by steve, on May 24th, 2012 (
Fiji)
Yesterday we embarked upon the coastal walk which we partook last year. Wanting to make sure we could take pictures of the waterfalls the first thing I packed was the underwater housing for my camera.
Having heard that the bus could come any time between 9am and 10am we went ashore around 9am and walked towards Mate. Along the way we ran into Wani, one of the taxi drivers we’d used last year. We soon had our return taxi booked.
We got as far as the main supermarket in Mate and waited there. Wani showed up and parked where we were waiting. We were just about to give up on the bus when it showed up around 10:30. It turned out, however, that this bus did not go all the way to Lavena as it did last year. So we changed plans and booked Wani to take us all the way and back.
It was a long bumpy ride all the way down to Lavena and we were glad to be out of the taxi by the time we arrived. We paid our park fees and picked up a guide, Simone. He took us all the way to the falls, nearly two hours walk.
There we changed into our swimming clothes. When I searched for the camera housing I came up blank. Turned out Helen had removed it from the bag thinking to put it back in later but forgot. Oops.
So we swam up river towards the two falls. The water flow was somewhat stronger than last year which prevented us from getting as close as we were able to before. Simone climbed the rocks up to the top of the higher waterfall and then jumped in. Quite impressive.
We swam back to our clothes where we ate lunch while we dried off. Then we changed back into our regular clothes and headed all the way back. It was a great walk. It was marred for me by the continued dizziness I’ve had for a few days. It made some of the stream crossings awkward as I had continuous problems with balance. Hopefully this dizziness will pass soon.
Then it was the long taxi ride back to the bay in which we are anchored. We were again relieved to finish the journey and eventually to get back onto the boat.
Fortunately, through the whole day we had good weather. It was cloudy but that kept things cool. Sam was in charge of the camera so there should be a lot of pictures when I can upload them.
We had planned to move on today but it may be worth taking a days rest to see if I can throw this dizziness. I feel a little better today but not completely well.