Finality

I'm leaving tomorrow. My bike's all packed in a box and I hope the girls in the lfight companies were right about me just strolling over to qantas and paying 120 aussie dollars for them to fly the big box home to Denmark. We'll see tomorrow. It's very interesting.
It's also very strange to be leaving, it felt so familiar to come back, or home to New Zealand. It's autumnal and recognisable and mountainous and might as well be Scandinavia, just with nikau palms and cabbage trees.

But I do look forward to home, to see my friends, my family, have a job, eat Danish rye bread and liquorice, hold hands with the loved one every day and sleep in the same bed every night, to not share dorm rooms with snooring strangers, to have more than two sets of clothes. It's also slightly scary. What if I forget how wonderful this was and don't go out again? If I just get a nine to five and have kids and tell about back when mum was cool and biked New Zealand and sailed to Fiji?
I don't think I will forget though. I'll probably remember so hard that there is no option but going out again.

Again, again again, I have to come back to this place.

Savusavu & Labasa

We've gone on a roadtrip to Labasa. It's only 85 km, but almost three hours by bus over the misty hills of Vanua Levu. Labasa is very much Indofijian, in fact I'm shopping a sari here. I'm not quite sure where or when to wear a sari back home in Denmark, but it's very pretty.
Other than that we've visited the local temple and faffed about in town (there's no beach) and had a beer and sorted photos. There's not so much to do here really, and we're both starting to feel that we've seen what there is to see in Fiji,at least for the time being with our monetary resources.

Don't get me wrong, it is really really nice here, but after a while you realize that the guidebooks are using up every possible ressource to come up with things to do. And much of those things are rather much the same in most islands and places. Closing in on three months of hanging out by the beach or being in rather smallish towns that close down at 7.30 sharp, whereafter you have to entertain yourself is enough for me. I miss my bike and more space and changing weather and, well, ordinary stuff like my kitchen and having things to do in the day and less ordinary stuff like my friends and family and husband.

Tomorrow we're going out to a hindu temple with a growing rock that's shaped like a cobra where they do tricks with milk and popcorn we've been told. And then I guess I'm picking up my sari and we return to Savusavu to have dinner at Joseph's and listen to live music and sunday we go sailing an monday we're heading back to Viti Levu. And all that is not so bad.

Blomster til mor

Kære Mor,
du har selv skrevet at det er ligemeget med julegaver og fødselsdagsgaver og alt det der. Så nu får du lidt fjollet måske, en virtuel gave. Jeg ved nemlig at du ville være helt vild med alle blomsterne hernede. Her er helt utrolig grønt.

Vi begynder med det største først, tane Mahuta, som er New Zelands største kauritræ. Og det skal du være glad for kun at få på billede, det måler 14 meter om maven.

Der følgeret pænt stykke jungel med

En blå blomst fra Paihia

og et palmetræ ved en strand

Så en masse blandet fra Auckland domains botaniske have

en lilje af en slags

Det er en blomst. Jeg ved ikke hvilken slags blomst, men den er flot

De her vokser vildt i grøftekanten

en Silver fern, New Zealands nationalsymbol

Not so many christmas presents this year, so my mum is getting virtual flowers instead, and rather belated. Happy Birthday and merry christmas!