The Hughes Zoo

For our last stop we decided to go out with a bang and book a full day tour, complete with catamaran, glass bottom boat and secluded island swimming. We  had to meet at 7:45, which is damn near impossible. Somehow we made it, just. Rather than the usual ship’s tender, we were loaded from the ship directly into one of the tour catamarans. Unfortunately, this just took us to the harbour, where we got off then loaded onto a second cat that took us to the island. As usual we were weighed down with kid-related baggage, so each change was good fun.

The cat trip was supposed to be a leisurely cruise past some of the islands, but as we set off the weather went from overcast to raining, so we headed straight for our main stop - Beachcomber Island. We anchored offshore, then transferred to the quite small glass bottom boats, which took us into the sandy shore. Somehow I managed to not get my sneakers soaked whilst leaping (with Will strapped to the front of me, my camera bag on my back, and one of those big blue and red stripy bags in my hand) from the boat to the sand.

We walked the short distance up the shore to the only building around, a sand-floored bar and restaurant. We found a place to set up Will’s tent and much to our surprise he had a great sleep, despite the basket-weaving happening next to him and the band playing a few meters away. The food and drinks (all part of the tour) were great. If I’d somehow lost the kids, I could have happily drank Fijian beer and sat there in the bar with my feet in the sand, looking out at the water, for the whole day.

Instead though, I went with Jeremy on a glass bottomed boat fish feeding trip. The boat itself was a bit of a disappointment - fairly small glass strips in the bottom. Once we started feeding the fish though it didn’t matter at all, because all the action could be seen perfectly over the side. Despite the rain (still falling) and the roughish water it was incredibly good fun. So much so that Jeremy was happy to go again with Ange half an hour later. All the Fijian locals were extremely helpful and friendly and really lived up to what everyone always says about them.

After lunch and a Hula show, Jeremy and I managed to squeeze in a very short swim before needing to get ready to get back on the cat. By now the weather, and the sea, was a fair bit worse than when we arrived. Getting onto the boats from the shore was a bit interesting, and getting from the boat back onto the cat was positively dangerous. We managed to get on unscathed, but a few of the Bold and the Beautiful crowd had minor falls and injuries.

We expected Will to have a nap on the cat ride back, but it was Jeremy who passed out with his head on my shoulder. A little annoyingly, the cat went directly past the Sun Princess on its way back to the port, where we needed to catch a tender back to the ship. That added almost and hour to the end of an already long day, but it did give Jeremy the chance to sleep a bit longer.

Once back on the ship it was (well past) time to put Will in the pram and walk him around the deck for and hour. Thankfully I grabbed my camera bag, because finally the sun broke through and we ended up with a rather nice rainbow.

Despite the weather and the crazy cat-swapping, it was easily one of our favourite days. I’d love to come back and spend some time here.

We’re now headed back to Sydney, where we’ll arrive early on Saturday the 17th. We were thinking of staying there a couple of days, but instead going to head straight back to Canberra and try and settle back into land-based life for a few days before real life takes hold again.

Photos for the day

I’d been looking forward to Fiji the whole trip, so when we turned up in Suva and the weather was crappy I was a little disappointed. We didn’t have any plans, other than to re-stock our nappy supply and wander around town. As soon as we got out of the secure area around the ship we were inundated by taxi drivers, tour guides, people selling trinkets, people warning us about the dodgy people selling trinkets and telling us to lock our bags. It was pretty frigging annoying. Plus it was a public holiday, so almost everything was closed and there weren’t a whole lot of people around.

Once we broke loose of that mess and made it to the local shopping centre (they had a Gloria Jeans… it was just weird) things were a little better, but none of us were exactly relaxed any more and the weather was getting worse. So we did our shopping, went back through the same mob of people and got back on the ship within an hour of first leaving. Whee.

Jeremy was insistent on going on a bus tour, so when Will went down for his morning nap Ange took him on one of the courtesy buses to “the city”. Which, it turned out, was some dodgy shop next to the shopping centre we had walked to that morning. Not all was lost though - in said dodgy store Ange bought Jeremy a drum, partly because he wanted it and partly to piss off all the old people on the boat who’d started to get under her skin. The other consolation (for me) is that I managed to get one of my favourite photos from the whole trip.

Despite it being a very average experience it’s hard to blame the place - we turned up with 2000 clueless rich old folk, on a public holiday, in crappy weather. It’s not like we got to see the best it had to offer. Still, it didn’t exactly make it to the top of our “places to revisit” list.

Photos for the day