 |
| The total extent of our planning. |
Day one: Suva to Pacific Harbor. 55km.
Our hire bikes arrived on Friday night, and we hit the road (not literally) on Saturday morning from Suva to cycle the 50km westwards to Pacific Harbor. The weather was hot and sunny, and we covered the distance surprisingly well - stopping only to rest and eat lunch in a small town (Navua) near our goal.
The road followed the coast closely, and the view to the hills to the interior, and out to sea were stunning. We weren't sure if the traffic would be a problem, but we soon found that most drivers gave us a wide berth, and just beeped as waved at the odd white people on bikes.
By late afternoon we arrived at our hotel, which had a very basic (slightly cochroachy) room which was made up for by a lovely swimming pool to cool the aching muscles.
One muscle which ached considerably were our "glutes". To remedy this, I (Nick) invoked the first novel use for a normal item of the trip. Purchasing sponge pan scourers from the local shop, I taped them to the saddle to provide some extra padding. Perfect.
Day two: Pacific Harbor to Sigatoka. 80 km.
We set off early to avoid as much heat of the day as possible. It was the longest day and we were anxious to get cracking.
As soon as our posteriors hit the seats the pain started. Somehow kitchen cleaning items just aren't designed for use as bike saddles. I know - it was a shock for me too.
After one hour of agony, and 10km down, we stopped at the bottom of a large hill to assess the situation. It didn't looks good. We had a long ride ahead and considerable hills to climb, and were both gloomy at the thought of giving up so early in the ride. I tried to thumb a lift but Nat stopped me.
We decided to break the ride up into shorter bits, rest more and walk the big hills (just Nick) where needed. When we spotted a sign for a Cafe around 40km in, things were looking up.
Perhaps Cafe was too grand a name for Equila and Louisa's balcony. As we pulled the bikes up the lovely elderly Fijian couple hastily stopped their sunday morning massage and quickly welcomed us. With no menu to speak of (or anything else for that matter beyond a couple of chairs and a table) we sat and talked whilst Louisa prepared pancakes and coffee. It hit the spot and enjoyed an hour eating, talking and relaxing.
When it came time to leave I stretched my back in readiness for the slightly ill-fitting bike, and Louisa insisted on giving me a massage. It was bliss.
Now rule number one of running a cafe (beyond the menu) is to charge for your food. They insisted it was all free and we forced money into their hands and thanked them profusely. Such wonderful people.
In the afternoon we slogged on, stopping for lunch at a beach (provided by the Louisa as a parting gift) and later in a plush hotel just 10km form our finish. When we saw the Tubakula lodges at 4pm we were exhausted and euphoric. When I saw the sign saying "Pizza served all day" I was in heaven. No need to say what we ate for tea and that we slept very well that night to the sound of waves crashing on the reef offshore.
Day 3. Rest day Sigatoka. 0km.
Part of the bargain for carrying on was to have a rest on day 3. We caught a cab into town and went for lunch in a hotel that the Lonely Planet described as "many guests pay by the hour". Humm. Still the view from the balcony over the river was nice, breeze refreshing, and eggs and beans on toast most welcome.
Having mooched around the town and market, we followed the guidebook and shimmied along a rickety wood bridge to the center of the river. Here the bridge stopped and the railway on one side fell away into the water below. A cyclone years before had blown half the bridge away, and this was the point where tourists like us stand and stare into the murky waters looking for sharks. We didn’t see one, but it did look like a scene out of Jaws 12 – Shark eats a Fijian bridge.
Never one to give up (apart from trying very hard the previous day) Nick spotted the second novel use for a household object – this time in the shape of spongy mop heads.
Just like gel-like sponge squares, they had the perfect texture for saddle softening uses, and we bought a bevvy to affix to the bikes with trusty packing tape.
Day 4. Sigatoka to Nadi. 70km.
Success. Note to all readers: mop heads are the perfect solution to hard bike saddles. Dragons den here we come.
The morning’s ride was some of the best on the trip. Sigatoka is famed for it’s sand dunes, and the soft, rolling hills were just gorgeous.
We made good time and covered 50km by lunch (pizza) when it started to get hot. Pushing on each kilometer got hotter and harder, and on the outskirts of Nadi we were amazing to meet a local runner finishing his 20 km “jog” to town, at noon. I thought it was just mad dogs and Englishmen.
Nadi is the other big smoke in Fiji (behind Suva). We cycled through busy streets to find the hotel and collapse before beer, massage, beer and food. We’d earned it.
Nat takes over the story from here…
Day 5. Nadi to Ba. 60km.
After another mammoth breakfast we left the B&B just after 7am. It was a bumpy road leaving Nadi, passing many sugar cane train tracks and road-works. Eventually the road got quieter and smoother and we could enjoy the stunning views of mountains that we were passing. We stopped for a second breakfast in Lautoka (‘Sugar City’), where I had the best cake so far in Fiji, a peanut butter crunch (maybe that’s an advantage of being near so much sugar?). Nick had a rather bullish plate of French toast, served with yet more banana: “for oomph” he said.
