Accommodation
There are a handful of affordable hotels along the bland and overdeveloped main road between Nadi Airport and Downtown. However, to get a view of the ocean, you need to stay at either Wailoaloa Beach or Denarau Island, off the Queens Rd on Nadi Bay. Wailoaloa Beach, the budget and backpacker centre, is the most central of these and has a laid-back atmosphere with stunning views along the coast, but the greyish beach itself is by no means postcard-worthy. The opulent man-made creation of Denarau Island, 5km west of Downtown, with its five-star resorts, luxury homes and a modern shopping centre has an intuitively hollow, plastic feel. Vuda Point, a 20min drive north of the airport, features a couple of mid-range boutique beach resorts and is closer to Lautoka. For longer stays, try Nadi Beach Homes (672 7999, nadibeach.com), with excellent-value weekly and monthly rates in three-bedroom private holiday homes with swimming pools, modern one- and two-bedroom a/c beach apartments, or studio-style homestays.
Around Nadi
The area around Nadi offers access to Viti Levu’s rural interior as well as the surfing breaks of the nearby Malolo Barrier Reef; the latter can be sampled by staying at Rendezvous Fiji. Inland, the flats of the Nadi River eventually yield to the alpine Nausori Highlands. North towards Lautoka, the Queens Road passes the scenic Sabeto River Valley and Vuda Point. A few kilometres further on, the busy industrial port of Lautoka offers good shopping and access to the north coast. In the distance, the shapely Koroyanitu National Park beckons through the haze.
Garden of the Sleeping Giant
Founded by actor Raymond Burr (aka Perry Mason), the Garden of the Sleeping Giant boasts a wonderful collection of orchids and other flowering plants as well as several trails meandering through the landscaped grounds and into the lowland rainforest abutting the Sleeping Giant escarpment. The entrance fee includes a tropical juice which you can enjoy on their lovely terrace.
Koroyanitu National Heritage Park
Around 10km southeast of Lautoka, Koroyanitu National Heritage Park has the most accessible walking trails of Fiji’s two National Heritage Parks. The park was created in 1992 to preserve the area’s natural forests and endemic birdlife from clearing for pine forest and encroaching grasslands.
At the Abaca visitor centre you can pick up pamphlets and local information, and you’ll find two walking tracks from here. The most challenging is the Batilamu Track, which snakes uphill through forest for two hours until it reaches the summit of the 1163m Mount Batilamu. The mountain forms the belly of the Sleeping Giant, and from the summit you can see all the way back to Lautoka and across to the Yasawa Islands. Alternatively, an easy two-hour loop trail follows a grassy ridge to Savuione Falls, which tumbles 80m in two tiers to a deep swimming pool. From the falls, the trail descends into thick dakua forest back to Vereni Falls close to Abaca village.
If you’re interested in exploring the park further, guides from Abaca can accompany you on an overnight trail deep into the forest. This involves a tough five-hour walk to the remote village of Navilawa.
Lautoka
Half an hour’s drive north of Nadi, LAUTOKA is Fiji’s second largest city and an important port. It’s a surprisingly low-key affair – the city centre doesn’t feel any bigger or busier than Downtown Nadi, with most of the 53,000 population living amongst the light industrial suburbs. Although there is little to admire architecturally, Lautoka is a good place to wander, with plenty of leafy avenues and diverting Fiji-Indian stores and market stalls – the latter a far cry from Nadi’s touristy souvenir shops.
The organized city centre is laid out in a grid pattern with one-way streets, flanked by beautiful tree-lined Vitogo Parade and parallel Naviti Street. A walk around this one-square-kilometre centre takes in the majority of shops, the municipal market and an impressive mosque. Opposite the mosque, there’s an endless parade of fashion stores along Vitogo Parade selling suits, saris and costume jewellery. Most of the shops along Naviti Street sell a bizarre array of odds and ends, mostly cheap imports from China, but you’ll find plenty of colourful fabrics sold by the roll as well as tailors who can make you up clothes at bargain rates. Across Naviti Street under a Brutalist concrete dome is the Municipal Market, one of the most spacious and least claustrophobic markets in Fiji.
The Nausori Highlands
Towering over the coastal flats of Nadi are the high peaks of Koromba to the south and Koronayitu in the north, both over 1000m and forming part of the spectacular Nausori Highlands. With your own transport, a stunning drive starts from halfway along the Nadi Back Road at the turn-off known as Mulomulo Road. Head inland along this road for 14km, and after a steep hairpin bend, keep an eye out for a walking track on the left-hand side (you can park 50m beyond at a roadside clearing on the right); the track leads up past a triangular survey marker to a steep cliff with superb views over the Sabeto River Valley and out over Nadi to the offshore islands.
