Vicki's Photo Journal

February!

The day after John's Dad's memorial service, we packed up the truck and headed to Dennis and Abby's place in California to celebrate Gabe's big 10 year birthday. It took a little longer than usual because we had a flat tire that took 4 hours for the company to get out and change. John would have done it himself, but with their equipment, it is much faster. Except for this time.

The years keep flying past us! The big 10 year old birthday. Wow!

We were there for a week, so in order to keep busy, Dennis had John build him a raised herb bed.

Daniel decorated the pot for his succulent.

Mason

From the garden center.

Daniel received the Shining Star award at school.

Naptime and homework.

and playtime.

And before we knew it...we were off to Fiji!!!

The first week we stayed in the Treehouse Lodge. One of the nights there, we woke up to the whole place shaking. It had to be an earthquake. Sure enough, the next moring, John read on the internet that it had been a 5.2! Well, way up there on our house on stilts on the hillside, it sure felt like more than that.

It was really nice with a great view of the trees and on out to the ocean. Whenever I look at this photo, that cloud makes me think of Mt. Hood.

There were 75 steps up!! WHO decides on purpose to climb 75 stairs to your room every day? Not just once but many times a day? What were we thinking?!? Actually, we like to hike, we walk a lot, especially on vacation, so we really didn't think it was going to be a big deal. Except...we didn't realize that it was going to be so hot and humid. Ugh! We loved it once up there, but we really started dreading leaving the place.

Whenever we travel to places for a long visit in one place, we take my little espresso maker. I had a little adapter for the electricity. Trouble is, I didn't realize that in order to use my espresso maker, what I really would need was a converter. The first morning, I blew the poor thing up. So sad. It had traveled with us to quite a few places. I had to resort to the in-room Freeze dried coffee! But it actually wasn't so bad, I used the teapot and added boiling water to it and the milk and it was a so-so compromise.

But to my surprise, just a short walk from our place was a real genuine espresso shop! The Dive Café. It was a really nice place with a beautiful view of the ocean.

The first moring we went there, I was a little startled to find this little gecko up in the lid of the sugar container. Lucky for him, I am not afraid of them. I took him to the flowers and set him free.

The palm trees in front of our place had butterflies all day long.

The first day there we took a hike called the Coastal hike. It takes you along a flat trail along the ocean then turns in and upwards to Wainibau Falls. It was a simple hike until the end when we climbed a little to the falls. Once there we swam in the pool. It was gorgeous.

On the way back out kids were walking home from school. We were surprised that they would walk so far to and from school.

Just after sunset.

We woke up to pouring rain. On a tin roof even. It poured and poured.

We decided to go to the south side of the island to the Blowhole, International Dateline and Waitavala Waterslides. By the time we got started the weather cleared up.

Along the way, we drove through the largest coconut plantation in Fiji, according to our driver. It was a pretty awesome sight. The Blowhole was not that big a thrill, we have seen many of them through the years, but the black of the lava against the turquoise of the ocean was incredible!

Rows and rows of coconut trees for acres and acres as we drove along.

People actually slide down these slides, but we decided we might be too old for that. Somehow, the thought of bouncing on rocks, getting bruised and scraped just didn't sound fun. But it was fun to see them having fun.

The International Dateline. Just because.

I loved it when a Kingfisher landed in the tree of our Treehouse. It sat there and chirped and chirped.

A couple of these were hanging from silk threads like what a spider makes. They moved up and down on the string and crawled on the branches of the trees. I had to look it up. It is the cocoon of a case/bag moth. The caterpillar lives in it until it is time to pupate and then hatches out as a brownish-black moth.

Pretty awesome, huh?

See the baby gecko?

Fijian money is so colorful!

That evening, the monkey-faced fruit bats came to eat the berries off the palm trees right by our deck!!! They were huge! about the size of a hawk or maybe even an eagle. So awesome!

I know the one below is really blurry. Low light and movement, but I really liked that he had his wing out.

