Lavena Coastal Walk

Bouma Waterfall
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Got up early to catch the bus to Bouma on the other side of the island. The lady at the front desk said that the bus came anytime from 8:45-9:15 at the shops next door. The bus arrived about 9:30.

The ride to the other side of the island was beautiful! Especially when the bus left the paved road for the gravel road just outside of Matei. I have never been on a bus down a 1 lane gravel road before. It was quite an experience! We even had to cross and floodway that had lots of water running across. Once in Bouma, which is as far as the bus can go, I met a guy from New Zealand named Nicko. He was also going to the Bouma Waterfalls and to Lavena.

I was waiting for the dinosaurs to appear!

Flowers
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The lady at the Bouma Waterfalls office was very helpful and organized a ride for us with one of the road construction crew. While we were waiting for them to take their lunch break we went to see the Bouma Waterfalls. We could only go to the first waterfall since the other 2 levels were too wet and slippery from all the rain. It was very pretty at the waterfall.

At lunch I tried some breadfruit, which is like taro and quite plain. Then we rode in the biggest truck in Fiji over the VERY rough road and steep hills to Lavena.

Scenes from the Lavena Coastal Walk
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Lavena is very remote and we were the only 2 tourists on the whole walk. We did see a few Fijians along the way, but not many. The whole place feels and looks like a Jurassic Park set. I was waiting for the dinosaurs to appear!

It was a beautiful and fairly easy walk. The ocean and beaches on one side and the lush vegetation on the other. Near the end of the walk I became a complete klutz and kept falling on the rocks as we were walking in the river at that point to get to the last waterfalls.

Lavena Coastal Walk
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We swam and waded around the waterfalls, one was a natural waterslide that you could go down but the they were running very hard so I didn't chance it. On the way back I slipped a few more times but I did make it back in one piece. The whole walk took about 4 hours with a stop at the last waterfalls. I was glad that it was a cool overcast day because it was still very muggy.

We got to hang out at the Lavena office for over an hour while waiting for our truck to come back and get us. The lady at the desk organized a ride with a delivery truck going to Bouma and Nicko and I crammed ourselves into the bed of the truck with the rest of the food. The ride was quite bumpy and I had to brace myself in order not to hit myself on the sides of the truck or land to hard on my bum. We met our ride part way to Bouma and this time it was a fairly easy ride back around the island.

Lavena Coastal Walk
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Finally back at the Resort tired, dirty and starving. I was hoping that they would give me some dinner. I had not ordered by 5pm, which was the rule at the resort. I was prepared to beg for kitchen scraps at this point. Thankfully it was Fijian night and they had a buffet. It was $35 but again, I didn't have a choice. I had 2 plates and the food was beautiful and 2 desserts with another orange juice and a whole carafe of ice water. I was soo tired and soo full that I was immediately asleep!