12/3/09 Day trip to Rotorua! The first thing we did was bypass the town centre and drive about 30 km further south, where we had been reliably informed there were some free hot springs you can swim in. We turned off the main road onto a gravelly road, and after a bit more of a drive, pulled up into the small parking area. It was very quiet, and seemed quite isolated, which I was pleased about - not very touristy, unlike those in the town centre which have been tu...

10/3/09 The pickup time for our hired car was 9 am, so we checked out of the hostel early and set off to find the rental place. We were loaded up with all our stuff, so although it was relatively easy to find, we had to stop a couple of times to rest. Our car is in the 'El Cheapo' hiring range and is tiny in comparison to the stationwagon we had in Australia, but it runs smoothly and nothing seems wrong with it. We were heading towards Whakatane, because for the...

7/3/09 We had to get up at 4.30 am because although our flight wasn't until 10 am, the only free shuttle to the airport from the hostel was at 5 am. Cue lots of hanging around once we were there, and checking in our bags early. There wasn't any free internet available, like at Singapore and Sydney airports, so we just sat in a cafe, bought a sandwich each and read for ages. Having waited so long after checking our main bags in, we thought we had plenty of time b...

4/3/09 To save on a taxi fare we walked all the way to the bus station. We had a couple of rests on the way, including one at the bakery where I had hoped to buy some egg top buns and coconut buns to eat for lunch on the bus back to Nadi. They didn't have any out yet, unfortunately, so instead I bought a couple of Chinese sesame pastries. We had half an hour to wait after buying our tickets, and in that time a woman came up and started chatting. Cynically, I imme...

1/3/09 This day was taken up with the four/four and a half hour bus ride from Nadi to Suva, finding a place to stay there and settling in. We were dropped off next to Albert Park; it's lined with palm trees, is on the seafront, and the Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith landed here on one of his two stopovers on his epic flight across the Pacific. We dumped our bags on a bench, and while Dave looked after them, I walked round to the first place on our lis...