Adventure Playground

Adventure Playground by Rob McFarland - CourierMail.com.au

Take a paddle or flight on the "other" side of Fiji. 

It's Good Friday and I'm being guided by Moses. Ahead of us lies 24km of tumultuous white water, dozens of spectacular waterfalls and an impenetrable canvas of lush, dense jungle. Moses is a guide with Rivers Fiji and I'm on their Upper Navua rafting trip, an all-day adventure that follows the river as it slices through a chasm of black volcanic rock in the remote highlands of Viti Levu. At times the sheer-sided walls of the canyon narrow to just 7m wide while waterfalls tumble down through a canopy of ferns and bamboo. All around is the unmistakable background music of the jungle.

Rivers Fiji has been running this trip for 12 years after negotiating leases on a narrow strip of land along the river from local landowners. Having stopped the logging that threatened to decimate much of the rainforest in this area, the initiative has won the company several awards, including a Highly Commended in last year's Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards.

Getting to the river involves a 6am start, a bumpy two-hour drive up a logging track and a 30-minute hike through the jungle. All day, Moses and his fellow guides entertain us with anecdotes about their childhood and the colourful characters they've met in this line of work.

After stopping on a sandy beach for a buffet-style lunch, we make our way to Massage Waterfall where we take it in turns to be pummelled by a torrent of water cascading from the rocks high above.

After an early start and four hours of paddling, almost everyone falls asleep on the bus on the way back to a town that has become known as the adventure capital of Fiji – Pacific Harbour. This is the “other” side of Fiji, the place to come if you want to interact with the locals and gain access to a wide range of adventure activities. I'm staying at Uprising Beach Resort, a laid-back property that looks out over one of Fiji's finest beaches. Offering a range of accommodation from a backpacker-style bunkhouse to spacious, self-contained beachfront bures, it's the ideal base from which to explore the region. People flock here for the range of adventure activities on offer: white-water rafting, shark diving, horseriding, jetskiing, surfing, sailing, golf, game fishing, hiking, kite boarding and ziplining. I spoke to a guy who has dived all over the world and he said the shark dive here was the best he's done. No cage, just you sitting on the ocean floor while 5m tiger sharks slowly circle above. Gulp.

The following morning I try my hand at ziplining. Zip Fiji has built a 1km course comprising eight lines that range from 15 to 220m. What's impressive is that the platforms are suspended from the trees, not bolted into them, and the pathways for the lines were cleared by gently pulling the trees apart, not cutting them down.

After a quick safety briefing I'm flying Tarzan-style at 60 km/h through a lush canopy of towering rainforest. The whole experience takes about an hour and during a short hike between two of the lines, our guide Kitty points out some of the plants that the locals still use in their traditional medicines.

Pacific Harbour's Arts Village offers an entertaining tour that includes a canoe ride through ancient Fiji, a look around a chief's house and a show by the renowned Beqa firewalkers who walk barefoot across white-hot coals and perform a series of war dances. It's a reminder that as recently as 100 years ago, Fijian tribes would kill and eat their enemies. Now that's one adventure activity I'm happy to pass on.

Courier Mail article here