Saturday 27 August Suva Hibiscus Festival

The annual Hibiscus festival has been taking place in the park all week. There's a fun fair with multiple fragile ferris wheels and rickety roundabout rides for the under 5s which would have been condemned as a health hazard anywhere else. The space ship cars on one ride looked like they'd been made out of rusted oil drums with a slap of thick paint to cover the nail and screw heads. Everyone looked happy and we didn't see any blood.

Suva downtown building

In the evenings there have been dancing exhibitions and qualifying rounds for Miss Hibiscus 2011. Today was the grand finale with a street parade and the crowning of the lucky girl who'll be Miss Hibiscus for the next 12 months. On a hot Saturday afternoon it felt like everyone who lives in Suva was at the parade, half were in it and the other half were watching as groups representing every industry, major retailer, bank, phone provider, etc, walked in matching -shirts following a float with their current Miss Fiji Times, Miss White Goods (as in washing machines), Miss Fiji Gas precariously balanced atop in her best dress, hat, smile and wave.
The best entries were the marching bands. They were full of energy, drilled in marching in time and carrying a lively tune. One band we watched also added dance routines from the trumpet section – four big guys ran to the front, took position and as the music started they were formation dancing.
While all the processioners were filing into the park we took ourselves off for a bit of culture – a visit to the museum where they have a collection of the traditional double hulled canoes used over a hundred years ago and a history of the social development of the country. There's a bit of rudder from The Bounty brought here from Pitcairn island where the mutineers set fire to her. One interesting display showed the head chopping stone, serving dish and flesh eating forks from the era of cannibalism. Eating the flesh of your enemy makes you strong. Apparently.
Made us a bit peckish so we headed back to the festival to pick up a snack from the food stalls and then a cab back to the yacht club and dinghy home. We had intended to go back to the club to watch a rugby game between Australia and NZ but it was raining heavily so we watched a film instead.