September 17, 2018
One of the things I hoped to do this season was a rafting trip on the upper Navua River, high in the mountains. This river has cut a deep and narrow chasm through the solid rock, creating what’s known as “Fiji’s Grand Canyon.” The resulting scenery: immense vertical walls topped by the lush rainforset.
For thrills there are rapids, their intensity varying depending on the time of the year. In summer, the rainy season, the rapids are strong and fast, making it a real white-water rafting adventure. In winter, the river is much lower and the rapids much milder. The advantage of winter (July through September), is that the lower water level makes the canyon walls higher and more dramatic.
It would be ideal to make this trip at both times of the year: once for the wild white-water ride and once for the spectacular scenery. Unfortunately we’re only here in the winter, but if we could pick only one trip it would be the one we had: the scenic canyon ride.
(Some scenes along the river. Click to enlarge and scroll.)
Since there are other river trips (including one on a bamboo raft that includes a visit to a village), I had to research carefully and make sure we chose the trip we wanted. It quickly became clear to me it was the Upper Navua River, but there was a hurdle to cross: we anchor in Suva, and the starting point for this trip was a place called Pacific Harbour, about 40 minutes away by car with no anchorages. When this dream of mine was born, it was the end of the cruising season 2015 and time had run out for this sort of excursion. Still, I hoped to return in the future and make it happen. I knew a marina was being built in Pacific Harbour at the Pearl Resort. It looked small, but maybe they’d have room for visiting yachts.
Now it’s 2018 and we’re back in Fiji. I researched the marina to see if we could rent a berth but never found a clear answer. One source seemed to indicate they wanted super yachts, another said the marina was for the local working boats but visiting yachts were welcome to take a mooring (problem: there are no moorings). I think things were written at various times when their goals were changing. At this point all we could do was call, and yes, they had room for us and it would be $25USD a night. Fair enough.
(Pictures from the Rivers Fiji guy. We’re in the yellow boat. Click to enlarge and scroll.)
Thus began our time at the Pearl Resort Marina in Pacific Harbour, “The Adventure Capital of Fiji.” It’s a place well known to regular tourists but way off the beaten path for yachties. A few have trickled through but not enough to spread the word; so Pacific Harbour is still largely unknown in the cruising world. Naturally, coming here was a real adventure in itself, and what a great adventure! We’ll do further posts about Pacific Harbor, but suffice to say we loved our time here. Aside from access to the bull shark dive with Aqua Trek Diving and our river trip with Rivers Fiji, we’ve enjoyed the beautiful (though somewhat funky) Arts Village with its great eateries and the pleasant ambiance of the area.
But back to the river trip. It was all that I’d hoped for, and Rich (not having much idea about it as this one was my doing) was thrilled with it. The whole excursion was so well run and the staff were great. Our day included all transportation and equipment of course, plus a morning snack, a satisfying lunch by the river, and several swims—floating along in our life vests we could imagine we were tubing. While we do show some rapids in our video, we don’t the have most dramatic ones as before Rich discovered the hold-the-camera-in-his-mouth technique, we had paddle or hold on with both hands.
During the trip we heard interesting stories from our guide, making it a cultural experience–we’re familiar with seaside fishing community life but the lives of the mountain people and their terrifying boar hunting was new to us. Of course we had lots of fun in general and several water fights with the other raft. Probably the biggest surprise was how long the canyon was. I just assumed the photos I’d seen were of a small area, but no—their grand canyon is big. Really big. This truly is one of the jewels of Fiji.
For anyone interested you can check out their website: riversfiji.com. You can book the trip at a resort tour desk, call them at 679-345-0147, or book directly online (you’ll get a discount for booking it yourself). For those staying in Suva, they do offer transportation from the various resorts for which you’ll have to pay extra and get up earlier. I don’t know if they pick up from the yacht club.
Note About the Music: You might notice we put some music in during the quiet parts of the video. It comes from one of the products we invented, Musical Waters. Water drips from a tube onto keys positioned above a pool, which plays various musical instruments depending on the program you choose. Basically, the random dripping water makes the music. This was sold in The National Geographic Store in the early 2000’s.–Cyndi
