions with the landowners, although I excused myself from some of these seeing as I can't understand a word and can't really add much to the meeting. Mick joined me toward the end of the second week, and we checked out a pearl farm:

a natural waterslide (the local kids were showing us how to block the water for a better ride):

and a very cool campground right on the beach:

The plane trip home offerd some great aerial views of the reefs.

Michael Fuss
Naturalist Photographer

Discover Fiji's natural beauty through Fuss' lense.

(All images copyright M. Fuss 2006. Orders welcome)














(Those last three are actually the natural beauty of Fraser Island, not Fiji, from our pre-Fiji camping trip. But they are also such good photos I had to put them in.)

- Posted by Bella (Mick wanted that clarified)

2006 HIBISCUS FESTIVAL, SUVA

Just some of the crazy things you can see and do at Hibiscus Festival. Unlike Australian shows where you can try you luck in sideshow alley, at this festival you can try your luck on dozens of different rides! I'm not a gambling person, so I steered clear. With themed performance nights, street parades where Miss Hibiscus contestants were carried along in tinnies, and fairy floss three times the size of your head (no joke), I think it's safe to say a fun time was had by many a Suvan that week.