Land trip to Viti Levu

Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Sat 8 Aug 2015 21:28

Saturday 8th August 2015

 

With the improvement in the weather, the rally boats finally slipped their moorings and buoys and left Musket Cove marina.  The mooring buoys which had previously been unavailable to us were slowly becoming free.  We spoke to the marina office about getting one, but were told they were ‘first come, first served’ – basically whoever gets to it first after it’s been released, gets it.  We hadn’t realised this, and so started to keep an eye open for boats leaving.

 

The reason for moving to a buoy was so that we could leave the boat while we went to the main island for some exploring.  We had enquired with the two marinas over there about berthing and there just wasn’t anything available.  We won’t leave the boat unattended at anchor, and certainly not as close to the reefs as she was here.  Sailing back was not an option, as this would be straight into strong winds and seas, and so a land trip was the only way we would get to see Suva, the capital of Fiji.

 

Beez managed to get a buoy first as Bear spotted it when coming back from a rubbish run in the dinghy and put one of Rod’s fenders on it (this is a sign that the buoy is taken).  The next day, Rod spotted a yacht preparing to leave, so Steve went over and spoke to the guy, who was not leaving for an hour but was happy to tie our fender to the buoy to show it was taken.  An hour later we were also tied to a buoy, and plans could begin for our trip to Suva.

 

Rod and Mary decided not to come, as Rod has a knee injury that is painful and taking a long time to heal.  So with Bear and Pepe we spent a couple of afternoons looking up and booking flights, car hire, and accommodation, and planning our itinerary.  I was so keen, I wanted to book the flights for yesterday, but with hindsight we would not have been able to get everything done in time.  So we set off tomorrow on the Malolo Cat IV ferry at 08:30 from Musket Cove Resort to Denarau, where the shuttle will take us to Nadi airport for a half-hour flight to Suva.  We will have four days in Suva before picking up a hire car and driving along the south coast road to Pacific Harbour.  On Friday we have booked a white water rafting trip on the Upper Navua River, which we are all very much looking forward to.  Then on Saturday we drive along the Coral Coast Highway to Sigatoka, where we hope to visit Kula Eco Park, the sand dunes and Tavuna hill fort.  On Monday we drive on through Nadi to Lautoka for a day to see the town and get some shopping done, and then on Wednesday we drive back to Denarau to catch the Malolo Cat back to Musket Cove.  Very exciting!