Travel Talk

Alk

The "Pacific Islands Monthly" is a member of the Australian National Travel Association (ANTA) and the Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA), which are pledged to promote tourist travel in their areas.

Afloat in Fiji FIJI’S hotels are adequate for the current tourist traffic; there is no trouble or mystery about getting there by plane or ship; which leaves only the problem of what to do when you arrive.

In Fiji there is plenty to do, but as with most other places, it is a good idea to know what you want before hand. The travel departments of the airline or shipping service on which you travel can take it from there; or you can consult local travel agencies such as Fiji Tours and Travel Service, McGowans Building, cm Victoria Parade and All Nations Street; or Hunts Travel Service, which operates from an office in the Bank of New Zealand Building, Victoria Parade, Suva, but which also has branches at Nadi Airport and Lautoka. These agencies will, if you wish it, arrange visits to Fijian villages, boat trips, cars with or without drivers, scenic tours, etc.

The Fiji Visitors’ Bureau, a body charged with the promotion of tourism in the Colony, will also gladly give advice on sightseeing and travel within the group. The Bureau has its main office in Suva and a branch at Nadi Airport.

This month we have space to dis cuss only one aspect of visiting Fiji —seeing it from a small ship.

As the Fiji group consists of about 500 islands, ranging in size from large rocks to the 4,000 sq. mile Viti Levu, ships play a big part in com munications within the group, and for the tourist who has the time for it, this is an excellent way of seeing the unspoilt Pacific.

The Blue Lagoon Cruises from Lautoka (Fiji’s second largest town, less than 20 miles from the inter national airport at Nadi), to the Yasawa Islands, a chain of islands off the NW Viti Levu coast, are arranged especially for tourists. The 56-ft. motor cruiser carries 10 passengers in comfort and the four days cruise of the whole Yasawa group, with

visits to Fijian villages and time out for fishing and swimming costs £F4O (approx. $100), per person, every thing included. When sufficient in ducement offers, shorter week-end cruises are also made at an all inclusive cost of £F2O per person. (These cruises are operated by Capt.

Trevor Withers, PO Box 5, Lautoka, Fiji.) In Suva, tourist and other charter work is undertaken by the Maroro Cruise and Charter Cos., which has the 89-ft. auxiliary vessel, Maroro available. She can carry 15 passen gers, the man in charge is Capt. S.

B. Brown and the address is PO Box 169, Suva. Charter rates are on ap plication and ideas for cruises will be suggested by the company, if you wish.

Also based on Suva is the 35-ft.

The

Pacific

motor vessel Sere-Ni-Wai which is available for charter but which runs also a scheduled three-day trip to Levuka on the island of Ovalau. This is a combined sea and land operation —first day en route to Levuka, next two nights ashore, explore island and town on second day; third day return to Suva. There is plenty of oppor tunity for swimming, fishing and look ing at reefs. Inclusive cost £F24 (approx. S6O) per person.

Half day cruises of Suva Harbour and local reefs are operated by Mr. and Mrs. Vince Storck in a 32-ft. passenger launch. Opportunity is given for examining the reef through the glass bottom of the boat and for swimming. Morning tea is served on the boat. The same couple operate a combined car and river launch trip from Suva to Wainibokasi which in cludes a visit to a Fijian village, lunch on an island and swimming if you want it.

Another river trip is the Beachcomber Hotel, Deuba. TT is up the Navua River and is a 1 more rugged, being undertaken inr sort of flat bottomed punt powered!’1 an outboard motor and when there} a fresh in the river it can even 1 exciting. There are a few, noj dangerous rapids, mountain scenes river gorges and waterfalls, 'll hotel sends a Fijian guide with yi and a picnic lunch which is serv during a rest stop at a Fijian villas Trip takes the best part of a day & costs about £F4 or $lO per he (minimum of four people). Arranjc ments have to be made some days? advance.

The big trading companies of I —Morris Hedstrom Ltd., W. R. Cl penter (Fiji) Ltd., and Burns Phi (SS) Co.—operate small vessels ini Fiji Group carrying stores to outlyi\ islands and plantations and returnit with copra. Some of them carrs few passengers and some of the plae visited—particularly in the Lau I lands—are very beautiful, indes They make regular calls at ports?

Vanua Levu (Fiji’s other big islantr at Taveuni, the “garden” island the group; Rabi, the Fijian Isis' that was bought by the Ocean I landers (Polynesians) after the v and is now settled entirely by the people. Some of the ships go alsoc far as Rotuma, about 240 miles noo of the main group, but administer as part of Fiji although its peoji too, are Polynesians.

