We’re getting ready to leave Savusavu for more island hopping and wanted to see more of the land side of the north island before we go. We had met a taxi driver a month ago who offered to take us on an “island tour”. He seemed nice and we kept his phone number, so we gave him a call. Was he still interested? You betcha. It was Sunday, but that’s just how our schedule worked (one tip-everything’s closed on Sunday so if you want to do more than just see the island, do the tour on another day). Sunday meant none of the island towns would be open, but we wanted to just see what the island looked like so it worked out well.
Heading out of town.
Fiji north island is a beautiful island. Most of it is jungle, palms and reef with occasional villages and a couple towns.
On the tour we stopped by this very interesting resort owned by a Italian/Aussie and his Fijian wife.
Turns out Luigi was in construction in Aussie and came here to retire. He couldn't help himself and just kept building. The upshot is this nice little resort sitting along the island's reef.
Luigi, Margaret and Bella the dog
Lots of jungle.
There's only one paved road, the rest are dirt.
Along the way, we visited "Heaven". It's a nice place.
The view from "Heaven"
It turned out to be a great day. We left Savusavu in the morning and spent the entire day driving around. We went north up the “Hibiscus Highway”. Mahendra, our driver knew a lot of hidden drives into some of the private backroads, so we saw some areas that normally would not have been available-certainly not if we had driven ourselves. I’ll let some of the pictures tell the story of the day.
A nice ending to the day occurred around 4PM when we drove down a sketchy looking and very steep dirt road to “the waterfall”. As many readers know, there are “waterfalls” everywhere that are locally famous, but it turned out this one was delightful! Mahendra drove down the very steep dirt road until we saw a young woman in traditional garb standing by the side of the road. He pulled over and introduced us. She was to be our guide up to the waterfall. So, off we went. A bonus of the 20 minute hike to the falls was that we got to see what Kava looks like in its natural state. The village she belonged to grew kava and it was fun to now be able to identifiy it.
The short hike in to the waterfall.
Almost there.
After a while we summited a small hill and started going down into the grotto where the waterfall formed a pond. It was gorgeous! And well timed. We were hot and tired. A jump in the pond below the waterfall and a swim over to the falls were exactly what we needed. Wonderful!
A lovely little spot.
And the pay off!
So-to our cruiser friends who might be coming this way, here’s a great tip. If you want to tour the island-anywhere-call Mahendra. He’s a great guy and we highly recommend him. He even took us back to his house where we met his wife and almost met their granddaughter (she was asleep). His phone number in Savusavu is: 926-1632. Call him-you will have fun.
Oh my gosh, that pool looks beautiful!! I see a new FB profile pic!