‘Bula’ means ‘Welcome’ or ‘Hello’ and you hear it a lot in Fiji – because they are very nice and welcoming people. Each 11am, when the Yasawa Flyer turns up at the resort, the staff gather on the beach to greet the new arrivals. It’s the major event of the morning.
The Yasawa islands stretch in a more-or-less straight line into the Pacific ocean from a point somewhere to the north-west of the main Fijian islands, and are probably former volcanoes. They are also to be my home (and the home of this Californian girl, and everyone else who was on the Yasawa Flyer catamaran out of Port Denarau marina early this morning) for the next few days. The word ‘Paradise’ is often overused, but in this case I think it’s entirely appropriate. This is a good time.
So here I am on Fiji, another country to add to the blog, and here’s the show put on by rather fit Polynesian men for the benefit of the tourists. Nadi is just near the main airport, strictly a transit point, the main event begins tomorrow. And as you can see, I do appear to be online in Paradise, so you should still get some fairly regular updates.
A few months ago, if you’d have asked me how I was going to spend my last evening in Brisbane, ‘watching wheelchair rugby’ would probably not have come towards the top of the list – but here we are, courtesy of my friend Manuela (playing, but not in shot). Some of these guys, like the one on the right with his back to us, were actually gold-medal winning Paralympians last year in London.
Anyway, I might now be off-grid for a while so if no more photos appear here, don’t panic – it’s just that I’m heading to a tropical island for a few days. Oh, the hardship. I’ll update you all towards the end of May. But then again, if wi-fi has made it to the remoter parts of Fiji, I will be here again before then.
At first when I walked past this little vignette I thought the little boy was holding a big doll — which considering I had The Who’s I’m a Boy on the iPod at the time (a song about forced transvestism) I thought was rather ironic. However, then I saw it was his little sister. Cute…
There have been quite a few photos of the Botanical Gardens during my time in Brisbane, but there won’t be many more — two more full days in Brisbane to come after today, then I’m off.
Maybe I take too many candid photos of strangers but let’s look at it this way: 617 days into this blog and I’m trying not to repeat myself, take away the street portrait photography and there’d be even less to work with. I think this photo also encapsulates how nice it is to have this lovely slab of parkland right beside the QUT campus: who’d not feel like studying outside, in the continuing lovely weather here.
My second trip to the Gabba to see the Brisbane Lions, who today won their second game of the season by about 35 points over the Melbourne Demons, who are even less good it seems. Nice day though, nice afternoon. The Demons had just scored here, hence their noticeably perkier shoulders compared to the maroon, blue and yellow-clad Lions, but there was plenty of time left in the game to secure the win.
Last morning in Byron Bay. To prove that it isn’t just a beach and a cool sunset, here’s a shot to show it has cafés too. Lots and lots of them in fact. I passed the time in this one while waiting for my bus.
Nimbin is what the tourist guides will call a ‘countercultural centre’, which has been the case since the Aquarius festival there in 1973. This lady was one of a group who were carving sandstone lumps into great sculptures and then just leaving them in the patch of ground where they lay. That’s Nimbin for ya. I liked it.
So his sign said. I’m not sure whether that makes one more likely to give him any money or not, however.
Anyway – enough of Brisbane! Nice as it is, I’m a bit bored of the place. I’m off to Byron Bay for the weekend.
Being 42 