The R&R Big Adventure

Here Comes The Rain Again

We have never experienced rain like this. Yes we have had days of persistent rain in the UK. We have experienced very heavy thunderstorms. We have been in tropical storms. But we haven’t been somewhere where it has rained so heavily, and so consistently, for so many days. This has been unusual by Fijian standards, even for a wet season.

When we arrived at our Airbnb cottage on ‘sunset strip’ on the south of the island on Monday afternoon, the air was already stifling hot and extremely humid: something was going to give, and sure enough it did, later that afternoon, when the heavens opened. Fortunately we had already planned to use that afternoon to stock up the house ready for Christmas. I am fully aware there are very many people in the world who would just like to have a roof over their head and some clean water for Christmas, let alone a decent Christmas lunch. But for those friends and family who stress about whether the ‘pigs in blankets’ are from a UK supermarket’s superlative range, or if the right duck fat is being used for the roast potatoes, you will empathise with our predicament. Supermarkets here have a very limited range – this is a developing country in the middle of an ocean after all. If you want potatoes, you buy the one bag on sale. There is one block of cheese for sale (if in stock); one brand of (frozen, not fresh) chicken etc. Like New Zealand, food is expensive, but especially so considering average wages here. We managed to pull together the main ingredients of a roast dinner, after visiting several shops, and were looking forward to cooking it on Christmas Day. Our ‘White Company’ candles this year were a box of cheap household candles, repurposed, and one supermarket even threw in a couple of festive teddy bears as we had spent so much. It really was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

The cottage was beautifully decorated, with a large garden full of tropical plants and palm trees (and a fair few frogs), across the road from a beach. The owner had even installed a hand-made artificial Christmas tree in the lounge, and vases with birds of paradise flowers adorned the tables. The one drawback was the only air conditioning was in the bedrooms, which we didn’t think would be a problem, if there were a breeze blowing through the house. Except there was no breeze: 85%+ humidity levels meant everything in the house felt continually damp – the sofas, the towels, even the toilet paper. Don’t worry, we thought, as we went to bed on Monday evening, this won’t last for long.

We woke several times that night to waves of heavy rain thundering down on the roof. The next morning, Christmas Eve, we decided to venture out during one of the few breaks in the weather to drive a short distance down the coast to see more of the countryside, and some waterfalls. When we arrived at the village (with a handwritten painted sign indicating we had reached the falls) we were asked if we would join a traditional kava (traditional drink of Fiji) ceremony in the village hall, where, crossed leg, it became apparent there would be a not insignificant cost to see the waterfalls, a local guide would need to take us (and it might take an hour to two hours – ‘Fiji Time’ – to get there) walking across several rivers in the process, oh, and it was expected we would buy some local handicrafts, laid out in the hall, as part of the experience. I didn’t want to be daubed with mud, or be forced to buy some cheap local tut, and in any instance we didn’t have the right footwear to walk through (by this time, overflowing and muddy) rivers, so that idea was kiboshed, and we drove back to the cottage. A wise move, as yet another band of heavy rain moved in and stayed for the rest of the day. We also noted on the drive back, through some villages, just how poor this country is, which most people staying in the big resorts don’t get to see.

Christmas Day we thought we would hunker down, turn up the carols on Classic FM, catch up with some family and friends on calls, and have a leisurely Christmas dinner in the evening, as the weather was not easing up. It was lovely to see family again, at the time of the year when we are usually all together. In a rainstorm interlude we managed a quick walk on the beach, but not for long. It wasn’t the best roast dinner, but certainly not the worst, and importantly, despite appearances, we didn’t get salmonella from the highly processed frozen chicken. It was so processed and misshapen, I didn’t realise I had carved it upside down, and therefore why there was so little meat on it.

Boxing Day – and the rain, unbelievably, got even heavier. As we tried to stream the Gavin and Stacy finale (and watch it before social media gave the game away), we had power cuts, water outages, and a few downpours that sounded like the house was going through a car wash. We had to pause iPlayer several times as we couldn’t hear what was going on due to the noise of the rain. We thought our washing would be done and dusted by Christmas, given we were in hot climes, but no, the humidity meant two days on our clothes were still damp (the bedroom air con didn’t seem to take the moisture out). In between power cuts we resorted to baking our pants and T-shirts in the oven (‘keep warm’ setting, 45 mins a go, turn regularly) to try and dry them out.

We had bought a bottle of gin and vodka at the supermarket (as our duty free had been whisked off us, after our aborted Vanuatu flight) and thought we would have plenty left over by the time we left Fiji. Funnily enough, the measures were going down much quicker in this weather. We ate in again that evening: we would have liked to have tried the restaurant in a resort just down the road, but the rain kept hammering down, and we didn’t fancy arriving drenched.

This morning we were actually looking forward to being back in an airport hotel this evening (dry clothes! dry toilet paper!). After checking-in at lunch time, we attempted to go back to Port Denarau for lunch, as there was a good choice of restaurants in the marina. However our plans were thwarted, once again, by the rain. Many of the roads were flooded (it was hairy driving through some of the mini-rivers that had formed), and the rest were blocked with traffic. We had to admit defeat and turn back. After dropping off the (barely used) hire car at the airport, our best bet for lunch was the Burger King in international departures. We agreed they were good burgers though.

Looking on the positive, we did get some great weather for the first half of our time in Fiji on Malolo Island, we had a quiet Christmas, with time to recharge, and are now really looking forward to the next step of our trip in Asia. And the weather forecast there is considerably better.