Fiji: Vanua Levu Road Trip

We rent a car with fellow kiwi cruisers Anna and Robin from "Confederate" for a road trip around the island of Vanua Levu.  After a quick stop at the hospital, to pay the extortionate "heath check" fee (despite the fact that we never received a health check) and another stop for a roadside roti, we were on our way.

Winding through the roads, past clusters of houses, you soon realise that the Fijians are not poor, but instead time rich.  While there may not be many fancy cars or mansion houses, the houses are well kept and the gardens full of thriving vegetables.  

First stop is at the rainforest trail.  We are, again, shod with jandals for our treck through the rainforest, but this time it doesn't feel odd as of course our fellow kiwis are also wearing jandals.  Anna and Robin are much fitter than us, having only just begun their cruising adventure and having not been confined to 50ft for 18 months like us (well, that's my excuse anyway).  They set a good pace and we generally keep up with them on the downhill stretch.  At the bottom, by a little waterfall, we catch our breath and enjoy the surroundings.  On the way back up, our lack of fitness is much more obvious, arriving at the top much later than Anna and Robin, finding them fully recovered and chatting with the trail curator.  

Very thankful to have survived the rainforest treck, we get back in our trusty rental car and head on to Labasa, the largest town on Vanua Levu.  After many twists and turns, a change in driver, and many road intersections that we don't take much notice of, we arrive in Labasa just on lunch time.

Anna has come well prepared and pulls out the lonely planet for a few recommendations for a spot for lunch.  We find the first restaurant, well, where it used to be and is now an empty lot.  The second restaurant is closed for lunch, or possibly renovations, we don't get a full explanation which.  We follow our noses instead and end up at a wonderful Chinese restaurant packed with locals, so we knew it was going to be good.  

Now stuffed with fried rice, mongolian fish and chow mien, we continue on.  We pass a line about a kilometre long of trucks stacked with sugar cane, waiting to drop off their load at the sugar mill.  The houses on this side of the island are just as well kept, and we begin to notice how much of the island is planted with sugar cane.  

We don't quite make the eastern end of the island before we realise it is getting late and we should head back towards Savusavu, about a 3 hour drive away.  

Gary and I chat away incessantly, enjoying the opportunity to talk to someone other than each other, when we reach a dirt road that we don't remember passing on the way to Labasa.  Realising we have missed a turn off and are now completely lost, Anna jumps out and consults some local women dressed in saris.  The local women laugh and laugh, telling us we are now on the western end of the island, having missed the turn off to Savusavu which is about midway along the island, 30km away.  We turn back and reach the fairly obvious turn off about half an hour later.  I blame Gary, who was driving at the time we passed the turn off, Gary blames me as navigator during said passage, and we all have a good laugh.

We arrive back in Savusavu just as the sun set and just in time for a beer at the yacht club.