See ya Maqai, If not in this life, in the one after!

Today is our last day at lovely Maqai. Still wind is strong and rain is in the air and we feel sad leaving Maqai and our new friends. When you leave they sing a farwell song for you and with tears in our eyes we said goodbye. Someday we will come back! Thank you all the staff and guests for making this a highlight on our trip! I am trying to post a video and hopefully it will here shortly.

Leaving Maqai

Our flight was even more delayed because of the weather. Tavenui airport is really tiny and you put all your bags and yourself on the scale. Incredibly beautiful view of the islands from the sky and we waved a last goodbye to Maqai resort. Being on a budget meant our flight went to Suva and from there we had another 5 hours by taxi and minibus before we arrived to Bamboo.

Our smallest aircraft ever.

Everyone has a window seat view

People with bigger pockets boarded the direct Nadi flight...
So nice to finally get to the hostel and again meet Elia, Luiza and all the other nice staff. We had dinner and then went to bed and slept like rocks.

Time for farwells

Good thing about travelling is you meet so many new friends. Downside though is you have to say farwell and hope you will meet again. Before tears comes joy and farwell party!

Inaki and Klara

Larissa and Franzi

Temo, Inaki and Big john

Also on our last night Simon performed his Fire dance. Thank you ever so much for that Simon!

Simon fire dancing

Off to Maquai

Today we went to Maqai, a short drive by car and then a boat came and took us to Qamea island. We felt at home directly at arrival!

Jippieee!

Our "tent" bure

After a relaxed afternoon with snorkeling and rest we joined the evening kava ceremony, after passing all tests we were formally members of the Maqai family :-)

Not one night without kava...

Ferry bound for Taveuni

After breakfast we took a minibus to Suva. A chaotic city! We managed to find the Bligh ferry office and bought tickets for the departure tonight. A visit to the market and later a couple of drinks at the Royal Suva Yacht Club were the highlights of the day.

Suva market

RSYC

At 6 pm the ferry left Suva, it turned out that our cabin was next to the bridge of the ship :-) Probably very luxury when the boat was new (50 years ago??). Anyway we had a good night of sleep and arrived happily to Taveuni after lunch.

Our "livingroom"

Bedroom

Call the captain?? (didn't work)

Hello Sydney, our last Aussie destination!

A taxi picked us up from our little house in Paddinton. Our backpacks are still heeavy from food and books and our indian taxi driver wondered if we were going mountaineering! Funny, we have spent a lot of time indoor climbing in Brisbane. Some of the chalk must have rubbed on... Its a short flight from Brisbane to Sydney, like from Stockholm to Malmö. Klara was releived, all our aussie flights has been at least 4 hours. 4 hours from Sweden we are amost in North Africa. Taxi driver had a hardtime finding our BIG Hostel in Elizabeth street, (its called Big hostel).

Nice Big Hostel

Acommodation in Sydney is very expensive so the dream of renting a flat with view over Sydney harbour bridge and the Opera house will have to wait. We went to the Rocks, Sydneys old town. The Rocks is a nice area with cafes, restaurants and art galleries. I love Ken Done and a galleriy had his paintings and works at display. We checked out the ferry at circular quey,  tomorrow we are going to Manly beach.

Great Apple store in Sydney

Sunny Sunday in Brisbane

Hello sunshine we have been missing you! We dropped off our car downtown Brisbane in the morning and continued to the river.

Downtown Brisbane

Through Brisbane flows a river and the taxi ferry is an excellnt way of getting around. At South Banks there was a festival celebrating Buddahs birthday and Brisbanians (do you say that?) out for a Sunday walk. A long the river is Brisbanes culture centre and we stepped in to the Museum of modern art, a museum built 2006.

Museum of moderna art, Brisbane

After our dose of culture Kalle went back to cake-house and the rest went for some more climbing. The Janlerts are turning into a ninja family....

Cake house

Meeting koalas

Today is last day we have our rental car so we aimed for seeing koalas. Again we were on the highway but in order to avoid calling the Govia to pay road toll we took the old Logan rd south to Daisy hill. This turned out to be a good choice since there was a huge traffic jam highway! In Daisy hill there is a koala centre where you can get close and see koalas. We met Freckles and Eukie, (short for Eucalypthus). Koalas are mostly active when its dark, they are nocturnal animals, but Freckles was awake and in full action. Koala action still means very slooow. The centre is nice and has a lot of info about koalas. Now we know how to arrange a koala and possum friendly garden! Around the koala centre there is a very nice park excellent for picknick with tables and BBQ:s.