Visiting Tavoro National Park

Day 5 of a 7-day Fiji Islands cruise (part 1)

This day, Saturday, was jam-packed with activities. We left the ship at our usual time of 9 am and had planned activities until 7:30 pm, at which time we were to return to the ship for a dessert buffet. Can life get any better than that!

In the morning we went ashore on the western side of Taveuni island, commonly known as "The Garden Island" of Fiji. You'll see we arrived at low tide, which caused some challenges for our tender boat.

We saw some beautiful flowers today.

We enjoyed a bus tour of this area of the island, on our way to the Bouma waterfall in the Tavoro National Park. Given that we've seen many waterfalls in our travels, and actually live in Niagara Falls, we didn't have high expectations. However, we thoroughly enjoyed it.

We saw lots of lush greenery, and I particularly liked this cluster of ferns along a river bank.

We travelled the coastal road and saw many communities. Most Fijians we saw lived in villages of modest homes. Without exception, the people we passed all waved and shouted 'bula' (hello).

Groups of children played happily and the lifestyle seemed simple.

It was lovely to see a young boy ride by on his horse and take him to the river to be bathed.

A short walk from the park office took us to the waterfall.

It was easy to access, and many of our fellow passengers climbed up to a ledge and jumped or dove off.

You can see Greg in the orange swimsuit on the right. Greg made his way up and did a beautiful dive.

I'd say those from the cruise who did the jump or dive ranged from ages 12 to about 70.

I was happy to stay at the edge of the water and take photos.

We went back to the park to enjoy a picnic lunch near the river, organized by the cruise staff. We enjoyed a lovely lunch with fresh coconut juice straight from the coconut and live entertainment.

This group photo includes many of our cruise passengers. I was happy to see that I knew the names of the majority of the passengers at this point.

After lunch we returned to the beach area, where we could swim or go directly back to the ship. Given we had a full evening planned, it was good to go back to the ship to be able to rest up for the evening. More about the evening event in my next post (part 2).