In 2023, Xiaoqin declared she wanted to visit New Zealand. I told her these things have to be planned 6 months ahead of time because of the need to book the Great Walks. So in June, we tried 3 times to get the great huts. When the Milford Track opened up the DOC website crashed, and by the time it came up it was intermittent and everything got booked up.
When the Routeburn track opened up, I was denied a login and in the time it took Xiaoqin to ask me whether we wanted to do it in 1 or 2 nights all the spaces were taken. Finally, we succeeded on the Kepler track, snagging 3 huts starting on Christmas day. With that, we bought plane tickets, which it turned out to be cheapest through Fiji Airways, which also offered a stopover in Fiji at a price that was still cheaper than flying United.
We bought Sea-to-Summit lightweight sleeping bags for Xiaoqin and Bowen, stuffed all our backpacking gear (sans stove, sleeping pads, and tents, since we were staying in DOC huts), a bunch of freeze dried food, and bought new button up dishes and titanium sporks. That all went into one checked bag but at the San Francisco airport, we were told that our carryons were too heavy, so we were forced to check those too, hurriedly taking the electronics and lithium ion batteries out into smaller bags in order to get onto the plane.
Landing in Fiji, we cleared customs and immigration in short order and got through customs with little difficulty. Once landed, the taxi service our hotel recommended picked us up and took us to the Fuji Sheraton resort, which greeted us with a full on drum greeting. We had already made plans to visit the
Malamala Beach Resort, so we started the morning by walking along the waterfront, after repacking our daybags so we would be ready for the beach. One of the hotel concierges told us she could have gotten us a better deal for the Beach Resort than we had gotten from the official website. I didn’t confirm with her how much we could have paid, but made a note of it for future reference.
When the bus came, we were shuttled to the ferry terminal, where we checked into the ferry, which served many other islands as well, and were given our wristbands for the use of the beach resort. We put on sunscreen onboard the ferry, and once off the ferry, we were then guided to our Beachside Cabana which we had reserved. The website said it was for 2 people, but we brazened it out and the staff didn’t object to us staffing it with 2 kids in addition to ourselves. What was a surprise was that I’d thought the fee for the resort included unlimited food, but it did not! I’d completely misunderstood what we were sold. So the food had to be paid for ala carte, and to prevent us from bolting without paying, they took our ferry tickets and would return them only after we’d paid our food service bill at the end.
We immediately ordered food and discovered (as we should have expected) that Fiji was on island time, the same time warp that all Carribean islands appear to follow, which is that service is on a “we’ll get to it when we get to it” basis. But that was why we ordered food right away, so we were good. More surprising was that the water sports booth wasn’t open because the same staff that was supposed to staff it was also greeting more people off the next ferry. Fortunately, the booth was unguarded so I grabbed some sand toys for the kids.
After lunch, we dropped by the booth to get snorkels and masks and fins, which were supplied and required only a waiver to sign off on, and then proceeded to snorkel. I had low expectations for the snorkeling, since I’d done a lot of snorkeling and nothing had led me to believe that the Malamala beach resort was something outstanding. Once I’d swam a few meters off shore I realized my mistake and that I. shouldn’t have left the waterproof camera in the luggage! I saw purple starfish, which I’d never seen anywhere else. The coral life was every bit as vibrant as I’d seen anywhere in the Carribean. I went back and got Xiaoqin and we did more snorkeling and were very happy with it.
The kids decided they wanted to paddleboard and we checked out a set for them from the booth. They were required to wear lifejackets, but that turned out to be a good thing because Xiaoqin and I got horribly sunburned despite reapplying the sunscreen, and the kids didn’t get sunburn where the lifejacket had protected them. Despite our best efforts I could not get them to try swimming or snorkeling, but I did jump off the pier as advised by the watersports booth and had more fun snorkeling.
In the afternoon, we took a walk around the island and discovered how small it was, and also found the swimming pool where we hung out a bit more. It was a good thing the pool was in the shade, and then we had more ice cream and paid off our bill before our ferry arrived. It was a good thing we brought cash, as the cashier had lost internet connectivity and couldn’t make credit cards work.
After making it back to the hotel, we checked into our room with a gorgeous sea view, and then ended up having dinner at the Vasaqa Restaurant, with authentic Fijian food that was much cheaper than the hotel’s restaurants. After that we were beat, though still managed to take a few pictures before retiring back to the room.
