Last Full Day in Fiji

First, a mystery solved.  One of the attractions for us in picking Coconut Grove Beachfront Cottages was their marketing of kulas in the trees morning and evenings right in front of our Bure.  What birder doesn't like easy birding with coffee in the morning and wine in the evening; right?  So for the first four days we saw no "kulas" in the trees.  The staff told us they haven't seen them in a long time, and even our wonderful driver who took us out for our two day trips birding seemed a little clueless when we mentioned the lack of kulas.  On our second to last morning here, Chris joined Mike in the early morning caffeine intake and solved the mystery of the kulas.  We were in the gardens birding when two collared lorries flew into a coconut tree.  At first we got very excited that the kulas had finally arrived.  Then Chris suggested they look an awful lot like the kulas on the Fijian five dollar bill and was it possible these collared Lorrie's we had already seen were one and the same?  With the help of Wikipedia and a little caffeine we had our much anticipated kula arrival.

 

We had worked up an appetite from morning birding and all that thinking, so we popped in for breakfast.  Not a day went by that we hadn't seen some wonderful kingfishers, but on this morning they were posing perfectly atop the entrance sign to the beach so of course we needed the camera again.  Cameras and binoculars are allowed on the restaurant veranda but no cell phones or laptops permitted thankfully.

 

Next, kayaking to the reef.  We have been married for 36 years and over that span we have tried kayaking together several times.  We eventually determined it just wasn't for us and have always referred to the sport as divorce kayaking.  For some reason we decided to give it a go again with the clever idea of a two person kayak with only one paddle.  The staff set us up and tied the paddle on and knotted our mesh bag of gear on "in case we tip" with Mike professing how this was all so unnecessary.  Well, we had TWO great flip overs, didn't lose a paddle or any gear, and are happy to report it was our BEST ever and LAST ever kayaking adventure and we plan on staying married.  

 

 

Finally, we needed to finish the rum. A dark and stormy was one of our favorite drinks from Bermuda.

With a little Australian ginger beer and the remaining spiced Fijian Rum, we forgot about flipping the kayak.