Yasawa Island, Fiji

Onto the final leg of our Fiji tour!

Our flight to Yasawa wasn’t until 11am so we had lots of time in the morning at the Doubletree in Nadi to pack up and checkout. Got the same taxi driver that took us to the airport for our flights to Savusavu and Kadavu.

It’s a charter flight so there was no ticket, we were just listed on the manifest (not that there’s tickets anymore for regular flights). There were two other couples, plus the pilot, which was the max capacity of the Britten Norman Islander twin prop. It’s a smaller plane than what we had taken on our other flights here.

Our cruising altitude was lower too (according to Wikipedia, 12,000 ft) so we could see more details of the islands and reefs below. There were reefs in all directions as far as we could see.

It’s only a thirty minute flight to Yasawa Island. We flew over the dirt runway (I suppose so the pilot could do a visual inspection) and then landed. The whole flight including the landing was really smooth, we were lucky with the weather.

Yasawa staff were waiting at the edge of the runway to welcome us, with our most elaborate garland to date. We had to first wait for the departing guests to take off, and then we piled into a van and drove about seven minutes to the resort.

Yasawa is the largest place we staying at in Fiji (excluding Nadi), with 18 bures. They’ve been at capacity since October, which bodes well for the tourism industry here.

We had lunch while our bures were turned over from the departed guests. The food was average, they have more of an international menu which means imported ingredients, instead of using the fresh local products :( It’s unfortunate as an imported cherry tomato here is about as bland as an imported cherry tomato in Toronto, whereas fresh papaya and pineapple are literally falling from trees.

Our bure was ready by the time we finished lunch. We were confused cause we got into a van to drive there. Five minutes later, down a winding dirt road, we arrived at our bure. Somehow, we had been upgraded to the Lamalagi bure (aka the honeymoon bure). (Later we looked up the prices, and it’s twice the cost!).

We took our time unpacking our stuff, and then walked down the beach back to the main bure. We took our time, but I think it’s about a 15 minute walk. It was nearing high tide and the waves got us a couple times.

We’re here for three nights and so had two days (Thu/Fri) of activities to plan. It’s a set schedule here (as opposed to Nakia or Oneta which customized activities to fit the guests’ schedules). Luckily the excursion to the Blue Lagoon is on Fridays, so we signed up for that. We were hoping to snorkel on the Thursday but it wasn’t available. So instead we planned to do some trekking, maybe up to the lookout point, a high point on the island behind our bure, about 125m.

We walked back along the beach to our bure. The sand is too loose to be walked in fancy dinner clothing so we figured we’d call reception to get driven (just like being on safari, except this wasn’t due to dangerous animals lurking about).

We jumped into the infinity pool to cool down (there’s no coral in front on our bure, so the waves are bigger and possible undertow), then got cleaned up and relaxed until dinner.

We got a drive to the main lodge just before sunset. Most guests make their way to the bar for a sundowner and to mingle. We chatted with one of couples that had been on our flight, who worked for an Australian bank in change management and in regulatory and might have been the only two people we’ll meet traveling who would understand what we do in our jobs, lol.

There were quite a few mosquitoes and other biting insects, the resort provided bug spray in the bures and also at the bar. We sprayed our feet but probably should have also applied to our arms and neck, we got a few bites. There’s no malaria or other bad insect-transmitted disease here so it’s just itchy.

Dinner was so-so. At least here it’s all individual tables, not a forced group communal thing. (We like our alone time).

Got a ride back home, tried to figure out the best way to sleep with the undersized a/c and lack of mosquito net. We ended up sleeping pretty good considering.