Tavoro Falls

This falls is the waterfall that is featured in the movie Return to the Blue Lagoon. And it is another of the village attractions in Bouma National Heritage Park. I got up and headed to the Tavoro Falls Visitor Center on the 11:00 bus. When I got to the spot, I was greeted by Maria, the woman who runs the Visitor Center. At first she seemed a bit stand-offish, but she quickly warmed up. She signed me in and gave me a little map. When I asked if she had any snacks or something I could take with me on my hike, she offered to make me some lunch. On the menu was a vegetable curry. It was delicious. While I was there, some kids were using some bilibilis on the river next to the spot where Maria brought me lunch.

Then it was off into the woods to see the three waterfalls. First up was the famous waterfall from the movie. It's okay, but really it's just a cascade down into the pool below. I didn't do any swimming, but the water seemed quite refreshing.

Then it was time for climbing. Up the hillside, I climbed for a while, and then reached a point where I could see a long ways out to see. It was a very nice view of the area and the shore of the island of Taveuni and Maqai in the distance.

After a short rest, I continued on to the second waterfall. Again it was all right, but a simple cascade down into a pool below. But then it was on to the third waterfall. This required a fairly involved crossing of the pool and river below the second waterfall and then another short climb up the hill. I found that not many people at all go to the third waterfall. Maybe it's the treacherous crossing of the river. Maybe they just don't see that it could get better. Maybe they don't realize that if you are going to view three rather high waterfalls, it's going to necessitate climbing. But I ran through a large number of spider webs on the way to the third waterfall.

And it was the best one of the bunch, in my opinion. It had three different fall lines. And it bubbled and fell in interesting ways. I really liked. And I had it all to myself. Actually, I had all three to myself. This is not yet the high season for tourists here and there were only a few people who go to these places these days. Next month it will be getting busier. But I was the only one to go to the third fall this day.

After a short stay at the third cascade, I headed back down to the visitor center, and met this purple crab on the trail. Now, I didn't know there was such a thing as a purple crab. And I was a bit surprised to see it so far from the see, in the middle of the forest. I wonder what it was doing there. But I had a short sword fight with it (well, it had its claws and I had a stick), and then headed on down.

My plan had been to walk back to Lavena, but just as I arrived at the visitor center, one of the park drivers (or maybe from a resort in Matei) was just leaving to head back to Lavena and he gave me a lift. It was a fairly lucky day.

While I was away, three new visitors had come to Lavena Lodge to stay for the night. Their plan was to go to the Vidawa Rainforest Hike the next day, so I asked if I could join them. That made it easy to work the final destination activity for the park into my plans before heading out to civilization on Saturday. But it did mean getting to bed early for another really early morning to catch the first bus. Another sunrise to view. Yea!! (Read that with some level of sarcasm.)