Valley of the Sleeping Giants

We decided to take the bus to do some sight seeing on the cheap. We‘d heard about a place called the Garden of the Sleeping Giants and a therapeutic hot spring with mud pool. Whilst walking to the main road to get the bus a taxi driver/tour guide from our hostel stopped and offered us a free lift to the road, we were enjoying the walk but thought why not. This soon turned into some heated negotiation for a driven tour of the places we were planning to visit, he wanted to give us a good price and we wanted to take the bus!! Some people (mainly taxi drivers) can not comprehend that paying for something even if it is a good deal is more expensive than not paying for it. In the end we got across to him that we wanted to take the bus and were not just playing hard ball. 

We got a bus for $1.50 each (as opposed to the $60 the taxi driver wanted) and got dropped off at the end of a track that lead to the gardens. It was a fairly good walk to the gardens but half way a car stopped and offered us a lift as they were going there anyway with a nice couple that were staying at a resort (this happened to be the resort of Things potential future employment). The Garden was really cool, it was originally a private orchid collection now open to the public and the biggest collection of orchids in Fiji (now I’m not sure how many Orchid collections there are, but there were a lot of orchids not just 3 or anything, the photo show some of he more unusual looking ones). 


The garden is set in the valley of the sleeping giants so called as two areas of surrounding mountains resemble faces looking up as if lying down. This is fairly clear but I can’t help but think lots of bits mountains can look like a forehead nose and chin if you are looking for it.



After the gardens we got a free glass of tasty fruit juice then the same driver gave us a lift to the cross roads and we began to walk to the hot springs, good example of a friendly taxi dude. This again was a good walk, although doable and quite enjoyable as thankfully it was a little overcast, but we were thinking the walk back would be hard. Once again a lovely lady that was on her way to collect people from the mud pools picked us up and gave us a lift for the last part. Once there we found out a bus left in about 2 hours that would take us all the way back to town where the hostel was.


The hot spring bubbles up into a small pool at about 80 degrees C. This is then channelled into 3 pools this cools it a little and the pools are around 35 -40 degrees C. Before entering the first pool, you get muddy, top to toe you cover yourself, or each other in magic mineral rich mud. You then let it dry in the sun. Now we got a little carried away with throwing mud at each other and ended up plastered a little thickly, this then took longer to dry so if you give it a go I would suggest thin layers!!! Once dry you jump into the pool the mud came from to try to clean as much as you can off, this is weird as you sink into the bottom, squidgy!!!! A nice local man is there to give men and women alike a good rub down, which is a little disturbing to British sensitivities, but most helpful. You then move to a hotter slightly cleaner pool, followed by a clean very hot pool. By the last pool you are almost entirely mudless. 

Now heading to a thermal spring in a tropical country may seem like a questionable idea (heavily questioned by Stuff) but Things was very keen and  the hot water actually makes the breeze seem cooler, as does the mud. I can now see why pigs do what they do!!! Stuff really enjoyed it in the end and both of us now have very soft skin.

Cost wise,
Garden of the sleeping Giants ----- $15 Fijian
Sabeto Mud Pools ------ $16 Fijian

Would recommend both for good value for money, particularly if you can arrange cheap transport there.

Before

After

Fiji Update

Hello all, so we are on dry land on the main island (Viti Levu). Things has been given a job offer and we are now waiting for a work visa so not to jinx anything we’ll give more details later.

We are somewhat in limbo at the moment, we have been staying in several different hostels around Nadi/Nadi bay area, we should probably do a separate bog on this as we’re now experts on Nadi accommodations. We are now staying in one place for 4 nights. We have opted for cheap accommodation but not the cheapest as this way we have a pool, free breakfast, free wifi and a TV so cut down on costs of doing things and paying for internet. Its good value for money and it gives us time to blog etc!!! So here are some of our thoughts on Fiji.

Food
As mentioned the curries particularly the roties are awesome, Stuff has at least one a day if not more. You can get take away roties (a sort of wrap filled with curry) for a couple of bucks (that’s less than a pound)  Also the honey here is amazing, it’s a crazy dark colour and is so good. There is also every product possible made from coconut, our favourite of which is coconut oil. Its supposed to be a healthier oil to cook with and its super tasty!!!

Wildlife
I love being somewhere exotic, not sure I’d be as happy without geckos running about. Fiji has Geckos but also huge very cool fruit bats, Cain Toads (not sure if these are native or not but very cute), and mongoose!! The mongoose we only ever seem to see crossing the road at great speed. This not to mention all the amazing marine life which we’ll review once we’ve done more diving.

