Full circle

The author, happy to be back in Australia

Perth, Western Australia – A little over four years ago my girlfriend and I packed our backpacks with as much stuff as a we could carry and set out for an 18 month adventure.

We aimed to spend four months travelling through south east Asia. Oh, and a year and a half in the UK afterward, to see a bit of Europe and earn some money.

As so often happens with plans, they quickly changed. Europe was a big, busy and exciting place and we realised we’d need a lot longer than 18 months to explore it all.

Last days in Fiji

Dave at Sigatoka

Sigatoka, Fiji – I’m down on the south-facing Coral Coast again, spending my last few days in Fiji getting my fill of waves.

I’ve surfed by myself three days in a row now. I don’t know where everybody else is. Probably out at Tavarua or Namotu or one of the other island resorts. The waves are undoubtedly better and longer there.

But I’m content with my little righthander. It’s only 30 or 40 metres long, but within that is a tubing section and then enough wave for an off the top and maybe a cutback.

For something different I drove out to the river plain at Sigatoka to surf with Dave. It’s a little more forgiving here with the wave breaking over a sand bottom beside the river mouth. But the murky water, strong currents and regular shark sightings mean its a different kind of risk.

The life aquatic

Tavarua, Fiji – A quick clip from a jetski trip out to the reefs this afternoon.

Cloudbreak was small and onshore, but we found some surf at a corner of reef called Desperations.

Nadi town

Behind the markets in Nadi

Nadi, Fiji – It’s hard to get a grasp on this town. It curls and fades and reappears like a ribbon of smoke through the landscape, without ever seeming to reveal its centre.

It’s easier to picture Nadi as a long settlement that stretches from the airport to the north all the way down to the main street about 10 kilometres south, with villages, sugar cane fields and resorts lining Queen’s Road.

Town itself is one long road lined with grubby curry houses, the ubiquitous Rups Big Bear department store and shops selling tourist tat.

God help any backpacker unlucky enough to stumble along here looking for a dorm bed for the night. Take your pick at any of the first floor sweat boxes.

Look beyond the main road, though, and there’s some gems. Bulaccino does the best coffee in town, as well as a mean breakfast of bacon and creamy scrambled eggs. All with a deck overlooking the bridge and river.

At the opposite end, near the colourful Hindu temple is Tata’s, probably the best curry house in the southern hemisphere. They have a sink to wash your hands, wall-to-wall flyscreen to keep the bugs out and big plates of curry, roti and rice for about FJ$7. What more could you ask for?

Behind the main street is the real colour and life of Nadi. The markets are stacked with stalls selling bunches of taro, cassava, breadfruit and all the other starches that bulk up Fijian cuisine.

We spent a morning collecting the essentials for that night’s marinated fish curry: cassava, coriander, coconut, a magnificent Trevally and nama – a kind of seaweed grape. All for just FJ$15. A feast fit for kings.

Paradise found

The view at breakfast.

Coral Coast, Fiji - It doesn’t get much better than this.

We’re staying at The Beach House, a fantastic backpacker resort on the Coral Coast. It has a white sand beach out the front, swaying coconut trees and tropical gardens.

There’s only a handful of other guests about so we have the run of the place. We spend our days alternating between surfing the righthander out the front, laptop sessions and ping pong tournaments.

The righthander is about as fun as it gets. It’s reached via a 200 metre paddle across the lagoon. When the swells arrive they stand up abruptly on the shallow reef before plunging and rifling down the line.

Paddling into one is like loading yourself into a sling shot. Position yourself in the apex of the swell, get to your feet and go racing through peak and out onto wall to pull a cutback or hit the lip.

And then paddle back out and repeat.

Coral Coast photo album

Surfing in Fiji, country style.

Heading east along the Coral Coast highway

Guard dogs on a farm at Sigatoka.

Sunset at Mango Bay.

Buses here are slow, erratic and refuse to pull into bus stops

Cruising the Coral Coast

There’s dozens of waves like this along the South Coast of Fiji.

Coral Coast, Fiji - We’ve rented a car and taken a few days out to explore Fiji’s Coral Coast, the south facing coastline populated by resorts and traditional Fijian villages.

It’s cooler here by the ocean than Nadi on the west coast, which is a few kilometres inland and ringed by mountains. The Coral Coast also enjoys a slower pace of life, if that’s possible in the already-relaxed Fijian Islands.

Villagers sell paw paw and taro and mangos on road side stalls. The smoke from trash fires hugs the deep valleys. School children in their crisp white shirts and traditional sulus wait for the school bus.

They break out into big grins and waves as we putter past in our tiny hire car, two bearded Australians squeezed in beside surfboards and bags and camera equipment.

Cloudbreak

Stu getting ready to photograph Cloudbreak from the water

Tavarua, Fiji - One of the best things about surfing is that it’s a free activity. Riding swells in the ocean costs nothing . No ski lifts, no access charges, no membership.

But Fiji has operated a strange system of access rights to its reefs for the past few decades. You could only surf some of the area’s best waves if you stayed at the resort next to the reef.

In the case of Cloudbreak, probably Fiji’s best wave, you had to stay at the US$400 a night Tavarua Resort.

Colo I Suva photo album

Hello Fiji

Life in the South Pacific

Nadi, Fiji – They don’t still do this sort of thing, do they? Five smiling men dressed in floral shirts and sulus playing guitars and strumming out a South Pacific-style song to welcome the tourists into Nadi International Airport.

But it brings a smile to my face anyway. The rolling music, the open faces and the warm tropical air. My European adventure is over but my Fijian one is just starting.

I stumble out into the arrivals hall, loaded down with backpacks, surfboard bags and two bottles of duty free Bounty Rum.

The latter is a request from Dave, an old school friend and Red Bull’s man on the ground in Fiji. “Get a couple of bottles of Bounty,” he asked me before I left London. “They’re great with Red Bull. We call them Rum Bulls!”