THE REMAINDER OF THE DRIVE

After Uru’s Waterfall, the Kings Road continued deep into more jungles and remote villages. Clearly, tourists don’t normally come here as all villages looked humble and people were walking along the road as it seemed that was their primary means of getting around.

As we got further north on the King’s Road, the weather changed from the partly cloudy and fine weather in the morning to pouring rain. The rain came down so hard that even the frantically moving windshield wiper didn’t do too much to improve the visibility. So we proceeded slowly and eventually the rain let up.

We eventually got to a point where the Kings Road started becoming paved again. Julie and I had read that there was some other waterfall around this part of the island, but there were no signs and we weren’t in the mood to get lost. We still had to get all the back to our resort on the other side of the island. It was 4pm.

By 5:30pm, we had finally returned to the township of Lautoka. It was drastically different from the ghost town we saw the day we arrived in Fiji on Boxing Day. Now, there were cars all over the place in what appeared to be a little rush hour. The rain also came down heavily again.

Julie and I were famished, but after our first experience in Nadi, we determined there wasn’t much to eat there after all.

It wasn’t until 7pm that we finally returned to our ocean view bure at the Hideaway Resort. We were tired and weary from the full day of going around Viti Levu and we needed the shower.

Julie’s arms, which started swelling on Day 1 of our trip, continued to bother her. I was getting worried that her condition might actually be more serious than anticipated.

After we got cleaned up, Julie and I weren’t about to have another disappointing dinner at the resort so we went back on the road and headed east to Villisite’s.

When we got back to the restaurant some 15 minutes of driving in the dark east of our resort, we were once again greeted by the folks who were there. They all recognized us from yesterday and once again we felt quite warm and welcome.

It was too bad they ran out of Fish in Lolo when we got there, but we at least got to spent time eating Crayfish in a tasty garlic butter sauce. We completed this with coconut-flavored rice and Indian curries.

The host at Villisite’s also took out some Vick’s Vaporub to help with Julie’s swollen arm.

These folks were so nice to us that we easily engaged in some conversation with them. We talked about what things we like back in Los Angeles as well as what life was like in Fiji. The host also showed us some kava plants in front of his place.

Anyways, it was 10pm when we left. We gave one of the helpers a ride home, which happened to be on the way.

And with that, the long Circle Island Tour of Viti Levu this day was over. More unforgettable memories and more experiences of the true spirit of Fiji were what we took from this day.