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TABWEWA, Rabi, Rabi is a
pristine, virtually unknown island in Fiji's northeast: a South
Pacific paradise where time doesn't matter - at least until
December 31, 1999.
On that date the island, with
green velvet hills up to 463m in height and picture-postcard
palm-fringed beaches, may well be a centre of global attention,
because the International Dateline bisects it, and it will be
one of the first places in the world to greet the year 2000.
Right now, it has no resorts or
hotels - only a guest-house for visiting VIPs.
Rabi (pronounced Ram-bee) may
be geographically part of Fiji but it's not really a Fijian
island. The resident population of 3,950, living mainly in four
modest little villages, comprises Micronesians from the
mid-Pacific phosphate island of Banaba for whom the British By
James Shrimpton (with 5 pix) government bought Rabi for
Stg25,000 ($A64,800 at today's exchange rates) after World War
II.
Its sole grass airstrip,
sloping an alarming 12 degrees upwards, caters for charter and
private flights but was recently upgraded to allow for the trial
of a weekly domestic service from Fiji's capital, Suva.
Inter-island ships call regularly. So how will Rabi, just 14km
long by 7km wide at its widest point, cope with the invasion of
perhaps 600 or 700 visitors at the end of this year?
It's a challenge taken up by
Rabi's nine-man self-governing council, which would like a small
piece of Fiji's prospering tourist industry and which is working
with Fiji's diving guru, New Zealand-born Curly Carswell, who
operates eco-tours from Savusavu on Fiji's second largest
island, Vanua Levu.
Carswell, a well-known local
figure with his distinctive long grey beard, has already
organised Millennium diving holidays on Rabi for a total of 250
people, based at the Hot Springs Hotel in Savusavu, about three
hours away by bus and boat. The climax will be dives from a
series of platforms off Rabi at 11.30pm on December 31,
resurfacing at about 12.30am on January 1 followed by an
all-night party.
The platforms will be
positioned in the island's north or south, depending on the
weather. Carswell's company also offers kayaking tours taking in
Rabi and neighbouring Kioa which have proved popular especially
with Asian adventure tourists.
(Kioa is populated by
Polynesians from the island nation of Tuvalu, which means that
Fiji can truly claim to be the crossroads of the Pacific, with
Fijian Melanesians, Rabi Micronesians and Kiao Polynesians all
living within a few square kilometres of each other.) But the
biggest batch of visitors to Rabi could be from a well-known
Hollywood show-business company which is chartering a Jumbo jet
to fly a party of 300 to greet 2000 at some exotic location to
be decided shortly. At last word, the choice (somewhat
unbelievably) was between Rabi and ... Paris!
One suggestion is that each
Millennium visitor pay a $F70 (about $A56) landing fee on
arrival at Rabi. Proposals being considered for the big occasion
here include cultural shows and feasts, fireworks, an
international outrigger canoe race - Rabi men use the canoes to
catch the fish which is their staple diet - and twin
searchlights to and from Udu Point on the eastern tip of Vanua
Levu, which is also crossed by the Dateline.
As for accommodating the
hundreds of visitors, one plan being considered is to rent all
the dozen houses in the village of Levuka for the last week of
this century and the first week of the next and move the
occupants temporarily to other communities. The houses would be
painted inside and out, and furnished for the comfort of the
guests.
Rabi would also benefit
post-Millennium from upgraded roads and toilets.
Other visitors may sleep in a
tent city, complete with cookhouse and portable showers, some
under the stars in sleeping bags or on Fijian mats, and possibly
some on boats moored offshore.
Buses would be brought to Rabi
by barge to provide land transport for the tourists.
Fiji's Millennium plans, being
coordinated by the Fiji Visitors Bureau, also include
celebrations at Udu Point and on the third largest island of
Taveuni, south of Rabi, through which the International Dateline
also runs.
But the goings-on at Rabi will
have an extra attraction because it's an island little known at
the vast majority of Fiji's population. It was the site of Lever
Brothers copra plantation before the first 703 Banaban settlers
landed at their new home aboard the British Phosphate
Commission's SS Triona on December 15, 1945, a date celebrated
annually by the islanders.
Rabi has been in the news only
on rare occasions since: when its people sued the British
Phosphate Commission over the effects of mining on Banaba (they
lost the case but later received Stg10 million in compensation
anyway) and when some resultant business misadventures led to
financial problems.
