Offically En-Route!

Greetings friends and family,

We are now officially on the road!  Wow, it’s all finally here, and it is completely overwhelming.  First off, I must mention that it may say at the top of this entry that it was posted on September 17, but in actuality it's frooooooooom the fuuuturrrrre!  It is fact that for 2010, Kim and I never saw September 17th.  We left L.A. on the 16th and arrived to Fiji on the 18th.  We did not realize that our amazing adventure would also include time travel - go figure!   

I am typing this from a tiny little desk at our hostel in Nadi, Fiji – The Bluewater Lodge.  It is a nice little spot, and good for us as we need to acclimatize from the travelling to get here, but like most of Nadi, it is nothing spectacular and is just a jumping off point for most travellers en route to their next and more exotic destination within Fiji.

It has been quite a journey to get here, with a 5 hour flight from Toronto to LA on the 15^th, complete with all the incredibly difficult goodbyes.  It is strange, in our travels to and from the north, we are frequently saying goodbye for significant chunks of time, but they are not generally as difficult as the one we just had to do.  Maybe that’s because we had such a fantastic summer with everyone back home, it just could not be beat.  So thanks everyone who we shared time with this summer and who made it out to the wedding—that was an amazing day, and part of one of the best summers of our lives.   Side note here about the wedding for your amusement – we just mailed the bulk of our thank yous yesterday while in LA, and most were completed on the plane.....so it is clear to us that we have been insanely busy this summer and totally consumed by all of our activities, not the least of which is preparation for this trip.  But I digress, back to the trip.  

The journey has been long---about 16 hours of flying time this far.  We had an evening flight to LA that as good, as we pretty much hit the hotel and crashed after the flight.  Yesterday we spent much of the day tackling odd jobs and last minute preparations to leave the amenities of North American consumer civilization, and had a few hours to kill at the beaches before heading to the airport.   Our flight to Fiji was an overnight’er, so that was great, as I was able to sleep on the plane.  It left at 11:30PM, and I was well ready for sleep, so I was able to sleep on the plane for a good 7 hours with a little extra help from a sleeping pill.  Kim tells me I was a bit ‘weird’ off the pill, but I don’t know, I think exhaustion just did its thing, on my body AND mind.  Anyhow, we are both all back to normal now for the most part, just a bit of jet lag.   When we arrived at Nadi airport at 5AM we were greeted by a live band playing island music, and were ‘assisted’  by some very friendly people, namely ‘Big Joe’, who managed to sell as a 4-night 5-day island hopping tour before we even left the airport.  So we shall see what the next few days hold, as we depart early tomorrow morning on a shuttle bus to Denarau marine terminal for transport to the Yasawa islands.  We have been told to expect very modest accommodations, with only occasional electricity, no hot water, and certainly no internet---so that was another motivating factor in getting this entry out today.   

Despite the fact that Nadi (pronounced non-dee) is just a jumping off point to better places, it is still nothing to sneeze at.  We have beautiful sunshine, the beach is right there, and the surrounding mountains add to the exotic tropical island feel of the place.   Our little place is in what seems to be a ‘resort area’, but not the typical megaresort types that the Caribbean is famous for---this is a bit more rustic.   We have a room with air conditioning, which is nice, and there’s a nice comfy bed, so what more could we want.   The surroundings include some farm fields and some goats.  Town is only a 10 minute cab ride away, and it costs 7 Fijian dollars, or about 4 Canadian.   Kim and I have opted to lay low today and acclimatize, so that we have the energy to be ready for whatever lies ahead on our Awesome Adventure (not a play on words  -  that is the name of the tour company).   We are taking advantage of the internet while we have it and making all our necessary arrangements for our transfers to Samoa and New Zealand, and also notifying our families that we will likely be going silent for a while on the communications front.  

We really don’t have much more to say at this point, but I imagine there will be some good stories to tell next time we can hit the net.  For some amusement, here are some photos of the journey this far.

The Santa Monica Pier......

I took the obvious once in a lifetime opportunity to have my name forever ingrained ironically on a grain of rice, and to make it  even more punnier, I had the guy write 'Aust in Rice' - I realize now it would have worked even better if I spelled my name with an O instead of an I, but I still got a chuckle..

This is the check-in counter for our 11 hour flight to Nadi, you can just see the back of Kim's head poking out to the right slightly beside her backpack that is as big as she is.

Best wishes to all.

Cheers,

The Knotty Travellers