Blog 19 Tuesday 30th Wed 31st October Fijian farewell

On Tuesday afternoon the weather cleared and we drove instead to the north side of the island to the end of the tarred road at a very small town called Korovou. The drive was again beautiful and we marveled at the lushness of the country, though with rain as it had been earlier it is easy to see why.

This evening was the first truly beautiful sunset, though there have already been some gently lovely ones and as the house faces west we get the full performance. (This is the real colour above. No enhanced photography!)

Supper was a delicious meaty fish, sweet potato and Chinese cabbage followed by an ingenious pudding made of paw paw and cassava with coconut cream on it. We had home entertainment with a grand rendering of The Charge of the Light Brigade by Tim and Anare played the guitar which is now up and working, though his poor fingers need some time to get hardened. We ended the evening nostalgically listening to a Simon and Garfunkel CD.

Wednesday - We finally made it to a beach! I think it was generally decided that whatever the weather we'd stick our feet in the ocean somewhere, so packed a picnic to go to a beach at Pacific Harbour, about 1/3 of the way back to Nadi. In spite of rain on the way there, particularly when we stopped off to investigate the outdoor workshop of Anare's brother, who is also a carver, we found the sun coming out as we got to the beach. We had a brilliant afternoon, with windswept waves, warm water, warm weather most of the time and a long long palm fringed beach almost entirely to ourselves. The only other people risking the iffy weather were a hardy Russian couple who also felt they were in paradise and a small group of Fijians clearing up driftwood and huddling round the fire (!!) Richard was determined to open one of the coconuts scattered on the beach and minus knife spent an hour digging away at it with a stick to get the outer coating and the husk off it. Anare explained that the local way to do it without a knife available was simple to tear it open with your teeth and proceeded to demonstrate, but for some reason Richard wasn't too keen. However, he happily messed about with it in the fond remembrance of time back in the workshop at home and I think it might keep him going for a bit longer.

We then went to get tea at a very attractive nearby hotel, sadly almost entirely empty, and felt it was such a pity that the tourists aren't flocking back yet, though great for us.

Returned contented to the house to find both Anare's sister had left us some beautiful woven gifts and Asinate's father had produced a whole family of wooden turtles for us!

Thursday will be an easy day off before our next lot of travels and we'll try to get back to the blog next week in New Zealand.

(Just some additional input on our last day in Fiji.) We travelled over to spend the night at a hotel in Nadi in order to be there in time for the morning flight to NZ. We were really pleased to have a chance to see Anare's sister, Hola and her husband William again. They are wonderful wood carvers and had offered to show us how they did some of the decorating when they met us for dinner at the hotel. The huge turtle below is by William and is on display in a Nadi shop.