Travel to Fiji: Beaches, orchids and Hollywood lore

“That’s Tom Hanks’ island, in ‘Cast Away’ the movie,” said the passenger sitting nearby, on the rear deck of a ferry in Fiji.

As we waited to board the early morning boat, he leaned over the railing and pointed at a distant gray-green shape.

“Its real name is Modriki, and it’s small, just 100 acres,” he said. “But the beach is awesome. Tourists can’t wait to go.”

No surprise there. For most South Pacific travelers, nothing rivals Fiji’s sandy beaches, palm-shaded gardens and starry nights. We’d island-hopped in Fiji over the years. This was our first time back since the pandemic shut things down, and finding hotels wasn’t easy: Fiji is to Australians what Hawaii is to Americans. But we got lucky.

RAYMOND BURR’S HOME

The Fiji Orchid is a stately manor house near the northwest shore of Viti Levu, the largest of Fiji’s 300 islands. It was the former home of Hollywood actor Raymond Burr, star of the detective series “Perry Mason,” and it felt nothing like a hotel and everything like a home away from home. With an inviting living room and framed memorabilia, it beckoned at the end of a long day.

The hotel manager, Deepika Dimlesh, arranged an authentic Fijian dinner, and co-owner Gordon Leewie told tales of Fiji life in the early days. Though Nadi (NAN-dee) International Airport was 20 minutes away, our villa, or bure (pronounced BOO-ray) — one of six in the lush garden — was blissfully quiet.

Curious about Lautoka, Viti Levu’s second-largest town on the northwest shore, we hired a tour guide and driver who (like many Fijians) speaks Fijian, English and Hindi. Stopping at the town’s huge covered market, he bought a couple of kava “sticks,” the gifts we would need — for the chief — if we visited a village.

Then it was on to the Sabeto Mountains and the Garden of the Sleeping Giant. A popular park, it was founded by Burr, a renowned orchid collector. Hundreds of orchids, planted along the trail to the summit, are the highlight of a visit. And the adjacent forest — a tower of vines and strange flowers — was a set waiting for a movie.

PLANTING CORAL

The next day, we checked into the Intercontinental Fiji Golf Resort & Spa, on 35 acres in the southwest corner of Viti Levu, and explored

the hotel’s coral planting project, headed by marine scientists. Joining them in the water, we learned how to plant healthy corals onto damaged reefs.

Most memorable of all, though, was the cruise with Singatoka River Safari. Wide and long, the river winds through an endless valley, past rocky hills, farms and meadows. Children splashed in it and men scrubbed their horses, waving as we passed. Pastoral and peaceful, it seemed from an older century.