Lesson learned in Fiji

After spending a week in Fiji, we were due to fly out on a Saturday and get home on Sunday. The day started out innocuously enough:

Ziplining

In the morning, we went ziplining with Zip Fiji – they have a few locations all over Fiji but this one in Nadi is the newest. It boasts 16 ziplines, although at the time of our visit one had been damaged in one of the recent cyclones and was not being used.

This was only a month or so after I went ziplining in Chiang Mai, and I found the experience quite different – here, they give you really thick gloves so that you can brake (by applying pressure on the zipline) before you crash into the person waiting for you at the end of the zipline. It takes some skill and I’m sure those gloves wear out quite fast! I did appreciate having more control over my ride, although this also meant that I spent most of the ride thinking about braking instead of enjoying the scenery.

If you’re adventurous, you can turn upside down or try some other ziplining variation – I preferred to concentrate on braking properly, though.

Be warned – there’s also a lot of climbing up stairs! And as always, insect repellent is your friend.

For an additional FJD10, we did an abseil / free-fall which was by far the most fun part of the experience.

Obvious tip: do not attempt this in ballet flats! Mine were already very loose to start with, but I had no choice as the only footwear I had was ballet flats and flip-flops. Still very fun though.

You abseil down a bit and then they drop you the rest of the way – it feels like free-falling, but they catch you towards the end and lower you slowly to the ground. Exhilarating!

The first half felt quite relaxed – the staff were encouraging us to take our time and not rushing us, but after the abseiling everything suddenly sped up and felt quite rushed. Perhaps there was another group hot on our heels.

Cost: FJD245 (about SGD160) per person including lunch and transport (before the abseiling add-on).

Nadi Handicrafts Market

After ziplining, we wandered around the town for a bit doing some souvenir shopping and ended up here. There were some interesting stuff, but a lot of the stalls were selling the same (probably mass-produced) things, which is a bit ironic for a handicrafts market. There are tons of jewellery and other trinkets here.

There was one lady actually making something out of traditional parchment in front of us, though. There weren’t many other people around, surprisingly (since it was a Saturday afternoon).

A Costly Mistake

This entire time, we had been operating on the assumption that our flight out was at 9pm. This was probably because we had been hanging out with another guy from the Project whose flight out was at 9pm, and Ian had somehow got the idea that our flight was at that time too. I unfortunately didn’t check, although I had many opportunities to do so.

In fact, neither of us thought to check until we had arrived back at the resort and were preparing to kill our last few hours before heading to the airport.That was when we discovered that we had been completely wrong about the flight timing. Our flight had already departed!

What followed was hours on the phone with Singapore Airlines trying to get on the next flight out, racking up hundreds of dollars in roaming call charges in the process. The next flight out was on Sunday, so we had to stay one more night and arrive in Singapore one day later than planned. Thankfully, Monday was a public holiday in Singapore so I didn’t have to take additional leave!

Moral of the story? You can never check your flight timings too many times.

“Bonus” Day – Sunday

I was in absolutely no mood to spend another FJD175 for an extra night in Club Fiji, so we moved to Capricorn Hotel in town which only cost FJD104. No beach view and no bure – just a conventional hotel room with TV and air-con, but it was fine.

We spent our “bonus” day watching Captain America: Civil War at the cinema a couple of blocks from the hotel and eating (you guessed it) Chicken Express one last time. The movie was decent, so it wasn’t a complete waste of a day!

Not the ideal end to a holiday but a most valuable lesson learned!

Have you ever missed a flight? What happened?

This post is part of The Weekly Postcard hosted by Travel Notes & Beyond, A Hole in My Shoe, Toddlers on Tour, Two Traveling Texans and Arnie and Jo are on the Go – check out what’s going on elsewhere!