Nothing like fresh orange juice from a pineapple glass.

We celebrated Valentine's Day at Tramonto. It was a restaurant close-by that we ate at pretty often, since there really weren't that many places that we saw around the island. Our place had a restaurant, Maravu Lodge. The Dive Café (espresso shop) and Coconut Grove were pretty much it from what we saw.

They had a 3 course dinner with what I understood to be 4 choices for the main course, turns out they had ALL FOUR on the plate! Fish, Chicken, Steak, and Shrimp along with Cassava fries. It started out with grilled seasoned coconut that was so good, then soup, the main course, finished with dessert. And drinks, including wine and beer, were included for only $25 each person.

The next day, we hung out at the beach, did a little snorkeling and beach combing. Unreal to have a whole huge beach all to yourself!! The only footprints were our own!!!

It was so cute watching the little crabs dig their holes. In and out they would go, bringing clawfuls of sand with them.

My treasures.

The next day, John went diving and I went back to the beach. There was a woman there watching her husband snorkel and we started chatting. When her husband came out of the water, the three of us continued to chat. It was so funny to learn from them that they were staying at the place that we were going to be moving to in a couple of days. What a coincidence! When they left, I regretted that I didn't get their contact information. I even considered going up to their door, since I knew exactly where they were staying and invite them to have dinner with us. After John returned from diving, we went across the road from our place to the Taveuni Island Resort to see if they had a restaurant open to the public. They said when they don't have many guests, they allow that. So we had a drink and watched the sunset. While we were sitting there, the owner stopped at our table to say hello. She talked and talked about how they came to Taveuni years ago from New Zealand. She said that she and her husband were the ones who discovered all the diving places around Fiji. They were inducted into the Scuba Diving Hall of Fame for what they had done. She left and a little while later, up came a golf cart with her husband. He sat down and continued the conversation. Their names are Ric and Do Cammick.

The sunset didn't start out very promising, but it slowing turned into this.

After we left there, we headed to Tramonto for some dinner. As soon as we walked in, I saw Beatrice waving at me! She and her husband Daniel were there and invited us to sit and have dinner with them. What an awesome evening it was! We were there for 5 hours! This time we exchanged contact information! It was like meeting up with old friends!!!

While we were at the Taveuni Island Resort, we made appointments for dinner and massages for the next day.

I loved that there were flowers on the floor under my face rest.

Dinner, drinks, and sunset photos. John is with the waiter who is wearing the traditional sulu (kilt) on the middle left photo.

The next day was our moving day to the Raintree Garden. We loved this place! So open and airy, and no 75 stairs!

It was right across the street from the beach, with an awesome view of the islands.

The Dive Café was farther away, so I learned to make my morning coffees on this. Good thing I came prepared with my own espresso and sugar cubes.

Our daily visitors.

The airstrip was right behind our place, but it was not a problem at all. Only little planes arrived and left and only a couple of times a day. We got to where we would hear the plane and say what time of day it was.

The neighbor had a little stand that he sold home-made sorbet from. Along with a few homegrown fruits and vegtables. I bought some fresh ginger and tumeric to bring home. The sorbet was really good too. They used soursop as a natural sweetener. Always a list of unusual flavors, like avacado-basil, dragonfruit, banana-coco. The collage below shows a few flavors, the shop and my bowl full of the tiniest ants slurping up the remains of it.

Even without the ocean and islands behind it, I would have been happy just to look at this tree.

John could not resist giving the little plants a drink.

The local kids waited at the end of our driveway for the bus. Here you can see that even the high school boys wear the sulu.

Sunrise!!!

The next day, John went diving and I took a taxi to the largest town on the island to see if I could find some souvenirs THIS was the largest town!!!

No souvenirs, but I had a good day anyway.

Sunset at Tramonto.

