Last day in Suva

Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Wed 12 Aug 2015 22:41

Wednesday 12th August 2015

 

We continued our quest to get our wifi router unlocked, and headed towards the most recently recommended shop.  This time we struck gold, and were told to come back an hour later to collect it.  Well, the shop just happened to be opposite McDonald’s, and as it was almost lunchtime...

 

An hour and three quarterpounders and a cheeseburger later, we popped back across the road to collect the router.  We paid FJ$25 and put the SIM card back in and tested it was working before we left the shop.  We can’t check if it’s unlocked until we leave Fiji, but at least we know they haven’t damaged it.

 

Just around the corner we stopped to look at the Sacred Heart Cathedral, built in 1902 from sandstone imported from Sydney.  In typical Fijian style, the church is on the first floor, while the ground floor has a hall used for social gatherings and Sunday school.

 

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An imposing facade, with stairs leading to the church doors.                       A plain and simple interior sets off the lovely stained glass windows.

 

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One of several sets of stained glass windows.                                                     This mural covered the entire end wall of the hall on the ground floor.

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon browsing in the many jewellery shops along Cumming Street.  This area was the home of the Suva market until the 1940s. Cumming Street was lined with saloons, grog shops, and curry houses known as lodges. It became a tourist-oriented shopping mecca when World War II Allied servicemen created a market for curios. When import taxes were lifted from electronic equipment and cameras in the 1960s, Cumming Street became a centre of duty-free shopping.  I wanted to get a silver chain to replace a broken one, but they were either too expensive or too short.  I did end up with a new Casio watch at a bargain price though, so was very happy.

 

As it was our last day in Suva, we decided to have dinner at the yacht club, so got ourselves all spruced up and jumped in a taxi.  Unfortunately Pepe wasn’t feeling too good as she had come down with a cold, so it was just three fillet steaks with mash and gravy.  Absolutely delicious, with a nice bottle of red wine.  When we left, the steward/security guy would not let us leave the grounds on foot, and asked us to wait while he hailed us a taxi, which pulled in through the gates to pick us up.  Five minutes later we were dropped safely back at our doorstep.