The Fiji - Pacific Idyll II.

Sigatoka

Small town of Sigatoka is placed at south-west coast of Viti Levu Island, in 127 kms distance from capital Suva. This second biggest town is calm agricultural locality, the inhabitants of which look after prosperity of all resorts, situated along Coral Coast. Busy market place, great Mosque, Kalevu culture centre or Sigatoka Sand Dunes National Park belong to main town´s dominants. As you can derive from the name of this park, sand dunnes could be found there. Anyway, these formations are not fully characteristic for most of the island, except of this that approx. sixty ancient burial places which were discovered there recently.

Nadi

Nadi is, as far as the largness is concerened, the third greatest towm from these group of islands. The locality is placed along coast of a bay of the same name. Local economy is fully dependent on tourist business. This fact belongs to some reasons of developped infrastructure. Just from here. most modern section of coastal road line starts there, leading via beautiful places, passing small Fiji and Indian villages, sugar-cane plantations and coral lagoons.

Anyway, as main tourist place of interest, it is Svami Shiva Shri Subramaniya Church - the greatest  Hindu Church of  South Hemisphere, in a form of many-coloured pyramid, richly decorated with different religious elements. Its height makes nearly 30 metres. In general, these are three churches, each of which is consecrated to any other deity - i.e. Murugan, Ganesha and Minaksh.

In a distance of couple of minutes´ car drive from the airport, a picturesque local market place is to be found, where you can have a stop, in order to buy souvenirs, foodstuffs and also some clothings.

In the neighbourhood of Nadi, the most beautiful section of Fiji coast is spreaded. It is Natadola Beach. Here, numerous excursions, passing mountaneous villages, gardens with orchids, cultural centres as well as river excursions into distant villages are organized, where the tourists could follow the scenes, presenting way of life and habits of local tribes.

In east direction from Nadi, a mountaneous countryside of Nausori is situated, full of phantastic sceneries, wild rivers, inhabitated with original tribes. The village of Navala is famous as the most picturesque of Fiji. Whereas most of local villages prefer European architecture at present, nearly all buildings in Navala are being constructed in style of ancient times, in a form of traditional houses of Polynesian tribes. Local chief is accompanying the tourists, showing them most interesting places of interest in the village.

Botanical garden, known as „The Garden of Sleeping Giant“ is placed close to Nausori Mountains, approx. 15 kilometres in north direction from Nadi. The Park was founded in 1977 by Raymond Burre, Canadian actor, as a private collection of orchids. At present, park dimension makes 20 ha, where approx. two thousands of various orchids´ sorts are grown, including nearly 400 sorts of different plants. You can find there small house of Mr. Burre, including small collection of photos and his personal belongings.

Next chapter: Lautoka, Levuka and other