People
So very friendly!! Taxi drivers can be a little pushy but you work out how to handle it. Basically if you want them to take you some where haggle at least or if you want to know for sure it’s a good price insist they use the meter, if they don‘t have a meter find another cab or haggle them right down. You can realistically save $5-10 Fijian, and if you don’t really want to go where they are suggesting just say no, they will try to take you on tours etc, which would be cheaper than the hotel prices but more expensive than the bus!

Public transport
The buses are regular and cheap (like $1.50), often not too busy but when it is people are very accommodating. You can flag them down from anywhere on the road or wait in the shade at bus stops and get to almost anywhere. They are really cool to see every day Fijian life and all very unique, often don’t have any windows.

Smell
This sounds weird but Fiji smells nice the towns smell mildly of curry cooking and the countryside smells of wood smoke and flowers (just like herbal essences oddly). The wood smoke smell comes from the fact that there is always something burning in Fiji. They love a burning, it’ll be scrub land normally, cheaper and less machinery required than mowing. Its warm and humid so I think that helps it smell nice some how.

By Things

Photo of windowless bus

Musket cove, Surfing and job offers

So we had returned from SavuSavu and Greg very kindly invited us to go and stay with him at Musket Cove which is posh resort about an hour from Denauru by boat.  It is also has a small marina and moorings for the yachts, where we would be staying.  Musket Cove is beautiful and is the stereo typical tropical island you see, white sands and palm trees with turquoise water.  Whilst we stayed at Musket Cove we didn’t do too much apart from lounging, surfing, drinking, reading and eating.  

We were also waiting for Things to here about her job offer.  So Greg and I went for surf and dropped Things at the resort.  We went and surfed a spot called Restaurants which is a reef break and further around from a world famous spot called Cloudbreak.  It was about head high and clean, but low tide and breaking pretty shallow over the reef.  It was super good to get back in the water as I had not surfed since Mexico, which is far too long for me.  I got one really decent wave that started to barrel but due to my novice experience of surfing barrelling waves on my back hand, I stacked it.  Although not making it, it boded well for spending time surfing in Fiji.  

Another day we surfed another spot called Wilkes.  Wilkes is a right hander that is nice and solid but not as fast as low tide Restaurants and was on my front side so a lot easier.  I had a really good surf here, got plenty of waves and loved it!! I am now super excited about surfing in Fiji and really hoping Things gets the dive instructor job as it means I could be surfing these waves for the next 3 months!!  You know you are somewhere good when your motoring out to the surf spot and you see a turtle diving right next to you.  

We stayed in Musket Cove for a few days and it was awesome.  If you can afford it this is the place to go.  A email came through that Things had got the dive job so it was time to leave musket cove! Rubbish!  But it bodes well for an extended time in Fiji what with Things being employed as a dive instructor.  It is all now in the lap of the gods as visa’s need to be sorted! Uh oh!  Back to NadI and excessive curry eating….

By Stuff

Rain, Rain Go Away

We spent a few days waiting for Greg in SavuSavu where we spent our time trying to save money and avoiding the rain.  It rains a lot in SavuSavu and it is usually heavy rain.  This part of Fiji has thick lush jungle and this jungle needs a lot of rain.  We ate a lot of awesome curries in SavuSavu.  We found another awesome restaurant which is called Hidden Paradise Restaurant.  As usual all the best restaurants look like little cafes but put together the most amazing curries ever.  We bickered quite a bit which past the time famously… Only joking, but me Things did get a little bored with constant rain and not much to do.

One highlight of SavuSavu are the geothermal hot springs that can be seen on the beach.  If you go there at low tide you can see the water running and steam rising off the beach.  This is all very good but I did think hot springs are much better in cold countries as when your in the tropics your already quite hot so you don’t really need steaming hot water all around you.  This is purely from a walking and lounging point of view as apparently if they tapped this geothermal resource it would provide enough electricity to power the whole island.  Sounds pretty useful to me.

Luckily Greg turned up and was keen to get back to Musket Cove.  We had to wait one more day for the weather/wind to be more favourable and then we were off.  We hoped the rain was behind us as we sailed off towards clearer skys but alas a freak cold raining spell hit Fiji due to southerly winds and the rain came with us.

We had a fairly cool trip to Voli Voli point where we overnighted. The weather cleared a little and most the passage was between the reef and land so we were sheltered from the seas. We then made good time back to Denauru, and headed to the pub for beer and pizza, it was really cold. Now I realise its Fiji not Alaska but I am more than a little acclimated to warmth coupled with the fact I ditched my jeans in Canada, once again my insistence to carry my sleeping bag with me around the tropics paid off!!

Hot Springs and cold sailing