The next day we were scheduled to take a 2 hour boat trip to an island to snorkel, have lunch and possibly stay the night. We took a 1 hour drive to the boat. THIS was the boat! They expected 10 people to sit on the bottom of it for 2 hours in the blazing sun, along with bags of clothing, snorkel gear and food! John and I decided right off that we were NOT going! There was no way that I was going to sit there rubbing up against hot sweaty total strangers for 2 hours. No regrets at all!!!

So we took the shuttle back to our place and decided to take the kayaks out. They were included in the rent of our house, along with some bikes that we didn't use.

For the first trip out, I left my camera at home. I was just not sure about being out on the ocean in a kayak. Turns out it was so easy!

The next day, we loaded up lunch and my camera phone in a ziplock and out we went. We made it to the third island out of four. We stopped at the second one, threw our kayaks on the rocks and snorkeled a while, then headed to the third. Just as we arrived a family was loading up a boat to leave, so once again, we had the place to ourselves.

That land in the background is where we came from.

This is a shot of the islands once we got back to the shore. It was about a mile out to them.

The next day, we went to Bouma and hiked to Tavoro waterfalls. It has 3 falls that you can hike up to. It was easy to the first falls, then really hard, just climbing stairs up and up and up to the second and then to the third was not too much climbing.

The first time out this road, I noticed this string of hearts, but didn't ask the driver to stop in time to shoot it. On the way out, we looked and looked for it, but could not find it. The next time out, we looked again, both ways. Still nothing. This trip, I spotted it! So happy.

Along the hike we came across this walking stick! It was huge! John laid his sunglasses down and it was a little longer than the glasses. It was still there on the walk back out and we realized it was dead. Some of its legs are missing too. But even dead, it was pretty awesome. And that crab! It was about the size of a small saucer. He hopped out from some rocks on the trail out. I took its photo, then continued on...John said that he tried to jump and get me! I watched as John crossed over and it did the same thing. A little jump and then scamper to get him too. Not sure if you can see it, but there is a lizard on the bottom right. They were all over the place. Turquoise strip on tail and then pink/purple up to the head.

The first falls.

The second falls.

The third falls.

John swam in the second and third.

Trail signs.

This is Deo. He was our driver most of the time. Such a happy man who loved his island and wanted to share it in every way. We enjoyed his conversation every time we went with him.

Our neighbors, June and Gary. They are the parents of the owner of the house we rented. They just moved to Fiji from Hawaii. They are building a home on the beach just down the road. Then their son will move to Fiji and live in the house we rented while he builds a home. We really enjoyed visiting with them. It felt like family immediately. They were raving about the food an Indian woman makes to order and brings to your home. So June ordered dinner for the 4 of us to be delivered and we ate it together on the patio of our house. It was so good! We had such a nice time with them.

Chicken curry, tomato chutney, rice, soup, breadfruit and roti. Roti is a thin form of bread like naan, similar to a tortilla. The breadfruit was a surprise to me for sure. It was like a firm sweet potato. All of it was so good.

And suddenly...it was our last day! We decided to take a taxi for a drive and spend time at spots along the way.

I found out from June that the churches don't have chairs. Sure enough when we visited this church...no chairs. The people sit on their knees on mats on the floor.

The store on the upper right is known because it is on the dateline. It says it is the first store to open in the world. haha! The top left is the remains of a boat wreck.

We were at the church right about lunchtime. The little kids were being dismissed by twos to go get their lunch and return to their classroom.

And I was worried about riding in a boat with so many people! I can't believe that so many men were getting into this boat! As it pulled away, the water was right to the edge of the boat.

I spotted this face on a tree on Gary and June's property when we went to see where they were building.

I loved these leaves. They looked like butterflies.

There were so many bananas on this branch that they had to prop it up with a two by four.

When we first arrived, we noticed how dark the night sky was and how vivid the stars were. I tried to capture it at the Treehouse and then again at the Raintree. I wasn't too thrilled with my shots, so I got on the internet to recall the settings and went out to shoot another night. I was so happy with the one below.