After leaving Lautoka we managed to use our oomph to overtake a sugar cane train on the tracks next to the road, to much tooting and waving from the drivers. After some hunting for a suitable spot, we implemented plan ‘nap under tree’ to avoid the heat of the day. We were back on the road after 2pm and with increasingly frequent stops we crawled to the outskirts of Ba. Goodness it was still hot! A kind man in a van directed us to the hotel by driving in front of us as slowly as he could (although he clearly had no idea how hard it was to keep up!).
Our hotel room was a rather odd combination of super-modern bathroom with (rubbish) jet shower, and horrible gold curtains. The hotel staff were the rudest encountered so far, so we escaped to look around the town – which turned out to be equally uninspiring and totally lacking in potential places to eat. In the end we had a vast curry back at the hotel and went to bed hoping our clothes would dry in the air-con.
Day 6. Ba to Tavua. 26km.
We gladly left Ba about 8am and set out for our short ride to Tavua. The scenery was still beautiful although it started to get more hilly. In Tavua we were delighted to find that our hotel was a lovely wooden building, the second oldest hotel in Fiji – built for gold miners in the1800s.
We had a cold drink in the bar and got chatting to a local guy who worked as a rugby referee having retired as a player. He also owned a small island offshore and invited us to visit him there anytime! He offered to show us where to have lunch in town and invited us to play volleyball in the afternoon. Tavua turned out to be a lovely place, very friendly and a nice size. After a huge pile of fried rice for lunch, we went to the market & shops to stock up on fruit and breakfast bits, then retired to the cool of our room to read and rest ahead of the last day’s cycling to Rakiraki (rumoured to be tough because of bad road conditions / hills).
We (well, Nick) accepted the invitation to join the local teams playing volleyball on the courts outside the hotel. Unfortunately after a few minutes he sustained nasty hand & knee injuries from falling on the gravel (but bravely battled on)! We had an enormous and cheap (2 quid each) dinner, and purchased an equally enormous and cheap mountain of cakes to sustain us through the next day’s exertions. On returning to the hotel we noticed the pool which we had not been aware of earlier on (when it would have been very welcome!), silly.
Day 7. Tavua to Rakiraki. 60km-ish
We made it out of Tavua at 6:45am, onto a dusty section of road. The road had alternating stretches of gravel and tarmac, so it was a tedious start to the day, especially for me with my loathing of anything other than a smooth tarmac surface. We employed a tactic of stopping every 10km to break the ride into manageable chunks. Toilet stops were increasingly bold and therefore swift! We thought the total distance to Rakiraki was between 60 and 70km but had no way of knowing for sure.
The road followed the coast and the scenery continued to be stunning. A bit of a headwind, the gravel surfaces and the extra hills (and weight of cake in my bag?) made it slow going though. After about 3 hours we stopped for second breakfast and to apply the suncream, only to find that we were in the outskirts of Rakiraki – hurrah – we thought there were still at least 20km to go!
Our resort was about 10km beyond the town, of which 4km were on steep, rough tracks to the end of a rugged peninsula. Needless to say I nearly wore out my break pads trying to inch down the slopes and avoid every stone (and goat) while Nick flew down like a bird perched a-top his tiny bike. This was the hardest bit of the ride for me, but Nick – gleeful at his imminent release from this torture – coaxed me on until we finally crawled into the resort sometime before noon. Made it!
There followed showers, lunch, snorkeling, napping… and generally observing the other strange guests with whom we were sharing our surprisingly plush resort. Luckily we had back-up rolls and choco sticks (like Nutella in a tube) to tide us over till dinner, since the menu was pretty dull and overpriced. Still, it didn’t detract from our delight at having completed the cycling part of our trip.
Day 8. Rakiraki to Suva. 150km (on the bus).
We were up with the lark again, this time because we had decided to squeeze in a quick dive at 8am before heading to the bus station in Rakiraki. It was our first dive for over a year, so it was lovely to be back under the water. The dive itself was not particularly stunning as it was only the ‘house reef’ and the visibility was not great, although there were some nice little swim-throughs.
We packed-up and prepared our bikes as best we could to shove them under the bus. A minivan dropped us to town and we hopped on the next bus for the 4.5 hour trip back over the interior of the island to Suva. We looked out at the mountains, rivers, muddy road and wooden bridges and were glad we were in the bus! As we made it back into Suva around 5:30pm, we were welcomed by a torrential downpour. We reassembled our bikes and decided to go for it since it didn’t matter if we got soaked by this point. It was hairy: traffic, potholes, tipping rain, bananas dangling off the handle-bars, getting dark…but we made it in one piece. What an adventure!
No comments:
Post a Comment