Charlie's Cottages

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After the sadness of leaving our new friends at Bayside the new place would have to be pretty good. We arrived back at Nadi airport after the two hour catamaran journey and a half-hour bus ride to be met by the mythical Meli (the guy from the Beautiful Pacific travel company who had arranged all our bookings in Fiji). He ushered us into a cab driven by a very polite man who told us that it would be a two and a half hour drive to Ellington Wharf where another boat would take us to Charlie’s Place. It was already 7:30 pm on a Sunday and we desperately needed some food for the 5 days at the self-catering cottage so he took us to a shop on the way where we gathered up a few essentials. Dinner that night was a shared bag of crisps, so much for healthy Fijian food!

Spotty the dog. Twice.
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The driver was of Indian origin, as are 50% of the Fijian population, he informed us. He was a mine of information about Fijian culture, industry and politics (he had “many friends in the military” and thoroughly approved of the Dec 2006 coup) but it was late, the boys were asleep on my lap and I was losing the battle to keep my head upright. We arrived at the apparently deserted wharf where a man appeared out of the darkness to ferry us across to the island - thankfully not far. We arrived and were shown to our cottage, perched on a hill overlooking a sheltered bay. It was huge in comparison to the bure we had just been staying in with two rooms plus bathroom, a small kitchen area, real brick walls and electricity for part of every day (8:00 - 13:30, 17:30 - 22:00)! Result! Amazing how quickly the things we take for granted at home become unimaginable luxuries.

Archie and his new hobby.
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When daylight came we went off exploring the area. The beach is a few steps away and has wonderful snorkeling - fish swim right up to the shore and it’s easy to see them even without a snorkel mask. The main land is close and as a result the sea in between is incredibly calm, which is great for swimming and snorkeling. There are 2 dogs here which belong to Charlie’s place; Spotty and Scruffy (who should really be re-named Stinky and Fester), and a couple of other establishments down the beach both of which has a cafe & one of which has a small shop (F$28 for a bottle of wine! F$3.50 for a can of beans! unreal). It’s a lovely place, though not as unspoiled as Bayside, and the people seemed a bit more distant. There were other tourists around, mainly Australian or Kiwis but a few Americans too, all doing their own thing. Of course it may be the ripe smell we emit (no launderettes here) that keeps them at arms length, who knows.

Our days here again were pretty much taken up snorkeling, reading, beach-combing, painting and doing school work - the boys have now finished their Spring term maths books so it looks like we’re going to have to find some more work for them to do as they’ll have run out of books by the new year at this rate. Archie really took to snorkeling (he declared it “my new hobby”) and the two boys spent ages trawling along the shoreline in the shallow water looking for shells and following the fish. Their swimming is coming on leaps and bounds as a result. Jont and I managed to get sunburnt (to go with our mozzie bites and prickly heat - nice) but luckily we took better care of the boys who are just turning pale toffee coloured at a more sedate pace than their stupid lobster parents.

One good thing that has happened here is that the endless supply of Haloween sweets has finally dried up - after giving out handfuls at Bayside to Jr, Vassity and anyone else who wanted them we are finally left with Cinnamints (which no-one will eat) and Root beer flavoured boiled sweets which are as bad as they sound. We are leaving these behind for the poor unfortunates cleaning the cottage when we leave and Jont’s bag will be about 10 lbs lighter...