Photo: Jacinda Ardern, on the campaign trail.

NZ's turning red at long last, with a green tinge - and a sprinkle of stardust? We like the colour blue, but only in the sea and sky! It's general election time in NZ with just over two weeks to go. Like other elections around the world, little, faraway NZ has been experiencing a mood for change. NZ Labour's Jacinda Ardern is no Corbyn, or even a Bernie Sanders, but she's a damn sight younger, as well as smart and compassionate.

It's one more manifestation of a sometimes incoherent worldwide generational change that is chipping away at the legacy of the last 30 years of neo-liberalism. For us, the removal of the 9 year National led coalitions can't come too soon. National is up to its usual dirty tricks campaign, but with MMP in NZ it will be hard to know which way it will go. We hope that when we sail back to NZ, it will have a politically more progressive government, preferably a Labour / Greens coalition.

Onto a less overtly political theme now, we have moved down to Ka(n)davu again. Kadavu is Fiji's 3rd largest island and still has a lot of forest left untouched. We tried to find the mantas again yesterday and this morning, but they weren't obliging us with their presence, although a large eagle ray turned up at the bommie near the top of Vurulevu Island where many fish, including the mantas, go to get themselves a massage and clean up job by the little blue and white cleaner wrasse that hang out there. (check the Tui of Split Rock photo to see a cleaner wrasse homing in on a moray eel) It's a classic symbiotic win-win situation for the larger fish and the little wrasse. More about Kadavu in the next blog.



Lovely calm weather on the east coast of Kadavu Island near the Naigoro Pass