We were back on the local buses on Wednesday morning to travel from the Coral Coast (and Stephen's paradise on Earth) to Suva, the capital of Fiji. The bus into the city took a couple of hours and then we caught a local bus out to Colo-i-Suva, where we were staying. Raintree Lodge was very nice. However, it boasted in it's literature that there were no mosquitoes. This was proved to be untrue 10 minutes into lunch, when I had four new bites. Grrr! we spent the rest of Wednesday sat in a hammock, reading.
Thursday morning we ventured into Suva City to meet up with a friend of my Dad's, Alastair. He moved to Fiji about ten years ago and it had been twenty years since I had seen him. We met up outside the ubiquitous Golden Arches (only three in Fiji and we have seen them all) and went for a chinese lunch. Afterwards, we took a bus out to the University (where Alastair works) and had a look around the rather gorgeous campus. Then back into town for a mooch around the fish and the vegetable market. It was a great day. It's lovely to meet up with someone when you are away from home and knowing a local is invaluable. We actually got to learn some Fijian history, which we had been missing.
Friday we intended to go to the Forest Park in Colo-i-Suva. When we woke up it was raining, so we hung around, read and had lunch. The rain seemed to be clearing after lunch, so we walked down to the park. Needless to say, the rain wasn't clearing and we got soaking wet. I'm sure the Forest Park is very beautiful, but I was wet and I fell over (yes, again!) and I got rather grumpy. Ho hum. At least when we got back to Raintree Lodge the showers were hot (for a change!).