#mamanucas

Boxing Day in my current hometown of Melbourne, Australia is very similar to ‘Black Friday’ – the day after Thanksgiving – in the United States: A day dedicated to buying things you didn’t get for Christmas at drastically reduced prices.

Here in the Malololailai Island in the Mamanuca Group of the Fiji Islands, about the only thing anyone cared about on Boxing Day was the cost of a cocktail served in a hurricane glass with a long straw and chunk of freshly cut pineapple.

Early morning joggers passed our lagoon bure at Plantation Island Resort, no doubt fuelled by the feast served the night before. I sat on the porch with a cup of tea as the sun gained strength and painted palm fronds yellow and tiny songbirds flitted from tree to tree. After being delivered to spectacular Malololailai Island by plane and ferry the day before, it was a relief to walk from Plantation Island Resort to our next stop on the ‘Fiji for the Holidays’ tour, Musket Cove Resort.

To be blunt, Musket Cove Resort’s views are beyond belief. Pray and I arrived while breakfast was being served at Dick’s Place Bar & Bistro (named for Dick Smith, who began building the resort 35 years ago and has operated it since with his wife Carol and daughter Josephine). We dropped our gear and looked toward the lagoon and what we saw was burned into my memory forever: The water line of a blissful swimming pool topped with swaying palms, white sand and an aquamarine lagoon. The friendly staff could have brought me a bowl of marbles for breakfast and I would have tucked in without a care – the view takes your mind to a gentle and uniquely Fijian place, one that’s unconcerned with such routine thoughts as a morning meal.

Pray and I enjoyed our food nonetheless before being shown to a garden bure. There’s a view from the porch in the photo gallery below. Frangipani, trees ripe with purple mangoes, flowering poinsettia trees … a delightful foreground for the lagoon and ocean on the horizon. The bure itself was spacious but cozy, more like a cottage, with ‘Welcome Bula’ spelled out in palm leaves on the bedspread (photo below). Musket Cove has a variety of accommodations to suit visitors’ needs. All are fan-cooled with king-sized beds, hairdryers, clock radios, breakfast bars and refrigerators, beach towels, bathroom amenities, private verandahs and outdoor furniture.

Pray immediately began to explore Musket Cove’s grounds with his camera while I took advantage of high tide in the lagoon for a swim. From there I could see couples lounging on beach chairs, kids splashing in the pool, even a few folks getting off to an early start at Ratu Nemani Island Bar. Hard to blame them, as it’s rare to find a bar inhabiting its own island. Known affectionately as the ‘$4 bar’ and linked to the resort by Musket Cove’s marina walkway, it’s a wildly popular place for locals, yachties and visitors to relax and make friends. If it’s a barbeque you’re after, pick up pre-packed BBQ supplies at the nearby Trader and Coffee Cove Cafe. It’ll be just like your backyard – with a helluva better view.

I lost track of time – a common occurrence when holidaying in the Fiji Islands – and missed one of the many trips Musket Cove Resort offers for snorkelling nearby sand bars and reefs. Undaunted, I grabbed my snorkel gear and simply walked out to the lagoon’s reef. Hate to sound unsocial but having a reef to myself, with no time limits, meant I was in the water for two hours. Bliss.

After a rare rain shower gave way to another amazing sunset, Pray and I met back at Dick’s Place for dinner. Our waitress remembered us from breakfast and asked how we’d enjoyed our day at Musket Cove. We both smiled. End of story.

Nadi town Man. If you like action, hustling and bustling, jam-packed streets, hot, hot climate and heaps of people, then Nadi is the place for you.

Nadi (pronounced Nandi) is on the western side of the main island of Viti Levu with a population of around 43,000 at the last census in 2007. Fiji doesn’t have too many of these so we’ll be guessing numbers from now on for a while.

Nadi is multiracial with a capital “M”. A mixture of Fijians and Indo-Fijians with an added zest of life imbued by the thousands of tourists who land in Nadi as the setting-off point for their unforgettable Fiji experience.

Set in the middle of the cane field belt, which together with tourism is the basic source of sustenance for the locals, Nadi is constantly on the go and never seems to sleep.

The Main Street in Nadi is the commercial centre of the town and is brimming with shops of various persuasions all hell-bent on enticing you inside to buy something. The competition is fierce hence the prevalence of street touts offering you all sorts of ‘stuff’ at cut rate bargain prices. These efforts go hand-in-hand with loudspeakers at shop entrances belting out the latest Hindi or Fijian music. All in all it tends to be a cacophony of sound, sight and colour.

But like we said – that’s Nadi.

This video highlights the busy streets of Nadi and the Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple.

Nadi is not flush in terms of tourist attractions but as mentioned the Sri Siva Subramaniya temple is absolutely stunning and offers a unique experience and the opportunity to see another culture in all its stunning beauty. Craftsmen from India were especially flown in to create this masterpiece.  Those wishing to enter must take off their shoes and ladies are required to cover shoulders and legs with a sulu. Smoking and photography inside the temple is not permitted.

The Nadi market is worth a visit as it reflects the multi-ethnicity of Nadi (and Fiji in general) and close by you can also bargain for handicrafts from the handicraft market. Not quite the range of the commercial outlets in Nadi but a lot cheaper.

Basically when you get down to it Nadi is a “stepping off” point for the Mamanucas and the Yasawas or wherever else takes your fancy.

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