Friday was our day to get away from Denarau. The car hire company we were using were near the airport but they had someone drop of the car by the marina office around 8:30 and take us back to the car hire depot where we completed the paperwork and paid for the days hire.
Our first stop was at the propane stop only to find they only filled tanks in Lautoka. They could take them but we wouldn’t get them back until the next day. No good. Ok, so Lautoka was on our itinerary.
Our first and main stop of the day was to visit The Garden of the Sleeping Giant. This is some gardens established by the actor Raymond Burr, the centerpiece being a collection of orchids. The whole place was very peaceful and a great contrast to the hubbub of Denarau. Behind the orchid collection the gardens stretched out and up the hill. We explored this area for a while getting in our exercise.
We’d heard there were mud pools, hot springs and waterfalls further along the track we’d found the garden on. Not too far along the track we came to the mud pool / hot spring area. We had to pay to look at them and pay more, if we wanted, to get in them. If we’d never seen anything like this before it might have been interesting and despite a reasonable effort (particularly for native Fijians) to make the place look interesting we just took the look around.
We had a go at pressing on along the track to find the waterfall but soon we found ourselves needing a 4×4 and, not having one, we had to turn around.
By now it was late morning so we headed off to Lautoka to find the Fiji gas depot to fill our propane tanks. We had one empty and one nearly empty tank. They were good enough to weigh the amount of gas they put into each tank so we paid for what we got rather than a straight fee for each tank which is the usual deal. Turned out to be a very good deal.
We then headed into Lautoka to find something to eat. We ate at a local chinese with a sea view (from the distance) and got two huge plates of chow mein for F$12 total. It’s hard to know how they make any money.
We then set about finding another waterfall we’d been recommended at a place called Abaca (Ambatha). With no road signs we spent an hour or so going around in circles, backwards and forwards, asking loads of people who were happy to give directions even though they clearly had no idea where it was nor the difference between their lefts and rights (to be fair, they were using English which wasn’t their first language). As before we eventually encountered a section of road which was simply too much for our vehicle so we reluctantly, again, turned around. On the upside we scored some mangoes from a roadside stall which are just coming into season.
We’d decided to take a look at Vuda Point Marina on the way back to see what it was like. Although out of the way it has it’s attractions and is now on our list of possible stops.
Heading back we stopped off for food and beer shopping getting in a first round before our friends arrive next week. We managed to everything into the dinghy in one go which surprised me.
In the evening we settled down to watch the first couple of episode of the old BBC series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. They’ve made a movie of it and we decided to watch the old series first.
Photos have now been uploaded and linked to previous entries.
Leave a Reply