I arrived in Fiji on 1st April. I flew into Nadi Airport on the island of Viti Levu – the largest island in the Fijian archipelago. April is the end of the rainy season in Fiji and I decided to stay on the west side as it has pretty good weather all year round. I spent the first few nights at Smugglers Cove Hostel.

Although just on the far side of the airport it was very pleasant and quiet. We were also near to Turtle Airways whose sea planes took off in front of the hostel a couple of times a day.

The hostel is in an area called New Town that is just starting to be developed. The hostel was next to a large undeveloped stretch of coast which only appeared to be inhabited by some horses.

Occasionally the horses took themselves for a walk along the beach.

I ventured into Nadi a couple of times. Although the home of the countries only international airport, it is a fairly small, single street town. The capital of Fiji is Suva about 3 hours bus drive away on the south of the island. 70% of the country’s population live in Suva but it doesn’t have many attractions for the tourist and is also quite wet at this time of year – I decided to give it a miss.

One of the highlights of the 3 mile trip into Nadi were the well air conditioned buses.

There are no bus stops and the buses stop anywhere on the route to pick up and drop off passengers. The drivers also seem to follow their own routes diverting at passengers requests. Every trip I took followed a slightly different route. At one point this involved driving on the beach.

There is very little to note about Nadi town itself and I didn’t find anything really worth photographing. The only thing I did note is that Nadi keeps with the stupid stereo rule. On my travels I have noted that the hotter and more remote a location, the more ridiculous the sound systems on sale are. Nadi was no exception.

All the hotels and resorts are staffed by very friendly Fijian staff who greet you with a loud “Bula” (pronounced Boo-lah) every time they pass. This is an abbreviation of the phrase in Fijian meaning “wishing you happiness and good health”. After about the 20th greeting of the day, this did become a little grating. (Apologies, the grumpy old man in me coming out there).

In town you notice a different aspect of the local population which is a very large Indian population with the majority of clothing shops selling sarees and other Indian styles. Nadi also has the largest Hindu temple in the southern hemisphere – the Sri Siva Subramaniya temple.

After a month of rushing around New Zealand, I began to get very used to Fiji time where no one is ever in a hurry and it not much happens on time. Although not normally a big fan of beach holidays, I was quite happy to sit around just reading for 3 days. My favourite time of day was sunset and everyone came out to watch it. I took a ridiculous number of pictures, here are a few of the better ones.

  

I was tempted to stay put in the same place but decided to venture out to the islands north of Vitu Levu (where the Tom Hanks’ Castaway film was shot) – see next post.

At the end of that excursion, I returned to Nadi for my last 2 days in Fiji. I needed some decent internet access in order to research the next part of my trip and had to book into a big western hotel. I chose the Radisson Blu on Denarau Island. This island is really part of Vitu Levu but just separated by a waterway. It is the location  of all the big hotel brands on the island. The hotel was very pleasant but also very busy as it was Easter.

After an enjoyable 2 weeks in Fiji I set off or Hawaii.