(written on the 26th! from notes taken previously).
I was up early beside the train tracks, I think moving out before the clock even hit 7:15 a.m.
I love this pass. It’s a beautiful landscape. And it’s not a busy highway at all. It’s not like a middle of nowhere highway, as it’s one of I think only three major routes from the west coast to the east coast, but it’s still pretty quiet comparatively, just one lane each way.
😊
Love it.
I stopped and took pictures. I veged out for a little bit. I drove to a campground down the road and across the valley a good ways in order to use a long drop and just… to explore.
Made my way down to Cave Stream Scenic Reserve, Chase’s birthday present for me last time I was here–a fun Cave to explore that we did on my birthday.
I toyed with the idea of going through it again, walking all the way down to the downstream entrance, where I ran into a group of girls that had just come out after having gone a fair ways into the cave but not knowing how far it was, so they had come back.
I told them that it wasn’t too big of a deal, not bad at all, but I guess people have died in the cave before 😬.
(I didn’t learn that until after chatting with the girls 😅, not that it would change my opinion about the cave much… people die in safe places because of ignorance, arrogance, bad timing… for a hole host of reasons.
In the case of this cave, one drowned (flash flood after rain, I think?), and I think one died from hypothermia, having gone through the cave in the middle of winter. 😶
Anyway, after chatting briefly with the girls, I wandered my way around the trails and back to my van.
By coincidence, that group of girls were parked right next to me, and as I heard them talk, I just couldn’t quite place where the girls were from. 🙃
I think there were five of them, all packed into one camper van. Granted, it was a large camper van, but still, five girls in one camper van! 😶
I thought maybe they were Australians because I heard one of them comparing things to Australia. But then another one seemed to have an Irish accent.
But I think maybe she was playing around with accents like I do?
I don’t know. 🤷
I never asked them where they were from… just heard lots of different English-language accents coming from the group while I sat in my van with my door open.
And sat. And sat. …and sat some more.
Why was I sitting in my van for so long? Because I learned recently that when people go to Fiji, they don’t spend much of any time on the main most-populated island. They go out and about to the more remote Islands.
I guess the more adventurous stuff is away from the main Big Island.
And here I had rented a car for a week and gotten my accommodation set for a week, thinking I was going to just explore Fiji like I explore New Zealand, until I realized just how big the main island is! It’s not just a quick one-hour drive from one end to the other: It’s about a four and a half to 5-hour drive from one end to the other!
So I started looking into my options.
I started to research the different islands and which Islands had the scenery and adventure opportunities that I was most attracted to.
A researched and I researched and I researched.
I called my brother Richard and chatted with him for a good little while, he having lived for a little while in islands relatively nearby, and he had some good suggestions.
After tons and tons of research, I had my trip basically narrowed down to two options: 1. The Bula Pass and Island hopping the Yasawa Islands (small islands known for great beaches and snorkeling and whatnot) or buying a plane ticket to Taveuni (the “garden island” a more rugged, remote, jungle Island).
As I was trying to make my decision, I thought to myself, why do I have to do either or? Why not do both and? 🙃
So I started looking into what that might entail, and the more I looked into it, the more I decided that I liked that choice, so I spent a good long time figuring out accommodations and an airplane ticket…
As I have it now:
Night 1: Nadi (cheap homestay by airport)
Night 2: Drawaqa Island, Barefoot Manta Resort
Night 3: Nacula Island, Blue Lagoon Resort
Night 4: Nadi (cheap homestay by airport)
Night 5: Taveuni Island (haven’t made accommodations yet)
Night 6: Taveuni Island:(haven’t made accommodations yet)
Night 7: Nadi (cheap homestay by airport)
After tons and tons of effort (I spent about 12 hours in research and planning and booking today 😶), I found out after booking that the booking service failed to mention that in the two resorts I’d be going to in the Yasawa Islands, there were mandatory food purchase fees of about twice the price of the cost of the overnight stay in the resort itself. 😶
Needless to say, I was not happy. That was a significant extra expense, and one not mentioned it all when I was booking the accommodations. I didn’t find out about the compulsory food purchasing until reading through the terms and conditions of the boat company.
Not only that, but somehow, after filling out the stupid Bula pass purchase form 8 gazillion times, somehow on the very last time when I finally clicked the button to buy, I managed to somehow put the wrong start date in. 😬
It was late at night, and I wasn’t even sure it was my fault. I was pretty sure that I had filled the form out correctly that gazillionth time, but there I was with a start date for tomorrow. It’s a 5-day pass. And it’s not refundable on the day it goes into effect.
And there I was, having purchased the ticket after they closed for the day, and they wouldn’t even know that I bought the ticket until the next morning, when I wouldn’t be there, which meant that technically, they could not refund the ticket.
So between the compulsory food surprise and the snafu with the Yasawa Flyer Bula Pass, and having spent a dozen hours today trying to get all the travel stuff figured out, I was pretty stressed and frustrated and discouraged.
I’m still just struggling in general, and I don’t even really want to go on the trip because I don’t want to deal with the stress of all the change and uncertainty and whatnot.
I guess we’ll find out in the morning. I sent messages via email and WhatsApp, expressing my anger and frustration over the hidden fees as well as the booking problem with the dates of the Bula Pass.
To top it off, I spent a long time trying to find a place to bed down for the night. The nearest freedom camping spot was a long ways away, and it was already late, and I just needed to sleep, despite the stress…
I ended up driving back up the pass a bit stopping here and there only to find roads closed either by sign or by gate. Eventually, I found a road that seemed promising, but with all the rain, the little side roads where I would park normally were drenched, creating mud pits and huge puddles that I didn’t dare drive through, let alone at night in the dark.
Eventually, though, enough was enough, and I just parked off the main part of the dirt road on the entrance to another dirt road right next to a massive puddle, but with all four tires out of the puddle and the nose of my van not protruding into the main dirt road.
Hopefully I don’t get in trouble. 😕
I veged for a little bit, and then crashed.
Crazy day. Crazy times. Was grateful to see you in the news that what I expected to happen with Trump and Greenland did happen, that he walked back the threats of coercion via tariffs and took the threat of military action against Greenland completely off the table.
I never expected he was serious with those threats. It’s just his negotiating style, but in this particular case, I’m afraid he did massive damage to the reputation of the United States around the world.
You don’t threaten to take over a sovereign nation. You simply don’t. It shouldn’t ever be a negotiating tactic, even if you’re not serious.
I’m a very principle-based person. I detest the argument that the ends justify the means.
[sigh]
I’ve talked to so many people from Europe out here, and it seems pretty universal that Trump is… not so well liked. 🙃
Funny, though, that a lot of Canadians and New Zealanders are Trump fans.
Crazy times.
We’re at a crossroads, I think. The seemingly astronomical rate of technological advancement is moving faster than I think we are prepared for.
We are on the precipice of a possible Star Trek future. Yet, I fear that human nature will continue to be as it always has been, and there will be those who seek for glory and power and prestige… And in there quests to rise above everyone else, they will mold the future more like what we see in Star Wars.
[sigh]
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 