The island's main crops are now
copra and yaqona - made into the South Pacific's traditional
kava drink but nowadays in demand by overseas chemical companies
as a sedative component.
Rabi Administration Officer
Nenem Kourabi says the island would welcome income from tourism,
but neither he, council members or the islanders would like
their peaceful lives upset by multi-star resorts such as those
of southern Fiji and offshore islands to the west. After the
Millennium activities - which Curly Carswell and the council
plan to repeat on New Year's Eve 2000 to satisfy those who claim
THAT's when the Millennium starts - there'll be a review of how
things went, and plans made accordingly.
.. The writer flew to Fiji by
Ansett International, then internally by Sunflower Airlines and
Air Fiji. He stayed in Savusavu at the Hot Springs Hotel.
GETTING
TO RABI, BY AIR, LAND AND SEA
RABI
TRANSPORT TRAVEL FEATURE
By
James Shrimpton
TABWEWA, Rabi, -If getting
there is half the fun, then visitors to Rabi have a ball. It's
one of the least known, most remote and prettiest of Fiji's 300
islands, in the northeast off the coast of the second largest,
Vanua Levu.
The residents are 3,950
Micronesians from the phosphate-depleted island of Banaba, part
of Kiribati in the central Pacific, part of Fiji but governed by
their own Council.
Since there's no regular air
service to its hilly grass strip (although a weekly trial is
planned), getting to Rabi is an adventure itself. From Nadi or
Nausori international airports on Fiji's main island of Viti
Levu, you fly by light plane to Savusavu on Vanua Levu, check
into the Hot Springs Hotel there then go looking for the
harbourside office of Curly Carswell.
Curly's not hard to find on
account of his long grey beard - and an expresiion showing the
strain of organising eco-tours, shore excursions for visiting
cruise-ships and Millennium celebrations here and on Rabi.
Curly, and diving buddies
Gordon and Tom picked us up at the Hot Springs at 8am one day
recently in his HJ47 Landcruiser which has provided eight years
of sterling service despite needing frequent changes of shock
absorbers on Vanua Levu's rural roads. (Contracts are said to
have been called for sealing the road eastward from Savusavu,
but then, there is an election coming in May isn't there?).
The ride to the village of
Karoko took 2-1/2 hours including what Curly called a "bum
stop" to give our buttocks a rest from the jarring journey.
The road cut through jungle of
a hundred shades of green. Mongooses played "chicken"
with the truck, scurrying across the road just ahead of us.
Villagers, some carrying wicked-looking cane knives, waved and
smiled as we passed them in a cloud of dust. To our right, waves
crashed into a reef a kilometre off shore.
Arriving at the little village
of Karoko, the boat from Rabi, due at 10am, wasn't there. Mind
you, we were a bit behind the clock too, partly due to the bum
stop: it was then 10.45am.
You've heard of "Fiji
time?" A double example. Not to worry.....
After a few minutes, we noted a
dot on the horizon out to sea. The dot grew larger, went briefly
out of sight to manoeuvre through a reef then reappeared as an
aging motorboat, ready for our waiting quartet.
We waded barefoot out to the
craft and its cheery crew, and we were soon on our way to Rabi,
40 minutes away.
Approaching the green island
and its main village, Tabwema, we noted the white spire of Uma
Methodist Church, long a landmark for sailors.
Some 200m from the pier, what
appeared to be a coconut in the water turned out to be a Rabi
islander in goggles, spearfishing. Ashore, after a cooling drink
and excellent lunch at the government guesthouse, we enjoyed a
tour of the island down to the southernmost end of the dusty,
palm-lined road, where the scenic views included dream
white-sand beaches. Cheeky kids coming out of school in the
mid-afternoon tropical heat waved and cheered at the rare
visitors - the island has few motor vehicles and just one bus.
Giggling high school girls
posed at a dockside memorial unveiled by Fiji President Ratu Sir
Kamisese Mara on the 50th anniversary of the Banaban settlers'
first landing on December 15, 1945.
This was a South Seas island,
preparing for Millennium celebrations and the 21st century, but
which has few of the trappings of the 20th: no television, no
regular air services, no hotels, no resorts and (the council
says) little crime - although it has a ten-man police force.
There are not many islands like
this left.
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