The Langdon Hotel on Symonds Road in Auckland is just the place to collapse, relax, and restore. The club rooms offer a private lounge with breakfast, tea, fine wines and hors d'oeuvres. The pool, hot tub, steam room and sauna, all tiled with bronze and blue colored glass, make your revival complete. Situated close to the hub of downtown Auckland - Queen Street and the Sky Tower - the hotel shuttle and free City Circuit bus make sightseeing a snap. Cuisine choices are mostly Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Italian - and all of it good. Auckland feels more and more diverse - immigration has doubled in the past five years.
Saturday at the Auckland airport was no fun...getting to the airport more than two hours prior to flight time, we still just barely made the flight. Standing in line for so long, the upside was we met a wonderful couple, Daniel and Gladys, who emigrated to New Zealand from George, South Africa, five years ago. They love it, and have never looked back. Their three children, after graduating from University, moved to Auckland also. They gave us lots of good information about South Island.
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| The healthy reef at Sawa-i-lau |
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| The Clipper Odyssey in front of Sawa-i-lau beach and cliffs |
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| Fee and her pretty daughter, Fiji |
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| In Raymond Burr's orchid gardens, Fiji |
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| Hindu temple in Fiji |
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| Sculpture at Papeete airport |
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| John hard at work at the Papeete airport |
On the plane, we sat next to Frank, who was going to Fiji for an 8-day dive vacation. He'll be doing three dives a day. And he had just spent 8 days driving around the South Island, so was also a font of information for those of us planning a trip around the South Island in the near future! A 4th generation Californian, Frank had the beautiful looks of a Spanish Grandee. He works in Pediatric Social Services for the U.C.-Santa Cruz and got the Farmer's Market program started for the poorest neighborhoods in San Diego. The immigrant population of Hmong, Vietnamese, Malians and others certainly can understand fresh food better than crap from McDonalds.
Deplaning at the Fiji airport, we were caught up by George Lake, one of the dive instructors on our trip, who had sat next to Daniel and Gladys on the plane, and they pointed us out to him. Since he's done this trip about 10 times, he guided us through Customs and Entry, and got us to the hotel just in time to catch the bus for the tour of Fiji before boarding the boat.
First stop was Garden of the Sleeping Giant, Raymond Burr's large estate of orchids - over 30,000 varieties. A gentle rain was falling, and the paths through the "groves" of orchids provided peace and grace. What a creation. In the lily pond was a Cane Toad, a pest not native to Fiji, which threatens the balance of the ecosystem.
On to a local village where we perused displays of crafts by the local women, and the men created the ceremonial Kava drink. I made a friend, Fee, who creates jewelry with black pearls.
A last stop at the home of Rosey, owner of the tour company, which commands an outstanding view of the ocean and surrounding islands. On the way up to her home, we travelled on a muddy road, with shacks on both sides, and numerous goats. Her house is of pretty stucco with lots of gardens and outbuildings, and two swings.
Fiji is known as the transition zone between Polynesia and Melanesia - two very different cultures and peoples. It is made up of 300 islands, only one-third of which are populated. Most of the other 200 will never be populated, as the government has a policy of protecting the birds and turtles, most of whom will not come back to lay their eggs on islands that have any human habitation. The Indian people came to Fiji in the 1870s to work the sugar cane fields, and, after the coup of 1987, have no political rights and can not own land. Yet, they are half the population. There are many Hindu temples on Fiji.
We got on the boat, got settled, had dinner, and went to sleep.
Sunday morning, Nov 21, we got up and discovered we were in the bay of Sawa-i-lau, one of those many Fijian islands. We went snorkeling on the reef, which was chockfull of corals, fish, and the first sea krait I ever saw - a 6 inch black-and-white striped snake, apparently very poisonous. It was traveling up and down the water column vertically, about 10 feet at a time. Giovanna Fasinelli, our resident marine biologist, also showed us a nudibranch, soft yellow with an orange outline.
Later, we took the zodiacs along the shore and observed the limestone formations and caves - the soft limestone erodes into weird mushroom shapes. The terrain of Fiji is not what I expected -- it is green and scrubby and rockier than I would have thought. There are 3 types of islands: Atolls, high volcanic islands, and Makatea islands like this one, where there are cliffs rising from the beach.
We visited a small village, and the choir sang hymns for us in Fijian (like Maori, mostly vowels). Sadly, it is obvious the little children are accustomed to tourists taking their pictures as they squirm about and try to look as "adorable" as possible.
Today is a sea day, with lectures. Giovanna will talk about "Language of Fish" and Jonathan, her partner and our resident ornitholigist and mammal expert, will talk about "Biodiversity and Melanesia".
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