Suva

On Friday June 29th at lunchtime Jessye arrived back for the holidays and a couple of hours later Sophie finished too. She was pleased to have big sister home to jump on. Rosie was the last to finish at the normal time. That night we had Ed Allen (who was in Melbourne for MSO work) over for dinner with MSO Principal horn, Graeme Evans, and cellist wife Joan, a Kiwi - it was very remiss of us not to take any pictures.

Then on Saturday night, the event we'd been awaiting for months since Peter bought the tickets - The All Blacks/Wallabies Bledisloe Cup game at the MCG. We rugged up and joined the 70+ thousand others there including a large proportion of the crowd in black. We had great seats in the 5th row behind the posts with Wallaby supporters in the row in front and All Black supporters behind. It was very exciting to be there in person for the national anthemns and haka followed by a rather pathetic comeback to the drama of the haka, Waltzing Matilda. Things got off to a great start but as we all know, the blessed yellow and green people had the last laugh.

We made our way home by tram with Sophie and Jessye keeping up a brave front in the face of crushing defeat but Rosie's melancholy visage more accurately captured our true inner feelings.

The morning after began in the dark with an early morning wakeup and last minute rusharound to catch our 8:30 am flight to Sydney where we had 3 hours to kill before connecting with our Air Pacific flight to Fiji. My dear friend from school days, Rosalind, who lives in Sydney came to the airport complete with freshly baked muffins and amused and entertained us so that the layover time just flew by.

On arrival in the immigration hall at Nadi International Airport we were met in true Fijian style. The singing was great and it made the long queue not a pain at all - perhaps more countries could realise the welcoming and soothing power of live music!

Then it was on to a smaller Air Pacific plane for the half-hour flight to Suva. By this time it was dark and after a 40 minute taxi ride at the other end (the scenic route, we suspect) we finally arrived at our hotel at 9:45 pm, a very long day to go quite a short way. That evening we met up with Kasi who had flown in from Auckland to join us for our holiday.

On day 1 immediately after breakfast, the girls checked out the hotel pool and found it satisfactory.

Then later that morning one of the main aims of the visit was achieved when my half-brother Keith Smith popped in to the hotel to meet and greet. I gave him a copy of the only evidence I had of his existence, a photo of the two of us together aged 18 and about 9 months. Keith and I had not seen each other since.

For lunch on day 1 we walked 50 metres down the road to the Suva Bowling Club which proclaimed "for members only" but in fact all and sundry could wander in. Just outside the hotel was a Rosie bus which tickled everybody pink. And almost next door was the dilapidated Grand Pacific Hotel where Mum and Dad used to dress up to the nines and go dancing etc a few years ago. It occupies a grand piece of land right on the water and thankfully it looks as though somebody is just about to start renovations. Peter bravely ordered the whole fish, Kasi had the mysterious "meaty bones" and Sophie had a lamington.

Across the road was the entrance to Government House which has always been guarded by a ceremonially dressed member of the the Fiji Police (I remember this from my early years). As we stood across the road gawking at him, the guard beckoned us over and, much to Peter's horror, we went. He happily posed for a picture with us as did his mate from the army who I guess was guarding the guard.

Next door to Government House is the Fiji Museum surrounded by the Botanical Gardens which was our next stop. The Gardens were somewhat rundown but still pretty in parts.

Later in the afternoon my niece, Sharon McGowan, came to the hotel to meet us. Sharon is the daughter of my oldest half-sibling, Bill, and the only one of Bill's four kids who lives in Fiji. He has a son, Richard, in Christchurch, another son, Floyd, in Brisbane and another daughter, Marie, in Wales. Bill and his wife spend 6 months of the year with Sharon in Suva and three months each with Richard and Floyd. Unfortunately, he was in Christchurch when we were in Suva so we couldn't see him this time but Sharon more than made up for that. She arranged to cook for us on our last night in Suva when we could also meet her kids who were at school during the day.

Dinner that night was at Singhs' Curry House.

The next day, after breakfast at the bowling club, there was time to wander downtown and just laze around at our very nice hotel surroundings. Our rooms were right at the beach end so we were handy to exploring the teeming crab life at low tide. Taxis were very cheap with $2 getting you most places so we didn't bother renting a car. Our hotel was also just a couple of minutes walk from downtown.

Sometime that day we took a taxi to Lami, a suburb around the bay from downtown, where I remember we used to live. I had never been back there on previous trips to Suva and I was keen to see it. having Kasi with us meant that I could this time because she knew exactly where the house was. Unfortunately the house doesn't exist anymore and has been replaced by a small hotel but the tree from which dad hung a swing for me is still there. School kids were on their way home. Peter was very impressed by how clean and well kept their uniforms were, given the rather grimy, rundown conditions of the city and the open-air buses.

We got the taxi to drop us off at the market on the way home.

That night we were taken out to a very nice Chinese restaurant by good friends (and, naturally, rellies) of Mum's, Archie and Liz Seeto with their daughter, Janice and her daughter who is a couple of years younger than Sophie. The restaurant is in a very impressive and unusual building that used to be a house which was lived in by Sir Henry Scott, a lawyer Mum used to work for. Small world and particularly so in Fiji.

On our last day in Suva we had breakfast with Kasi's (and Mum's) cousin, Joe, who was a pallbearer at both Mum and Dad's funerals. He was a Minister in the old pre-coup government but since being turfed out has gone back to live in his village working his patch of land and coming to Suva fairly regularly to see his son and family and for meetings. Later, wandering around town some more, Rosie was thrilled to find her favourite fast food joint.

Joe kindly lent us his car for the day so we did a bit of driving around Suva including having a look at my birthplace. I knew I was born at the Waimanu Rd Nursing Home, a private maternity facility in the old days but I never knew where it was till Kasi pointed it out this time. Somehow I was expecting something a little bigger than the rundown old pink cottage we found. Kasi says it was pink in 1956 too and I suspect it may be the original paint job.

Peter later took a drive to Pacific Harbour, a tourist development further around the island about half an hour or so from Suva.

That evening Sharon and her two kids, Dinsel, 14 and Ben, 12 came over to the hotel for a last supper which Sharon brought. She had cooked a Fijian feast in the ground on hot stones (called "lovo") similar to the Maori hangi and cleverly packed it up in tupperware in her shoulder bag complete with paper plates and all. She had invited us to her place but her husband who couldn't come because he was working somewhere else was afraid we might end up injured or very wet because they live in a very low-lying area and the access to their driveway is knee-deep in water at high tide. Sounded like quite an adventure and Rosie was sorry to miss out on seeing their 7 dogs! - maybe next time. They used to have a pig till earlier this year too. Sharon says they'll have another one by our next visit. Anyway, it was very kind of her to go to so much trouble and the kids had a great time in the pool. I was sorry that my elusive brother, Keith, didn't make it over that night as expected but still very pleased to have finally met him on that first day in Suva.

Next morning Joe and a taxi drove us all to Nausori airport about half an hour away where Kasi's sister's son and his wife had come with the two youngest of their six kids to see us off on our way to Nadi and the island resort pampering part of our holiday. That will be another blog very soon.