SOUTHEAST VITI LEVU

After the 15-minute unsealed driving to return to the main road (Queens Road), we continued east and headed towards Suva. It was still about 2 hours from where we were at so we took this time to listen some music.

The music was pretty much similar to some of the music we had heard while driving around New Zealand. We especially enjoyed hearing “Life is a Rollercoaster” by Ronan Keating as well as some of Julie’s pop favorites. But during one of the times when the DJ was talking, we were disturbed to hear her talk about how some little girl was mugged by a big burly Fijian in Suva. There were many onlookers and it was broad daylight, but no one did anything about it! The DJ continued to urge her listeners not to show you have any money or bring more than you need if you’re in the city.

Prior to this trip, Julie and I had read up on some of the political instability, racial tensions, and poverty that afflicts the inhabitants of Fiji. Even though we hadn’t noticed these things on the surface thus far (except maybe the poverty; but no one was begging), it didn’t really make us want to check out the night scene in Suva if we could get around to it. So we only filled up on some petrol before heading to the northern outskirts of town towards the Colo-i-Suva Park.

We had to take a few uphill roads before we got to the relatively quiet park. We left the car in front of the visitor center (as we were always wary of break-ins), paid the admission fee, and then walked towards the back side of the park. We didn’t have time to do the entire walk, but the goal of was to see Waisila Falls anyways.

After crossing the street and following an unsealed back road past a few residences, we found the walking path into Colo-i-Suva and took it downhill on a well-developed track. It only took a few minutes to get to a spot where we could see the waterfall through the foliage. And a few more minutes on some slippery rocks to reach the base of the waterfall.

The falls itself wasn’t impressive nor tall, but I could see how it can relax nature lovers just wanting a little peace and quiet away from the more hectic (by Fijian standards) pace of Suva.

Julie and I returned to the car park at 12pm and proceeded to head north towards the town of Nausori.

As we entered Nausori, there were heaps of people (mostly Fijian Indian) lining the streets on various errands. Most of the people on the streets looked quite poor however so Julie made sure the doors were locked in the car. It was quite a crowded place and just trying to drive through the main street in town was a chore as people were everywhere and the cars in front of me were equally paralyzed by the foot traffic.

Both of us were hungry at the time, but we pressed on and didn’t want to look for Indian food here.