some say that getting there is half the fun and despite a little bit of frustration and mild mid flight panic, our journey to and from kadavu island proved this to be true. we arrived at the airport to check in nice and early and after everything was organised we made our way to the gate (tiny room rather) ready to board our plane at 10:40am. as it approached nearer to the boarding time we realised that the screen in the room no longer displayed the time written on our boarding passes, instead it said 1:40pm. no announcement, no explanation, just another three hours wait. the guy at the counter just shrugged his shoulders at me and said it would 'probably' leave at the new time. perhaps our first real taste of 'fiji time'.
to fill in some time matt and i did a spot of airport shopping. we each bought a 'lazy letter' (pictured above) where all you have to do is tick the boxes that apply and send it off, for example dear a) mum b) dad c) cat. the weather is a) hot b) cold c) raining etc. pure brilliance. needless to say however this did not fill in much time. perhaps actually writing a post card would have been better.
my next idea was to take some photos, sadly these were the best i could come up with. matt wasn't the most willing subject. perhaps i shouldn't buy a new slr camera and pursue photography after all. either that or i should find a more cooperative muse beforehand.
after waiting and waiting and more waiting we decided to look around the airport some more to see if we could find a shop that sold an underwater camera. that mission failed miserably and quickly as all the big shops are in the international terminal which we couldn't access. feeling rather defeated and still with over two hours to go we sat down on a bench outside. an indian man came over and starting chatting to us and we told him that our flight was delayed. he then said to us, 'i can take you somewhere' and then we realised he was a cab driver. his cab was right in front of us (this time a yellow one!), we both just thought he was waiting for someone to arrive.
so before we knew it we were in the car and on our way to the garden of the sleeping giant, about ten minutes north of nadi and in the foothills of the nausori highlands. while matt talked to the driver, namely asking endless questions about fiji wildlife, i sat in the back and took some photos. at one point i tried to assist matt by asking 'what native animals do you have here? in australia we have the kangaroo and koala.' and the lovely guy replied 'we have cows, dogs, chickens. no kangaroo's or koala's here.' so apparently fiji doesn't have native australian animals roaming around and hanging out in coconut trees. good thing we cleared that up!
the drive there was worth the trip alone and the garden was beautiful. our new friend and cab driver promised to wait for us and insisted we leave our stuff in the car. matt took our flight details just in case and although as first time travellers we felt a little uneasy about it we accepted his offer. we didn't need to worry of course, he was there to greet us with a smile when we got back as he chatted away to some of the staff. the garden was more like a tropical rainforest and i gave matt the task of photographing all the flowers so we could show his mum, a keen gardener.
although this photo of me looks nice and relaxed i actually sat down for about one second before moving on to the next thing. conscious of our flight matt and i raced through the garden like it was the amazing race, almost running past people on the track who slowly took it all in. we took one quick photo of each interesting flower and one quick glance at each pond or big tree. in the below photo i'm pretty sure matt is clicking his fingers to hurry us up! so we made our way back down to the entry, drank (ok, skulled) our complimentary tropical fruit juice and jumped back in the cab for the flight that would 'probably' be departing soon!
after returning to the airport we were finally ready to board and even more ready for our real holiday to begin. as we walked out on to the tarmac there were two planes, this one and a bigger one. i think we were all hoping it would be the bigger one but it wasn't. while i knew it would be small i wasn't quite prepared for this. i heard more than one murmur something along the lines of 'we are all going to die'.
the fact that we were very high up in a tiny plane wasn't helped by a few things. one was the learner pilot. we could see into the cockpit and witnessed the other pilot slapping the learners hand away, presumably when they did something incorrect, which seemed to be a lot. it certainly didn't make for a smooth landing. secondly, i could see out into the sky through the gaps above the door, surely that's not good. and finally the best part was when matt leaned over to me half way through the flight to say he'd been leaning on an emergency exit handle the whole time. you can see it below (taken before we took off), the red flap should be covering the lever but it wasn't! i don't like to think how close we were to numerous different disasters taking place.
as i am writing this almost one week later it's clear we did get there and back safely. it certainly was an entertaining second day and it proved yet again that you never know what awaits you when you move outside of your comfort zone and do something out of the ordinary...
you meet interesting, friendly, trustworthy people.
you see amazing and beautiful things that you've never seen before.
you experience being scared for the first time in a long time.
you feel excited and exhilarated and happy to be living your life and that moment.
you drink it all in with your eyes and try to burn it into your memory forever.
kadavu island, fiji. paradise and home for the next seven days.
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