Island Hopping in Mamanuca & Yasawas

Returning from the awesome and tranquil Tonga we'd spend our remaining time in the region island hopping Fiji's western archipelagos of Mamanuca and Yasawa islands. An overpriced South Sea Cruises ferry leaves for the islands from Port Denarau, a 1F$ bus ride away from Nadi town, and takes a couple of hours to reach the Mananuca islands in the south. We head first for Mana Island, somewhat known for its decent diving and youthful backpacker scene.

And youthful it turns out to be, indeed; the average age seems to be well below 25 and the beach bar is packed every night till late. Great! There's even a dedicated guy from staff keeping the troops entertained, organizing beach volley, games and events in the bar, a bit like a supervisor in kids daycare :P The island itself is divided between 4 resorts, the biggest of which hogging the whole central part and not allowing others to cross their land. So exploring the island is limited to the beach and a couple of plains of tall grass. Oh well.

The next day after arrival we get the diving rumba going and visit a close by site called Mana Wall as well as their most famous site Supermarket. Both good dives with plenty of turtles and baby sharks, but nothing spectacular. But, ah-ha, the next day we're taken to Gotham City (named after all the big bat fish around) and Barrel Head, both of which are quite far out to the sea. Now this is really something, visibility occasionally reaching 40-50 meters and the waters are just packed with nice stuff to see, from leaf fish to turtles and sting rays to even a glimpse of a passing manta. We like the sites quite much and go to the same ones again the next day.

After 4 nights and days of partying and diving it's time to go, and we're taken on a small boat through rain and rowdy weather to the Beachcomber island, western Fiji's party central, where we change to the big boat heading north to the Yasawas archipelago. The weather's a bit depressing after weeks and weeks of sunshine, and little do we know that we're in it for the long haul. We pick Tawahu island as our next stop; supposedly home to more good diving and providing the proper peace and quiet after Mana Madness. But as it turns out the weather never clears enough in our time on the Yasawas to allow for good diving.

We settle in Otto & Fanny's guesthouse, located in a beautiful place on the better beach of the two, just a coconut's throw from the filming location of the Blue Lagoon movie, with smooth grass and swinging palm trees around the spacious Bures (Fijian for a bungalow). While the off season rate for the accommodation seemed pretty reasonable, the price for their buffet meals is quite high (140F$ for two eh - in Fiji we've spent avg. 30-40F$ a day). But when it's paytime they surprise us by adding a "20% govt. tax" as well as another 5% for credit card payment. While the latter was somewhat common in some other budget places, we'd never heard of the govt. tax trick before on Fiji. Oh and of course they add almost 100F$ worth of "transport fees" for picking you up with the small boat 2 minutes away, naturally without announcing this in advance. Sigh. At least the food they served was quite good, the staff exceedingly friendly and their dogs just lovely.

With the weather windy, gray and rainy, theres little else to do but eat three times a day, saving us the money spent on extra activities otherwise. We end up reading several books, me playing Nethack and we even improvise a laundry bucket off a waste bin and wash all our clothes. Also gave my backpacks "laundry section" a bit of a scrub to remove that stale swamp smell accumulated by wet sweaty laundry over the months. The nights are spent watching coconut crabs pass our porch on their way to the sea and hunting a spider the size of Riikka's hand that was creeping around in our mosquito net. We'd announced we'd stay for 5 nights but after 4 nights of not being able to dive we take off and head back to Nadi to take care of travel business - and enjoy way cheaper food & accommodation.

See all the Fiji pictures here!

Tidings From The Land Where Time Begins

Ever imagined what it would be like to stay on a remote tropical island with no one around but you and a handful of other likeminded people? To be surrounded by nothing but the jungle and the vast southern seas with the gorgeous reefs, lagoons and vibrant marine life? To spend your days kicking football on the beach, snorkeling, cracking open coconuts and napping between meals? I have, pretty much every day of my life. And arriving to Tonga's Ha'apai islands fulfilled those daydreams perfectly.

Four of us travellers got together in the awesome Mariner's Cafe on the tiny Lifuka island, loaded a boat and got taken away to a place even more beautiful and even further from the hassle of the so called civilization. We stayed with a local couple who'd apparently also hosted the folks from Madventures in 2002. They'd cook us breakfast and dinner and oh my was the food great. Obviously no electricity there but a gas stove and icebox worked their magic nicely. The days and nights were steaming hot and we even got to experience our first earthquake that hit at 6.1 Richter some 100km away on the second morning. When it happened I thought the shaking was caused by one of the larger pigs walking on our porch, only to be corrected at the breakfast.

The kingdom of Tonga is located in western polynesia, right next to the international date line on its western side, making Tonga the first place in the world to welcome a new day. The people are mostly big, occasionally loud and generally overly welcoming, a happy bunch in a happy land. Being able to visit their turf was a long awaited and exhilarating experience for sure! The eye of the cyclone Wilma had crossed over the islands some weeks ago and there was some damage to buildings, but nothing major except for the sad fact that both the dive
shops were closed.

On our way out we stayed overnight at the semi-famous Toni's guesthouse outside the capitol Nuku'alofa and took the chance to check out the city. There'd been a riot in 2006 and many buildings were still being rebuilt from most of the city having been torched. With the most relaxing week behind us its time to return to Fiji and kick off a week of some serious diving - and maybe even party a little.


