Up our favorite Creek
20 October 2021
Diane Brown
Lobo Point Naqaiqai Creek
20 August 2021
We spent a week in the creek by Eddie, Marina & Willies, our adopted family, enjoying time with them and paddle boarding out to the reefs just outside the creek. Eddie and John always have a good time in the afternoon after chores are done with a beer. Marina is my hero and takes her bamboo raft out along the creek fishing for hours whenever the weather is calm - or maybe when she just wants some time to herself.
I had been exploring a couple times up the mangroves looking for the path Eddie had told us about that went over to Viani Bay. The family had a major event for the weekend at the resort by Viani Bay but Eddie wanted to stay on the property as his sows were ready to birth so he asked us to give him a ride up into the mangroves and he would show us the path over the mountain and get a short boat ride over to the resort. The timing is tight for the tide just to enter the small side creek but we crossed the bar and it got deeper for the next set of curves and turns some of which we had to duck under mangrove and tree branches. Eddie said to stop the boat in the clearing but I swear I did not see a clearing. John pulled over and Eddie bounced into the water and sunk a couple feet into the mud but tied the dinghy up to the close mangroves. He proceeded to lead us through a slick black mud path along and across the creek a couple times; then up the embankment to where we began to see cows and livestock grazing
I
nstantly as we came into some clearing, somebody began calling out John's name and Tabu Soro from above us on the ridge??? Solo from our first visit to the creek when we had a grog party with he and his family on the creek plantation had recognized John's ambling gait and was excited to see him again. It turns out they also have this property on the ridge for their livestock and keep the growing of food for the flat lands of the creek. There were four generations of family on this site; some move regularly between Bucca Bay and the ridge and some stay in place. Lydia was busy weaving mat reeds collected from their back lily pond or reservoir and dried on site in an open-air burre. The green reeds are bundled in sheaths to dry in the shade of the barre for a couple weeks until gradually they fade to a warm mixture of shiny golden / green /yellow that is then flat enough to weave. It was a lovely sight to see her fingers quickly working the reeds into a pleasing color pattern spacing the varying levels of colors to lay them artistically together.
The children escorted us over the ridge to the top of Viana Bay where we had a wonderful view of Rainbow Reef and Taveuni; and also some wifi so I could text back my granddaughter!
John was worried about the tide trapping us inside the mangroves so we headed back to the ridge where the ladies asked us for a ride down the creek their farm / plantation. So we had a giggly adventure ride down the mangrove creek with John getting direction from six women. A couple of us disembarked to get over the sandbar into the main creek and all were safely deposited to harvest some food then walk the long slippery way back around the mangroves up to the ridge.
Everything in their world is put to use. Each plant or tree; even the young people know what plants are good for making a tea for healing wounds or tummy aches. So far the only medicine we have been asked for is Panadol for fever.