Arrival in Fiji

View from Hotel

Our flight to Fiji a few weeks back was unpleasant. We'd had dinner at Westlakes restaurant in Chinatown on the way to the airport with Rob and Gord which was wonderful, celebrating Lib's 56th birthday which was to occur while we were away, and heightened by the excitement of impending holiday. We had a four man banquet with a couple of bottles of red wine, mostly enjoyed by Lib and I as the boys, unlike their parents, are light drinkers if at all. After arriving at airport and doing the check in thing Lib and I indulged in more wine in the departure lounge to escape the boredom of waiting for boarding in what seemed a huge throng of every size and colour people and crying children.

After a big feed at the Chinaman, always a bit on the salty side, and all the wine we were thirsty as soon as we were in our seats on the plane which seemed to take forever to hit the throttle and scream down the runway. We didn't sleep despite the 11.30pm take off. I watched the movie, recall enjoying it, but can't remember plot or title. Lib couldn't get comfortable and shifted and sighed and complained to the plane waitresses that she was thirsty to no avail, they didn't return with water till the scheduled trolley run. At one point late in the trip I went to the loo and managed to get Lib a glass of water from the kitchenette on the way back, but it hardly touched the sides and seemed to waken a more ferocious thirst. Lib was quite dehydrated, a dangerous thing really.

The plane descended into Nadi airport about 6.20 am on Friday morning as dawn had just broken. Transit through the airport was thankfully fairly speedy. We bought a dozen bottles of duty free Australian wine on the way and the first thing we did when through customs was buy a cool drink each with our Fiji dollars and skull it down. We sat waiting at the airport entrance for 10 minutes or so as groups of people departed in a variety of ways until the Novatel Hotel shuttle bus turned up and a driver helped us load our bags and boxes of wine from the trolley to the little box trailer. We were the only ones on the minibus and the driver was friendly and informative and in the ten minute ride to the Hotel, which included a five minute wait at a level crossing to let a sugar cane train crawl its way toward the sugar mill, he gave as good a precis of Fiji history, politics and industry as you could hope for.

The hotel reception did not have our room available (before 8.00am) when we arrived so we left our luggage at reception and made our way to the swimming pool stretching out on those recliner pool lounge chairs in the welcome shade of a huge "rain tree", as the man cleaning the pool told me it was in answer to my enquiry. Lib fell asleep promptly and I may have nodded off briefly but for the most part I watched in the tree and shrubbery looking for birds. There was no one around except for the man cleaning the pool, and few birds either, most of those I saw were Indian minas just like those prolific around Gembrook. It was warm to hot, nearing 30C I reckon, a test for two southern state Australians only hours out of a frigid winter.

After about an hour a man came and told me they had a room ready so l left Lib asleep and went to room 510 with a porter helping with the luggage. I changed clothes- into shorts and sandals and went back for Lib who was still fast asleep. The room had a big glass sliding door at the back which opened up onto a little porch with a table and chairs and magnificent view across a big grass area with two big strong trees, and a valley to large hills in the distance. After showering Lib slept till about midday. I admired the view and started Michener's "The Carribbean". I have never found sleep in the day time easy but probably a few hours of shut eye was what I needed.

After midday we walked down the hill that the hotel was located on, into the outskirts of Nadi and a little supermarket where we could buy picnic lunch (fresh fruit and banana cake and Fiji water ) and we found a little park where we could picnic on the grass. Not far away were two groups of Fijian native teenage school kids, about ten in each group, one boys one girls. They were calling out to each other and skylarking and joking. There was a friendliness with warm open smiles from the locals where we walked and we felt comfortable. On the way back I found a little boozer and bought some stubbies of Fiji Bitter (made by Foster's Group) to try later, with some bickies and cheese, back on our little porch with the ripper view.

Dinner in the hotel restauraunt was disappointing but did not dampen our good spirits. We watched Geelong playing St Kilda on the TV but were too tired and turned it off at half time and we slept like like a couple of tired old dogs.