Taking the bus to a van station that would then take us to the mountain. We were a little worried when the van dropped us off at a cement factory that looked like the beginning of a bad horror movie, but everything ended up fine once we found the trail.
Starting out on the beginning of the trail. The guide book said that the hike would be about 1-2 hours.
About a half hour into the hike we found a series of waterfalls and pools with this group of 5 Fijian boys swimming around. They would leap off of huge rocks and do flips into the pools - some of the people in our group joined them but I was too scared of heights.
Beautiful view of the river upstream of the pools - fresh water here has a green/blue tinge to it that's very pretty. It was really nice just laying down in the water because it was so hot and humid.
The boys - they decided to join us to show us the way up and down the mountain. They ran up and down the thing extremely fast and had to keep waiting up for us (and taking breaks to laugh at all of us when we fell or tripped). They spoke a little English, enough for us to find out that they lived in a village near the base of the mountain and that they came up here a lot and would sleep on top of the mountain sometimes.
Wild orchids were all over the trail.
And bugs! This guy was frozen with his head sticking straight up. He foamed clear liquid at the mouth when we moved him, so I don't think he enjoyed us playing with him very much.
And a giant millipede. This was about 7 or 8 inches long and we saw a few of them crawling around. Hopefully I'll get to learn more about these things in my invertebrate zoology class.
The view from the top was absolutely beautiful - you can see the entire peninsula that Suva lies on. It was also really breezy and cool which was a very welcome break from the humidity on the way up. It turns out that the guidebook only wanted you to hike up about halfway where there is a campsite, but we went up the entire mountain which took about 3 hours up and an hour and a half back. It was super steep and I was a little scared of falling and breaking my neck at least a few times. Most of the trail was slick with red clay mud and rocks, so we had to be really careful (although we ended up with a few solid wipeouts on the way).
More mountain views. Viti Levu (the main island that Suva is on) has a ton of mountains inland. I don't think you can see the haze or the rainclouds too well, but it poured on us a few times during the hike.
Me being very attractive and sweaty and covered in mud. I think I ruined those shorts. We all ended up hiking up barefoot at some point (I didn't want to ruin my Nikes, those things have to last me all semester). It was okay, except now I have little cuts all over my feet and was picking thorns out of my toes later at night at home.
The boys evidently weren't tired at the end of the hike, as they all climbed up this structure at the very top and were waving the flag around and screaming and singing. These kids were baller.
Beautiful view of the river upstream of the pools - fresh water here has a green/blue tinge to it that's very pretty. It was really nice just laying down in the water because it was so hot and humid.
The boys - they decided to join us to show us the way up and down the mountain. They ran up and down the thing extremely fast and had to keep waiting up for us (and taking breaks to laugh at all of us when we fell or tripped). They spoke a little English, enough for us to find out that they lived in a village near the base of the mountain and that they came up here a lot and would sleep on top of the mountain sometimes.
Wild orchids were all over the trail.
And bugs! This guy was frozen with his head sticking straight up. He foamed clear liquid at the mouth when we moved him, so I don't think he enjoyed us playing with him very much.
And a giant millipede. This was about 7 or 8 inches long and we saw a few of them crawling around. Hopefully I'll get to learn more about these things in my invertebrate zoology class.
The view from the top was absolutely beautiful - you can see the entire peninsula that Suva lies on. It was also really breezy and cool which was a very welcome break from the humidity on the way up. It turns out that the guidebook only wanted you to hike up about halfway where there is a campsite, but we went up the entire mountain which took about 3 hours up and an hour and a half back. It was super steep and I was a little scared of falling and breaking my neck at least a few times. Most of the trail was slick with red clay mud and rocks, so we had to be really careful (although we ended up with a few solid wipeouts on the way).
More mountain views. Viti Levu (the main island that Suva is on) has a ton of mountains inland. I don't think you can see the haze or the rainclouds too well, but it poured on us a few times during the hike.
Me being very attractive and sweaty and covered in mud. I think I ruined those shorts. We all ended up hiking up barefoot at some point (I didn't want to ruin my Nikes, those things have to last me all semester). It was okay, except now I have little cuts all over my feet and was picking thorns out of my toes later at night at home.
The boys evidently weren't tired at the end of the hike, as they all climbed up this structure at the very top and were waving the flag around and screaming and singing. These kids were baller.
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