It's been a while since I wrote anything, so I've got some catching up to do.

I left Levuka on Tuesday 20th. My last few days there were spent wandering along the shore or being guided up the hill by Nox. The hill climb was great, with fantastic views over Levuka. About one-third of the way down Nox suggested that I need to take care where I placed my feet. Considering we were descending across a 60° slope, I replied that I'd been giving great care to my foot placement for the last 15 minutes! Still, I got to take my walking boots out the bottom of my pack and stretch my legs.

On several evenings, I was able to watch the Rugby in the club behind the Pizza place. I got to watch Fiji being thrashed by South Africa (the locals were not happy!), and England scraping in another win despite a poor performance. The one evening I decided to try a Fijian Pizza, but found out that they only had chicken and vegetables, so could only offer my 2 of the ~10 pizzas on the menu; I decided to try somewhere else.

I need to say thank you to John, Marilyn and all at the Levuka Homestay for making my time there some pleasant and for the "introduction to Fiji" that they gave me.

The journey from Levuka to Savusavu was slightly fraught. If I can paraphrase, all roads lead to Suva (the capital). To go across like I wanted, I needed to head back towards Suva, but then change and head out towards Savusavu. This sort of worked, but with a couple of problems. Firstly, there was a schools soccer tournament taking place in Labasa (the other main settlement on the island of Vanua Levu where I was heading). Therefore, the ferries and buses were heaving with excited school kids - Grrrr. Secondly, the buses were all going to Labasa, so I had to get off part of the way along and catch a local bus for the last bit of the journey. There are few puka coaches in Fiji, but the local bus that I caught was of the asthmatic variety that could barely manage 10mph on the inclines. I swear that the clouds of black smoke pouring from the bus's exhaust, actually overtook the bus as it struggled to the top of the hills. In all, the journey took about 11 hours, so I had to dive into the pool to refresh and recover on arrival.

Savusavu is bigger than Levuka in that there are shops down both sides of the main street, where Levuka had shops only on one side. Nevertheless, although it is the tourist centre of the Vanua Levu island, it is still a very small place. Its main attraction is the marina which attracts lots of yachting-types to come here. There are a lot more white faces around than Levuka, and the yachting community is supplemented by the number of whities who have taken advantage of the freehold offers here to buy there own little piece of paradise. Most places in Fiji are offered only as leasehold and so aren't as attractive to prospective buyers. Some of the houses around here are fantastic, with ocean views across Savusavu bay. (One of the other side effects of this is that the menu last night included traditional Fijian favourites such as Chicken Tika Masala, Spaghetti Bolenaise and Sausage'n'Mash.)

The hotel is about 20 minutes from the town along a quiet coastal road. (I've been up and down that road so many times now that I think I could do it in my sleep.) The room is my first "bure": self-contained, standalone rooms, rather than rooms in a building or block. Here they are quite well fitted out with hot and cold water, en-suite with tea and coffee making facilities. Again, no TV, but I'm not finding this a hardship. While the price of the room is reasonable, they seem to load up the price on everything else, which is part of the reason why I am spending so much time walking in to town to get food and stuff. One luxury I did buy into was the hotel WiFi for a week, but didn't realise that it would be sooo slooow. It is like going back to a 14.4K baud modem, with web pages appearing line by line by line...

I've already planned the next stage of my journey: I am do a quick trip over to the island of Taveuni (described as the Garden Island of Fiji), before flying back across to Nadi (the starting point for my Fijian trip). Perhaps oddly, my westbound trip around the world has actually been heading steadily eastwards for the last few weeks. However, this will complete with the quick trip to Taveuni, when I get back to the 180° meridian line, which only pass on land in two places: far eastern Russia and Taveuni. For some reason, far eastern Russia has never featured high on my list of places to visit, so this might be my best chance to do the one-leg-in-the-east-and-one-leg-in-the-west thing (other than at Greenwich of course). However, as the "Garden Island", it is scarily expensive to stay there so I can only justify a single night before I head back to my starting point. I don't leave Fiji until 9th October, but will use my remaining time to explore the eastern (more touristy) side of the Fiji.

Soon I will head off back down the lane to town to watch England in the local bar. Fingers crossed.