Waitabu Marine Protected Area

The Bouma National Heritage Park is a national park on Taveuni Island. Inside the park there are four or five villages. The people of these villages can live off the land as they always have, but the resources of the park are protected from outsiders. In addition, the villages also operate little tourism businesses. The lodge where I am staying, the Lavena Lodge, operates a guesthouse as well as being the visitor center for an area nearby where visitors can walk a coastal walk to visit a waterfall, or take a kayak trip to another waterfall, or even take a boat tour to a series of further waterfalls. These trips can be combined and the area can be fully experienced. The kayak/coastal walk was the trip I took yesterday. And for the trip it only cost about 20 dollars. Staying in the lodge costs only about 11 dollars a night. It is so inexpensive here, but they really put together a nice place to stay.

Another village, Waitabu, has a Marine Protected Area that is associated with it. Visitors there can go for a snorkelling tour of the coral reefs they are protecting and rehabilitating. This visit costs about 15 dollars.

Another village has a rainforest walk associated with it. And a fourth village has a big waterfall nearby, Tavoro Falls. This waterfall was also featured in the movie Return to the Blue Lagoon.

All four villages offer tours with guides for their natural attractions at very reasonable prices. And all the fees associated with them go to the villages and guides. That is the kind of arrangement that I like.

Today I visited the Waitabu Marine Protected Area (MPA). I got up at 5:30 so that I could catch the public bus at 5:45. There is a public bus that operates on the island from end to end of the habited areas four times a day on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and 3 times a day the other days. I talked to the driver last night so that I could make sure to catch the first bus today. The MPA operates according to the tides and the tides today weren't favourable for the 11:00 bus, so it was best to get the early bus, even though that meant getting up at the ridiculous hour. Of course, with power off here at 10:00 at night, it is early nights anyway, so getting up so early isn't so hard. And there was the added benefit of seeing a pretty nice sunrise. I've been seeing lots of those lately. That's a bad habit I shall have to break. Sunrise is just too early in the morning.

I arrived at the village and was greeted by one of the families there. They made me breakfast while I waited for the starting time, 8:00. The woman also had her daughter show me around the village. It's a nice little village and the kids are very cute. 

Then I met my guide and we headed off to the reef. The area has been protected for over 12 years now. When they first set the area up, pretty much all the coral was dead, and there were few fish. A few years ago the care-takers, under the guidance of a marine biologist, planted some new coral and set up some fish houses. Since then the area has thrived and there are whole fields of coral now. In addition there are loads of fish. It was quite a sight. At the time I was snorkelling with my guide there, the tide was coming in. It was really tough going. Fighting a tide is very hard work and I was getting exhausted. Even my guide found the current very hard to work with. In addition, I had no booties on inside my fins, so I had to pack it in early due getting blisters on my toes that were getting quite painful. But the area is very interesting and a great way to spend an hour or so.

On the way back to the village in the boat (which, I am embarrassed to say I couldn't manage to get back into without a visit to the beach), we passed by the Bat Cave. Hey, where's Batman?

After the snorkel tour, I headed back to the road and made arrangements to see the Tavoro Waterfall tomorrow. I also got to see the bilibili rafts in operation. They are rafts made by tying some kind of wood, like bamboo, together. They look a bit difficult to manage and probably require some good balance. But these kids seemed to have been born on them. Then I barely flagged down the bus back to Lavena. I had a bit of lunch with the ladies at the lodge and a driver for the park, then I had a bit of a nap.

After that I headed down the road a bit for a walk and to see what's around. I had a bit of fun with a fern. This fern shrinks away from contact with anything, including fingers. It's really cool. After a while, it opens back up, but it takes too long, so I didn't stick around for that.

While I was walking I admired the views of the coast.

And there was this guy, too.

And everywhere, people here are friendly. I would walk by a house and hear a call of, “Bula!!” People smile and say hi and generally make visitors feel very welcome. It is the Solomon Islands all over again. I don't care what the governments of the world say about coming to Fiji. I don't care about what the government here is supposed to be and whether it is acceptable to western democracies. The people here are fantastic and I would return here in a heartbeat.