The road continues climbing through pine forests to Nausori village. Five kilometres beyond is a fork in the road – the left track marked Natewa Road heads over to Vaturu Dam, but it’s a rough 4WD trail.
The story of Abaca
Abaca got its name by accident. The original village was called Nagara but in 1931 a landslide hit the village, leaving only three survivors. Thankful to be alive, the three went in search of a new home. On their journey they came across a large stone emblazoned with the letters ABC. The letters had been painted by a missionary in the 1830s while teaching the alphabet to the people of Nagara. Inspired by this prophetic sign, the survivors decided to name their new village “Abaca”, an acronym in the local dialect for “the beginning of eternal life after a miracle”.
Denarau Island
Denarau Island was once a swampy mangrove forest but with substantial landfill, reclamation and landscaping, and, more recently, hotel and residential development, it is now a picturesque but heavily manicured environment. The island now boasts large resorts – including global giants Hilton, Sofitel, Westin, Sheraton and Radisson – standing in a line along a sombre grey beach, which in places has been powdered white with imported sand. The beachfront is divided by a rocky point: west beach, facing Malolo Island, has the Sheraton and Radisson resorts and is good for beachcombing, with stronger waves and often littered with driftwood; the north beach faces Nadi Bay, with tranquil views overlooking the Sleeping Giant, a shapely mountain feature separating Nadi and Lautoka. The man-made lakes, canals and inlets of an eighteen-hole championship golf course take up much of the island, with several holes hemmed in either side by hotel apartments and premium residential properties.
Downtown Nadi
With a population of around twelve thousand, split almost evenly between indigenous Fijians and Fiji-Indians, NADI has a laid-back rural charm, enhanced by an almost constantly sunny climate. The twin Fijian villages of Navoci and Namotomoto and the murky Nadi River separate Downtown Nadi from its northern suburbs. South of here, the congested Queens Road is referred to as Main Street, lined with fashion and accessory shops and with a lively market square off to one side. East of the market and beyond the bus stand is a tiny grandstand overlooking Prince Charles Park, venue for Nadi’s football and rugby games.
The northern side of town is by far the most pleasant, with several excellent restaurants serving Indian dishes, and some interesting boutique handicraft stores, although persistent taxi drivers vying for attention distract from its charm. The further south you walk along Main Street, the seedier things become and by Westpoint Arcade beyond Hospital Road, the sidewalk touts take over, hassling tourists with “Bula mate!” or “Best prices in my shop!” From here on, the road is dominated by kava saloons where the locals gather to play pool.
Sri Siva Subrahmanya Temple
In 1994, the impressive Sri Siva Subrahmanya Swami Temple moved from beside the flood-prone Nadi River to the southern end of town, where an evocative three-tower Hindu complex was created over a ten-year period by eight specialist craftsmen brought in from India. A leaflet for visitors details the stories behind the vividly coloured murals. The Dravidian temple is dedicated to the deity Murugan, whose statue, specially carved in India, is housed within the 12m-high main pryramidal vimanam with a rectangular toped roof. The two towers at the rear of the temple with colourful domed shaped roofs are dedicated to Ganesh and Shiva.
The best time of year to visit the temple is during one of its festivals, the most striking of which is the Thaipusam Festival, held in January/February. The festival attracts worshippers from around the world, and sees pierced devotees dragging chariots using meat hooks inserted through their flesh.
Thaipusam Festival
The bizarre Thaipusam Festival at Nadi’s Sri Siva Subrahmanya Swami Temple calls together thousands of Hindu worshippers to celebrate the birthday of Subrahmanya, or Lord Murugan, the god of war worshipped amongst South Indians. During the ten-day festival held over the full moon between January and February, devotees arrive at the temple to pray and cleanse their spirits. Some prove their faith with multiple body piercings on the chest, arms, face and tongue while others drag chariots, or kavadris, attached by sharpened meat hooks to their backs. It’s a fascinating and highly photogenic festival and you’ll be offered free food and invited to join in the celebrations, which are accompanied by dancing musicians. Be sure to observe common courtesies such as removing shoes before entering the temple grounds and not attending if you have recently drunk alcohol.