See all the pictures from Tonga here!

Bula!

That's right, we're on Fiji and the weather is balmy 30C with clear skies above. With our flight from Auckland 15 minutes late we had a good 5 minutes to catch the last bus for the day and a hefty 90km / 3 hours later arrived in the Fiji's Coral Coast backpacker favourite joint, The Beachouse. With great staff, unbeatable location in the forest and right by the white beach, this certainly is a great way to kick off this leg of the trip.

The closest shop and any proper signs of civilization being some 45 minutes away by bus, the location provides a quite pleasant level of seclusion, and two lazy days fly by. A general misconception about the main island Viti Levu is that there is nothing worth visiting here. Well, we disagree. The lush island provides quickly changing weather with lots of sun, beautiful nature and all the giant bats and frogs to gaze at. Quick hot showers aren't a uncommon either! In the course of the second day alone we counted 6-7 downpours, each lasting some 5-15 minutes - and then the skies would clear again.


Between dips to the sea and reading books, we got to engage in a game of coconut "bowling", practically Petanque with coconut cores, as well as a sweaty 2 hours of volleyball on the beach before sunset. The evenings get spent in the poolside bar, talking to other travellers about adventures past, present and future, as well as sampling Fiji Bitter lager and some imported white wines. After the second night our short time on Coral Coast is up and it's time to head back towards the capitol Nadi, to spend my birthday and the week that follows in a nearby kingdom, the only one of its kind in the Pacific - Tonga!

Roadtrip: New Zealand

It's not even a week since I boasted to a friend on IRC about how I'd never hop behind a wheel on my travels - and here we are, proud renters of a "micro camper", a converted Nissan station wagon whose back turns into a double bed. While driving is always risky and driving a rental car is doubly so with the liability issues introducing an economic aspect to the possible disaster, we did the math and decided the money saved by traveling in a camper compared to buses and hostels would outweigh the risks. Also New Zealand seems to be the promised land of such way of travel; every small town appears to boast at least one top notch camp site.

While NZ is all about the great outdoors and mountains, glaciers and whatnot, we're skipping most of that as we're still pretty much satiated with hiking, mountains and thermal sites from Central/South America, where the same stuff was bigger, better and cost a fraction of the price. Instead we have wineries, beaches and hopefully a few Lord of the Rings movie sets on the menu for the trip - all on the north island to avoid the several hundred dollars worth of ferry tickets it would take to take the car over. And having cleared our heads in Auckland for a night over quality NZ beers and grub, we head out into the pouring rain provided by the edges of the oncoming cyclone Wilma that brushed by the north island.. First night of the trip is spent in the back of the car, sipping wine and reading books, thinking about how much the weather reminds us of the summers back home. With the exception that it's warm.

For the first leg we'd explore the Coromandel Peninsula, visiting various places around Hahei Beach for two days after getting stuck there when the floods from the storm closed the only road for a day. Various landslides caused the most famous local site Cathedral Cove to be shut for visitors as well, blah. The amount of water involved was huge, it rained like crazy for almost 20 hours and the floodwaters rose almost 2 meters on top of the roads! On the third day the weather clears up, floodwaters flush to the sea and we continue on to Waihi Beach, a posh seaside town some 3 hours south. Even posher is the campsite we pick, with a heated pool, several top notch kitchenettes and location right on the beach. I've always dissed camping tourism a bit but this is actually great fun!

After Waihi we head south, making a stop at Matamata, unofficially now known as Hobbiton of NZ, home to the movie set from Lord of the Rings saga where a farm on the outskirts of town played Hobbiton, the part of The Shire where Bilbo, Frodo and co. are from. Since they were frantically rebuilding the set for the upcoming The Hobbit movie(s), there were bunch of legal threats about not publishing any photos or up-to-date descriptions of the site online, so we'll not be able to include any of the lovely pictures we took in the online gallery. Duh. Let's just say things were looking awesome and hopefully the ban clears after the movie(s) are out.

Saving the best for the last, we drive down to Turangi, a small town close to the Tongariro National Park which hosts the perfectly conical stratovolcano Mt. Ngauruhoe, which doubled as Mt. Doom in the LotR movies. There's a 7h/18.6km hike trail called Tongariro Alpine Crossing through the mountain pass available, which we obviously book right away. And just before go time the next morning I call them at 0520, checking (as requested) if the trip is still on. And duh, it is not. Thanks to omcoming cloud cover and very strong gale winds up to 120km/h, the pass is closed for business this day. The weather gods of NZ certainly are not on our side! And since we're running out of days to get back to Auckland, we end up missing this experience hailed as one the best single day hikes in the whole country.

New Zealand Recap

Describe New Zealand with one word? "Green" would be my answer. With all the rivers, mountains and lakes in the midst of forests so green it seems to be off the RGB scale, NZ surely is one of the most beautiful countries I've ever visited. Adding to that cost level of that on par with eg. Germany, it's not too expensive either. Yet while it's without a doubt a sweet place to live and work, it's appeal to a European traveler is somewhat played down by all the similarities to back home. All in all, we had a very relaxing 1.5 weeks traveling around in our Nissan "White Lightning" and we hope to be back soonish to see the South Island we couldn't squeeze in on this time around.


See all the New Zealand photos here!