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