The next morning we had another domestic flight, this time to Savusavu. I had double- and triple-checked that I had booked to SVU (Savusavu) and not SUV (Suva), apparently an occasional mistake made by tourists.
Our Airbnb host for the place in Savusavu lives in Nadi and met up with us at the airport for a coffee. We had signed up for the breakfast and dinners catered in the Airbnb (she has a person that cooks onsite for guests) and it was a good opportunity to pay her cash for that.
There were only two other passengers on flight to Savusavu. I had a good view into the cockpit and all the controls (although I only recognized one, the map showing our flight path and location).
We flew over the Namema Marine Reserve and its blue green coral. I had looked at staying at the on-site resort, and while their website still works, the resort itself was destroyed by the cyclone in 2020.
We approached the airport from the north (inland side), and had to descend quite rapidly after clearing the hills just north of the runway.
The airport is small, as we expected, just a large open shed really.
We had departed about 20 minutes early, and so our car rental guys weren’t yet at the airport to meet us. A friendly local asked if we needed help, and I explained that we were waiting for Pranesh from James Car Rentals. The friendly local asked if we wanted to use his phone to call; and while I was looking up the number, the local just called Pranesh, apparently having him in his contacts.
The rental guys pulled up shortly, although it was just a staff person and not Pranesh (we didn’t know and had been chatting him up, referencing our email exchanges). Anyways it was a two minute drive to town and the car rental place where we met the real Pranesh.
It was a quick admin process. A couple signatures, bond deposit (in cash, to avoid credit card fees), demo of how to switch to 4WD, and we were off in our Suzuki Jimny.
I’ve driven on the left side on previous trips so it wasn’t too big a deal, although I did reach for my seatbelt over my left shoulder by reflex, and then turned on the wipers to indicate my left turn.
Our Airbnb (nicknamed Koko) was about a ten minute drive from town. At the cutoff, we turned left onto a single lane dirt road and engaged the 4WD to get up the steep incline. A couple hundred metres up, there was a car coming down so I pulled over to allow them to pass. As they passed I asked the driver if Koko was further uphill. Turns out his wife is our chef and he knew who we were!
So overall a very small town experience to start :)
The driveway to Koko is a very steep decline cut into the side of the hill. Not for inexperienced drivers for sure.
Met Ben, the gardener, as well as Tiger, a neighbour’s dog.
There’s a great 270* view of Savusavu Bay and the town centre from the place.
After cooling down, we headed back into town to pick up beer and wine at Sea Lovers for our dinners. We had to select our dinner options in advance so that Radhika (our chef) could buy ingredients at the market. However we didn’t know what would be served when, so we just got an assortment of wines, all screw cap, from NZ and Australia. We have a fridge so we can just pour a glass that matches each course and then store for the next meal.
Around 4pm Radhika came back to start cooking. Today we were having chicken and lemongrass on a local spinach leaf for appetizers, South Indian curried chicken for the main, and tropical custard pie for dessert.
We ate on the deck watching the sunset over the bay. It was all very peaceful and quite a different scene from the previous three years :)
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