Dante's Kiwi Adventure

Stopped checking for updates? Surprised to see a new post? Can’t really blame you on either count. The thing is, in the southern hemisphere it’s summer. And to me, summer means vacation. And I haven’t taken this one lightly.

Travel plans:
-Fiji (surviving)
-Home (Windsor)
-Florida (relaxing poolside)
-Home
-Ottawa/Mont Tremblant (snowboarding)
-Home
-New Zealand’s south island (wine and adventure)

As of now, I’m just about to embark on the last portion, exploring the south island for about 8 days with my first bro-in-law. Up to now has been fantastic, but what I really want to write about is the first 4 days of what has been an outstanding 3 weeks.
If you don't like words, enjoy brevity, are short on time, or just dont' care...skip to the bottom and watch the video to get a 3 minute version of the Fiji experience.

Those 4 days happened to occur in Fiji, where I last minute decided to travel to due to a good friend being there for work. Before I go on, I suggest visiting Fiji. Just do not go during the rainy season.

The first couple days were great. It was overcast all day but that didn’t matter, I was vacationing in paradise. As another of my friends put it, “You bastard. You move to one paradise only to vacation in an even better one.”

We decided to do what most people do in Fiji, and that’s to spend one night at an island hotel. Fiji is a country of 380 islands and when people visit they typically hop islands, spending the night and partying at one before exploring another. We headed to Beachcomber.

On the island (that took maybe 15 minutes to walk all the way around on it’s white sand beach, we snorkelled, ate and then partied to who knows what time the next day. I had a flight to catch at 3pm and was planning on taking the 11 am ferry. Cyclone Mick had other ideas. We woke to palm trees bending in prayer to this cyclone and rain that stung the face as it horizontally swept across the island. I was suddenly on the only ferry of the day, due to arrive at 9:45am. My friend decided to stay and see what he could see on the island (by that I don’t mean the storm, but accents I think are what he was interested in).

Myself and 6 other brave souls are told that it’s time to go. Packs in hand we trudge out to the small aluminium boat that will deliver us to our ferry. Good thing it was covered by a roof about 67 feet above us as the rain and sea water came roaring into the boat sideways soaking us all within a matter of minutes. We were huddled in this boat with our luggage piled in the middle and covered (I use that term loosely) to keep it dry. Luckily I only had a small waterproof pack that remained strapped to my back.

As we were bobbing up and down on 6 foot waves in 100 foot visibility trying to flag down the large ferry back to the mainland with the orange shirt of one of the island workers, I calmly had a typical travel conversation (you know, who what where when how?) with a lovely young lady sitting next to me who happened to be from a small town in France. As if our current situation was anything out of the ordinary.

The large ferry finally comes in sight, but we’re obviously not in their sight. Now we’re chasing the ferry, and Beachcomber is fading into the rain and fog and sea. They finally see us and we begin the boarding procedure that was very much like your first elementary school dance; awkward, uncomfortable, a bit scary and you don’t really know what to do but you have some idea. After destroying the right side of our little aluminium boat and successfully boarding 4 people, we try the other side of the ferry. It was nuts. Nobody is wearing lifejackets and we’re basically jumping from one boat to another. In the middle of a cyclone. Unreal. Somehow all of us and our gear managed to get onboard.

As we’re huddled at the back of the air conditioned cabin, feeling like rats in a glass cage that just crawled out of the sea, I pass around the only dry towel we have. Shortly after that, my motion sickness kicks in. And I mean it really kicked in. I spent the next two and a half hours on the back deck, locked in what was essentially an airplane toilet, except the door had about six inches cut off the bottom, allowing fresh air (and sea water) to join me and my newly released breakfast.

I was violently ill. Some things I remember:
-A crew member putting down an un-inflated and wrapped up life boat, sitting on it and having a conversation with me, basically asking if I was OK.
Not if that’s a lifeboat you’re sitting on!
-The boat horrifically rocking forward and back and side to side.
-What sounded like a bell clanging every time the boat pitched.
-The captain coming on the radio after 1.5 hours (the ride to the mainland should have taken 45 minutes), announcing that we had just arrived at Beachcomber (the island I just left) and would be back to the mainland in 45 minutes.

Are you kidding me????

Apparently, the boat continued on away from the mainland to pick up people from other islands, only to abandon that idea after 45 minutes BECAUSE WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CYCLONE.
My fellow survivors tell me that the cabin was a disaster. People were crying, yelling, and puking as the boat Porpoised in 6 metre waves, water leaked in from all sides of the boat, including the ceiling, and the crew ran around throwing lifejackets at everyone on board. Except me. Because I was locked in a toilet stall. Somehow I’m glad I wasn’t in the cabin for that.

Once on the mainland, they funnelled us onto two awaiting coach buses where I immediately sat in the front seat. Across from me was a lovely Swiss girl and behind me were 3 Brazilians and a Korean. We were all headed to the airport and had somehow bonded without speaking very much simply by surviving that boat ride together. After navigating back roads (as the main roads were all shut down due to fallen trees) far too narrow for a bus this large, dodging falling trees and machete wielding islanders, and dropping off everyone on the bus at their respective resorts, we arrived at the ghost town of an airport. All flights were cancelled.
My airline’s counter was completely abandoned. Someone handed me a number (that didn’t work) to rebook my flight. I was stranded in Fiji with nowhere to stay and no rescheduled flight out. Also, the next day at 7:15pm I was to catch a flight to from Auckland to L.A. then on to Detroit and home for the holidays. Slight panic crept in at this point.

My newly-minted friends were flying to Australia and their airline was taking care of business, so I watched their bags as they waited in line for rescheduled flights and hotel reservations all taken care of for them. While they waited in line, I got the number of a travel agent in Auckland from a friendly couple sitting next to me and managed to book myself onto a flight the next morning at 8:45. Unfortunately for my wallet, only business class was available. Fortunately for me, business class is amazing. I went from almost dying on a boat to sitting in the pre-boarding lounge helping myself to whatever food and drink I wanted and being escorted to the gate for boarding. Unreal By now the Mick had died down and it seemed as though flights would be in the air the next day. One could only hope.

That night, Swiss girl was kind enough to let me share her room for the night as I had nowhere to go. We managed to scrape together “dinner” and toasted our survival of the day with cup-of-noodles and strawberry Oreos (verdict: skip ‘em).

I managed to make the flight the next morning, although it left over 2 hours late and I didn’t get into Auckland until 2pm. At this point I was starting to think that this journey was a lot like the Amazing Race (a favourite show of my sister Stef’s and mine) and I was possibly winning the race at this point. I raced back to my flat (3pm), packed and showered (4pm), then headed back to the airport (5:30pm) in time to check in for my flight leaving at 7:15.

I made it. Or so I thought. Getting to LAX was great, Air New Zealand is a fantastic airline, but my flight to Detroit wasn’t so smooth. We were delayed about an hour because there was a broken part on the plane. They “bypassed” the part (whatever that means) and the plane was fit to fly…just not into Detroit. We were rerouted to Minnesota due to the lack of de-icing capabilities on the engine with the “bypassed” part. The fog in Detroit dictated this itinerary change. Then we were delayed out of Minnesota waiting for the 5th flight attendant to arrive (can’t fly with only 4).

After almost 3 days of not quite comfortable travel, I arrived in Detroit only 4 hours late and with all of my luggage in hand. Amazing.

Can’t wait to see what the journey back to Auckland will bring. One can only hope.

Here's a short video documenting the fiji experience as best I could under the circumstances.