From the range of paid activities on offer, we have allowed ourselves one excursion and one spa treatment.
Today is 'Food Safari' day!
But in Nanuku style, this is not outsourced to a third party
. Seru has booked a taxi and personally escorts us, at an hour to suit us some time after breakfast. Fiji time!
We drive to Navua and learn about the long boats bringing people down from the hills with produce. We stroll through the food market and the main street. We head out to the crab farm where 11 large ponds hold 6000-7000 mudcrabs each. Seru buys one which is tied securely, wrapped and packed in a shoebox for him. That will be Emma's dinner.
Next stop is Seru's home village for a lesson in prawn catching with his cousin. She is in the creek, knee-deep, fishing spindly-clawed prawns out from under rocks. They look like yabbies with anorexic main nippers. Emma tackles the task with a homemade net and soon another catch is bundled for her lunch.
Meanwhile, irresistably gorgeous children have gathered around. We follow them back to their house with Seru and get a chance to peek inside a typical Fijian village home... a rudimentary corrugated iron three room dwelling with a wood-fired, open stone chimney fireplace for a kitchen and an outside bathroom.
All the while, we are filled in with details of village life, tribal customs and family arrangements. It is easily the most interesting part of the excursion.
Back at Nanuku, a team of four of the activities guys build a fire on the edge of the lawn and pack Emma's prawns into a bamboo cane. With coconut milk, onion, salt and pepper added, it is sealed with rolled banana leaves and left to steam over the coals for about fifteen minutes. The smoke may or may not have please the guests, but when the first bamboo is split open, staff seem to materialise from nowhere, drawn by the smell of freshly cooked prawns!
Such a STRENUOUS morning requires an afternoon rest before launching into dinner, again with the sales team who have been hiking to a nearby waterfall. We see their videos of jumping into deep ponds, they ogle at Emma's mudcrab.
One recommends snorkelling on the outer reef. "Just get two of the guys to kayak you out tomorrow! Only about 1km!"
Really? Is there nothing they won't personally do here to please?
We suspect not...
Today's lesson is FOOD... And not just eating it
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Pacific Harbour, Viti Levu, Fiji
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2025-02-15
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Gayle
2014-06-19
Jenny, don't tell me you are going to be away for the winter solstice! Such a pity!
jbushie
2014-06-19
No, not a pity. Not a pity at all, Gayle!!!