I arrived in Fiji and by the time I checked in to my room at the Nadi Bay Resort and had a quick dinner, I joined the staff watching a TV show on Harry and Megan arriving in Fiji, boy do they like the Royal family here, everyone had union flags or were wearing clothes covered in them.
In typical Holmes fashion, I jumped on a local bus to Nadi town centre, it really isn’t much of a town, pretty rough and rundown, while there I visited the Sri Siva Subrahmanya Swami Temple, which was very colourful and nice to look at.
I had lunch in town then headed back by bus to the hotel where I eventually decided to book a couple of activities during my stay. The first was a sunset dinner cruise, and I was picked up from the hotel and taken to Denarau island for the cruise, which was very good and entertaining, unfortunately there was quite a bit of cloud cover so we didn’t get to see a beautiful sunset, but it was a great night anyway with some good food and local entertainment.
The next morning I took a trip on the local bus to Lautoka, the next city up the coast, this like Nadi was a busy city, a bit more prosperous looking, but very little to look at. I stop ped locally for lunch then headed back into Nadi town for some shopping before returning to the hotel. As I hadn’t yet been on a beach, I decided to have a coffee then head back to Nadi and see the one there. The walk to the beach and back really wasn’t worth it as the beach was very poor, I got back and had a swim in the hotel pool.
The other thing I had booked was a full day cruise and stay on an island called South Sea Island, a return to Denarau port for a catamaran trip to the island then a day full of lounging on the beach, snorkelling, kayaking and paddleboarding, there even was a glass-bottomed boat to allow you to see the reef, it was great fun and I really topped up both my batteries and my tan. There were local entertainment and lunch with a free bar provided, it really was another great day.
One thing I loved was the local buses, clapped out old things, no windows, steam pumping out from the dashboard but drivers who are willing to help and they were great fun and a dirt cheap way to get around.
An early start in the morning to head to the airport, but I needn’t have bothered as we were held up for 1½ hours due to heavy rain, eventually, we got away, and managed to make up some time.
Jim's travels 