Wednesday was the day to pick up our friends Judy and Colin from Savusavu. About 8am we took the dinghy ashore to the creek where we first went ashore here. We found an alternate path to the road which was a little easier than the first we found and walked into the village of Bagasau to await the 9am bus. Not having a watch on us we don’t know if the bus was late but we waited awhile. However, without precise awareness of the time of day, time passes differently it seems and it was nice just to hang out and just wait for the bus. A few locals passed by and chatted. One lady offered us tea. We declined with thanks as we were waiting for the bus. Turned out we would have had time but we didn’t know. Another chap had a fish and some plants, the latter his mother had sent him to collect to help make medicine for his young child.<\/p>\n

The bus eventually came. It was a fine air conditioned affair. Air conditioned in terms of it having no windows. Fine being a bit of an exaggeration. The road was more of a dirt track with potholes. The driver seemed to know all of them and avoided them deftly. The going was slow at best and descended to a crawl when climbing hills. At one point we stopped for 5-10 minutes where locals were selling food. Helen and I shared a warm potato roti.<\/p>\n

It took two hours to get to Savusavu by the bus but we loved it as it gave us a chance to take in the local scenery. The majority of the journey was through very wild bush which gradually became more cultivated as we approached town. Towards the end we passed a number of small resorts no doubt accessed via the airport in Savusavu.<\/p>\n

Judy and Colin had already arrived by the time we made it to the Copra Shed Marina where we’d agreed to meet. They’d had an uneventful journey over. We walked the high street and back before sitting down for lunch joined by Mike, Anne and their daughter from Callisto. After lunch we went shopping for fresh provisions. At the market we just about met everyone we knew still in Savusavu.<\/p>\n

Back at the marina Judy and Colin sorted out their flight from Taveuni a week from now. I checked at the office and our Lau group permit had arrived. I had to pay for it and extend our coastal permit from customs. I ran down to the other end of the high street to the appropriate bank. As luck would have it one of the customs ladies (the one who originally cleared us in) was there and agreed to sort us out there and then. I paid in the permit fees and requested a copy which I gave to the customs lady. She agreed to add this to our permit and extend our time out. Now we are set to explore the Lau Group for 2-3 weeks. This works well as they are off to the east of us and we are heading that way right now. Being up wind it’s nice to avoid repeating the hard leg of the trip east.<\/p>\n

By the time I returned our taxi to Bagasau had arrived. They tried to up the pre-agreed charge on me but I held my ground. Helen and I popped round the corner to a doctor to pick up some eye drops before returning to pick up Judy and Colin who now had their reservation.<\/p>\n

All was set for our return trip to Bagasau. The trip back was quicker but not without event. At one point where there were roadworks and the road essentially mud, a truck had got stuck in the main mud of the road. The bus in front of us tried to go around it and also got stuck. The workers had to use a cable attached to a digger to haul the bus out and then the truck. Our taxi driver made it through the mud. Only just, it seemed. It all seemed quite normal though.<\/p>\n

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When we were eventually dropped off by our hole in the hedge which would lead to the dinghy the taxi driver got stuck turning the vehicle around. Judy, Colin and I helped by giving him a push. Unfortunately Judy got sprayed with mud. At that time we were joined by Wayne, one of the younger Pickerings returning from school. He thought it was hilarious, as it was if you can see the funny side.<\/p>\n

Wayne joined us as we made our way over the barbed wire and through the wet grass to the dinghy chatting to Helen as we went. When we reached the dinghy we gave him some bread we’d picked up from town to take up to Sandra and Arthur. We managed to pile all of us and all the luggage into the dinghy and made our way back to the boat. The timing was good as the water was only just deep enough to get out. Any earlier and we may have had to wait.<\/p>\n

On the boat Judy changed and we soon settled down to G&Ts and a relaxing evening with BBQ chicken for dinner. We were all tired well before cruisers midnight (9pm) and crashed for a good nights sleep.<\/p>\n

Today we’ll go ashore one more time. We have a few extra things for Arthur and Sandra and we’ll take Judy and Colin to the hot pool. The Tahina’s are likely to come too. We’ll stay here for one more evening before moving somewhere further east.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday was the day to pick up our friends Judy and Colin from Savusavu. About 8am we took the dinghy ashore to the creek where we first went ashore here. We found an alternate path to the road which was a little easier than the first we found and walked into the village of Bagasau […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiji","category-tahina","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4664"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4830,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4664\/revisions\/4830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}