Fiji part 2.

Unfortunately, no wireless access in this part of Fiji so there are no pictures in this blog entry.

We’re still island hopping in the south pacific. We’ve been doing a lot of travelling by seaplane which has got to be the best way to travel. In the Coustea resort, we learned to dive but also, the kids got involved in a number of “eco-projects” and found out lots about island living. We did some work with the Savu Savu foundation’s Giant Clam restocking project. The Giant Clam has been massively overfished throughout the Pacific but by growing the clams in cages, the marine biologists can ensure that enough of the small ones survive predation to restock the coral reefs. We’ve been doing a lot of snorkelling and diving around the reef and we’ve all become very proficient at identifying the many different species of fish which inhabit the reef. We even saw a reef shark prowling around yesterday!

Isabelle and Hannah have also been doing things which help them understand the challenges of island life. Most of the islands have a very delicate ecology and recycling and reuse is very important. They’ve also learned to climb coconut trees, weave baskets, print textiles in the traditional way and fish. The hermit crab racing was a lot of fun too.

We spent a day at a pearl farm. We had never really realised how hard it is to culture pearls. They gave us a tour round the farm and Isabelle dived down to see the oysters growing on lines at 5m. They then told us all about the implantation techniques and the lifecycle of the oyster. We even got a small cultured pearl to take away. Although the cultured pearl market is totally controlled by the Japanese (Japanese scientists do all of the implantation in Fiji) the Fijians are hoping that the pearl industry will become important to the economy.

We’re in Castaway Resort at the moment. It’s very close to where the Tom Hanks movie was shot. It’s definitely not as nice as the Cousteau resort but we’ve got a Bure on the beach looking out over the startlingly blue Pacific with great snorkelling right outside our door so it’s not that bad…

We were going to stop island hopping tomorrow (the 26th) and fly to LA but we’ve decided that we’re having a great time here and so we’ll stay another week and “hop on” to Kula Bay and spend a week there. It means we’ll miss Santa Ynez, San Francisco, Yosemite and Death Valley but it’ll be fun. Hopefully they’ll have better internet access there and we’ll post some pictures.

We’re in Jean Michel Cousteau’s Fiji Resort. Very slow (and expensive) web access so no pictures in this blog. Isabelle, Trish and I have qualified as Open Water Divers and Hannah has done the Bubblemakers course so we’re all ready for our underwater adventures.

Apart from that, we’re having a lot of relaxing fun in one place which is good after all the travelling. Moving to a different resort tomorrow but it should be more of the same.

Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Even without the Harbour or the Bridge, the parks and greenery would make it special. However, having such a cosmopolitan city sitting on a huge harbour makes it perfect. On the first day there, Isabelle and I climbed the Harbour Bridge. More than a million people have done it since it opened but it’s still a great experience. You feel like spiderman as you clamber over the struts and climb through the towers before you climb the main span. The view from the top is quite breathtaking. It’s a fantastic thing to do and I’d recommend it to anybody. Following that, we did some shopping, hung out in Darling Harbour, saw some great films at the Imax. We went to the Botanical Gardens, the Opera House. Lots of great things to do. My friend Andrew has a boat on the harbour (and a beautiful house) so on Friday we went sailing on the harbour. An unforgettable experience.



Saturday was at Taronga Zoo. It’s a short watertaxi trip across the harbour from the CBD. It’s a good zoo and we saw the usual compliment of Australian Animals like Platipi and Echidna and some fairly damp looking chimps and giraffe. It rained all day.

On Sunday we all joined a University Group who were doing a biomass survey of the seas surrounding Sydney. The weather had picked up and it was sunny all day. We spotted quite a few humpback whales



and even a Wandering Albatros.



Although it was a fairly calm day, the sea outside the Sydney Harbour is a lot bigger than it is inside and there were a lot of people feeling unwell as the boat pitched up and down in the ocean swell. Luckily, none of us felt ill at all. It was a very memorable experience.

So, that’s it for Australia. Today we leave for Fiji where Isabelle and Trish are learning to dive and Hannah and I are going to sail. Australia has been a very varied and exciting part of the trip. It’s a huge country and we’ve only seen a tiny part of it. I’d like to come back and see Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and do more travelling in the Red Centre.

Internet access may not be as good in Fiji as Australia so blogs posts may not happen for a couple of weeks.

In the last two weeks, we’ve eaten a huge variety of interesting and unusual food. There were the Green Ants followed by a succession of oddities like Kangaroo, Camel, Emu and Crocodille. Surprisingly (maybe) all of these have been great. The continent has moved along since the days when the national dish was toast. The most prominent thing on the menu is always Barramundi. A very tasty freshwater fish which seems to be available in huge quantities.

The influence of “Modern Australian” cooking is everywhere: kangaroo with wild berry jus and shaved parmesan et al.. But all in all it’s very good and cheap. The wine is, of course, exceptional.