But this sort of travel, by sirr inter-island ship, is for harden travellers whose stomachs beha well under every circumstance and not for the general run of touristsa More Hotels for

Papeete

TAHITI is steadily doing somethd to whittle down the discrepau between demand for and availabii of hotel rooms. In the last com of months, two new hotels hr opened near Papeete, both of thd of the popular bungalow type. Ta£ Village, about nine miles from town centre, in the Panaauia distn; has completed about two-thirds ofi planned 40 bungalows.

The Matavai Hotel has opened! of various sizes rang from complete self-contained hotr to single rooms. There is a swimmn pool and restaurant and rates be at approx. £A3/3/- (or £Stg.2/7/-' $7), room only.

From the north, Papeete is sen by South Pacific Airlines Ltd., i Transports Aeriens Intercontinteis (TAI); and from the south by T and Tasman Empire Airways Ltd. .1

Abroad

j's Easy if

i Careful I is the time of the year when ips abroad are being planned is most antipodeans visiting id make at least one or two to the Continent, some early it should be given to this as tempo in European holiday has stepped up to such a that if you have not been there couple of years, it is wise to your thinking. has come about by the fact le UK has greatly liberalised lount of currency residents can abroad; and at the same time, social conditions on the Con itself have given most people holidays. Therefore, unless to it, avoid all Continental between mid-July and end of ; because at this time, not vill you have to pay “high ’ rates, but you will have to te with hundreds of thousands rical and industrial workers ill over Europe who are wedg sir two weeks annual holiday is period. i result of the boom in Con -1 travel in England, there has up there a great many fly-by ravel agencies and charter air ampanies that are trying to : on a shoe-string, and these lould be avoided, even if they r tours at a pound or two less le established firms, ng the 1961 Northern summer, 'ontinent was littered with d tourists whose chartered air impany had gone broke while ere actually taking their “two annual”; or who had been m by travel agencies who had ed the world and delivered ;. The people caught were ; for bargains and had id for their holiday down to it penny, and were the very who couldn’t afford any sort l-up in their plans, inental travel is easy these ven if you go under your own with your own car air or sea across the Channel, and ing where you will. Even the ?e difficulty is small, if you are the type who likes planned down to the last taxi,

are working to a strict budget or are venturing abroad for the first time, there are thousands of planned tours available from the big tourist agencies, travelling by sea, train, road or air or a combination of two or more of them.

Here are a few of the holidays and tours that are available: Fifteen days holiday to Capri from £Stg.s2; 15 days on the Sorrento- Amalfi coast of Italy for approxi mately £Stg.ss. Two weeks in Majorca in Spain’s Baleaeric Islands for as little as £Stg.3l; eight days on one of the Swiss lakes for £Stg.24/10/-; five days to Paris, £Stg.l7/17/-; eight days to Cannes or Nice or other French Riviera re

sorts from £Stg.26; eight days Vienna from £Stg.3s.

The “from” in all these cases means: sea ferry across the Channel, second class travel on the Continent and a shared room in a modest hotel or pension. If you are interested in the “to”—we’ll quote just one example: Nice. The minimum £Stg.26, quoted above, rises to £Stg.s3/5/- for one week if you travel by air and stay at a three or four star hotel; a single room will cost about 6/- Stg. extra per day and a room with a bath about 10/- per night extra. (Almost all rooms in a 4-star hotel will have a bath or shower, anyway.) Cost of bus tour holidays varies according to the hotel accommodation you require and whether you wish to travel to the point where you pick up the bus by surface or air trans port. The prices for the tours quoted here are the minimum prices: A 15 days’ tour of Spain and Portu gal from London—about 12 of them have some bus travel —from £Stg.66; 15 days covering the French and Italian Rivieras and the Swiss lakes, from £Stg.6o; a 15 days’ tour of France, Switzerland and Italy but with a week of the time at Lake Como, Italy, £Stg.s9/10/-.

An 18 days’ tour of Norway, Sweden and Denmark costs £Stg.l 15/10/-; and if you want to go the whole hog, there is a Grand Tour for a little under £Stg.2oo.

This takes 30 days wandering through France, Belgium, along the River Rhine in Germany, through the Bavarian Alps and Austria, Switzer land and down into Italy and the French Riviera.

"00-La-La" is one of the cruise launches available to tourist in Fiji. Here she dashes across Suva Harbour, but she is more frequently used for river trips.