Gold Coast Inn 1

Time to head to the last resort of my package. E, the Austrian girl, was also headed north but to a different resort. Our departure time meant that we would miss lunch but would get one at our destinations. The tide was out and we had to wade through about 100 m of shallows barefoot (flip flops get stuck in the mud) to reach just the boat. I spotted a purple starfish and a sea cucumber in the shallows on the way. I wish I had remembered that I had the waterproof camera in my pocket at that moment.

Gold Coast Inn is on Nanuya Lailai Island and faces east. The Flyer reaches the stretch of water between Nanuya Lailai, Taveva and Nacula Islands, serves over half a dozen resorts clustered around that area, then turns around and retraces its route south. The crew were at pains to impress on passengers not to assemble at the aft of the boat until their resort was called.

There was no fanfare on arrival, but I received a warm welcome from the host, who was the boat operator, and his wife, waiting on the beach. Also these friendly canines. The owner told me that activities could be arranged but there would be no pressure to do so as it was a laid-back resort. My kind of place. I was the only guest that night and had a whole bure to myself.

Later that afternoon, I walked to the next beach where Lo's Tea House was. You could get tea, coffee, cakes and snacks there as well as souvenirs. I had lemongrass tea with banana cake and chatted with the Fijians.

While I was there a couple of US kids walked in to cries of recognition. They were aid volunteers and had been there on a previous visit. One of them was eager to taste Lo's egg bun (easy over egg on a roll) again. I joined them outside and asked them what was the most pressing need that they had found in their volunteer work on the islands. Fresh water they said. Some villagers could afford rain water collectors and tanks but they were setting up communal rainwater tanks so that more could benefit.

There was another resort further up the beach but this was occupied by GVI, a camp for marine researchers.

Bure lighting in the evening was provided by a battery powered light. Back in the common room there had been a whole pile of lights plugged into cables leading to panels in the outside sunlight.

I actually had good mobile reception due to repeaters on the islands linked to the mainland and could have made and received calls if I wanted. But I didn't. One of the guests at White Sandy Beach had been a mobile company service representative doing the rounds of checking the repeaters.