A TRIP FROM NADI TO SUVA FIJI ON HIGHWAY 1

wheelchair nomad from diary... I transferred into the car for the 200 kilometres, four-hour drive to Suva, and the capital of Fiji. The national highway of Fiji has eighty kilometres per hour set as top speed but many buses and trucks advertise sixty as their top speed. Sixty is a sane speed, although fifty is the official speed, reinforced by twenty kilometre speed bumps in the thirty odd villages along the route. The highway winds as sinuous as a belly dancer through steep hills reducing speeds to thirty kilometres per hour but highway construction overall is good: reasonable width, well sign posted, white lines clearly painted, all potholes filled, and the occasional passing lanes and bus pull-offs. There are areas of danger. The highway is the main pedestrian way in the villages not only for adults, teenagers, and unsupervised toddlers, but also for herds of unfenced horses, cows, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks and mongrel dogs. In the villages, roadside stalls sell fresh fish, tropical fruit, vegetable produce, and seashells and buyers back onto the road. The drive is scenic from the hills, with sweeping views of pine plantation, sugar cane and farm country, and with numerous vistas of the widespread ocean, the white surf roaring and pounding sand beaches and palm trees bending like accordions in ocean winds.

Google Video | March 19, 2006

Tags:. .accordions. .advertise. .although. .belly. .bending