This is where we drove onto the Ferry. |
This is where they had us park our vehicle for the journey. The boat was later filled with trucks and cars all around our SUV. |
As you can tell from my face, our 6'X6' cabin was not in the best of shape. It felt like we were in a prison cell. |
This was the disgusting bathroom, worse than it looks! |
The ceiling was "nicely" decorated! |
To get some fresh air before we ate and slept in our cabin for the night, we watched the sailors preparing for departure. |
A beautiful sunset saw us off, as we sailed away from the port in Suva. |
As we sailed away, we were both nervous and excited for the adventures ahead of us. |
This is our Ferry boat after we arrived at 5:30am at our destination, the seaside town of Savusavu. |
There are pockets of natural hot springs releasing steam all around Savusavu, |
Here, Rick almost burned his hand on the hot water coming up from the ground. |
This was the amazing view from our hotel room at the Savusavu Hot Springs Hotel. |
This is our hotel nestled along the bay. |
We found this unusual flower as we drove around to discover the island. |
More amazing flowers... |
Hibiscus were also plentiful. |
Beautiful bouquets of flowers are made from the many local flowers on the island. |
On the day we arrived, we drove up the Hibiscus Hwy to Buca Bay through a beautiful Fijian rain forest. It was amazing. |
We stopped at a remote beach along the way. |
We found several unique seashells to add to our Fiji shell collection. |
I have realized just how much I love shells, and the thrill of finding that perfect shell is addictive! |
We came upon these three galloping horses during our drive on the Hibiscus Hwy. We had to slow down to let them get off the road. |
We had a good laugh at this "Pac Man" island we found along the seaside. |
Time to cool down at the wharf on this very hot day in Savusavu. |
It was such a picturesque harbor. |
Rick actually had a bit of a struggle as he climbed onto this tree branch, the locals gave him a thumbs up when he carefully got off. |
These Fijians were sitting out in the hot sun selling their piles of clams. |
We went to church the next day, and were met by these loving & friendly children. Some of them sat on our laps during the mtg. |
We were also greeted, and invited to dinner with the Roths (from Switzerland) who are on a humanitarian mission. We grew to love them so so much. They were a great example to us and so fun to be with. |
On the next day, we drove out to the village, Vunivesi, to do eye care in
this nice little meeting hall. We took some photos of the people
waiting their turn in the hot weather to have their eye exam.
What a happy grandpa. |
One lady was too crippled to get out of this car to come in for an eye exam, so Rick came out and did the eye exam right there. |
This was a first, and probably the last time he will ever do an "in-car" eye exam! Her eyes were healthy, but she needed reading glasses, which she was happy to receive. |
I was kept busy keeping up, as we did 108 eye exams in this hot building in 6 hours. Luckily we had two fans blowing to help make it a little more comfortable to work. |
After a busy and hot day, we sure enjoyed cooling down in the hotel pool before supper. |
On the next day, we took a tour of the one and only pearl farm & factory in Fiji. We then snorkeled in the Savusavu Bay and saw huge 6 foot diameter clams, something we had never seen before in real life. They are remarkable. Later that day drove up to the north part of the island to the city of Labasa (pronounced "Lambasa"), where we were to do our next day's eye care.
On the way, we thought we may have taken a wrong turn when we came up this village! |
There were some beautiful views of the ocean as we drove to Labasa. |
This funny, and somewhat scary sight of this guy balancing a boat on top of his vehicle was kind of interesting. We carefully passed him, as didn't want to be behind him for too long! |
Because of the extreme heat here in Fiji, many kids and adults use umbrellas to provide shade as they walk the street, especially here in Labasa where it is considered the hottest city in all of Fiji! |
Once we arrived in Labasa, we checked into this "interesting" hotel.... |
On our first day in Labasa, we did eye exams in the local LDS church. Here's some photos of many of the interesting people who were waiting in line outside in the extreme heat waiting to see us! |
Some of the people watched a video while waiting for us, but since the room wasn't air conditioned, it was still very hot. |
We felt lucky to work in the only air conditioned room in the church. It felt like an oven when ever we stepped outside our room. |
We ended up doing exactly 100 eye exams on this particular day. |
The next day, we drove about 30 minutes outside Labasa to do eye exams at this somewhat remote town. |
This is an outside look at the health centre as we drove up to it. |
Today, we weren't quite so lucky to have air conditioning. It makes it so much more difficult! |
This man told us that his face & head are shaped like this because of drinking and driving |
This 5 year old cross-eyed girl was brought in by her mother, concerned about the left eye crossing in. |
This little girl really broke my heart. I had to put drops in her eyes, she was so brave. We just loved her so much! |
Well, this raps up our week on the island of Vanua Levu, exploring different places, staying in different hotels, eating great food, and most of all meeting
some wonderful people. They will always have a place in our hearts!
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