Levuka

History lesson today. We sailed overnight to the island of Ovalau,and docked in the small town of Levuka,which is the only World heritage site in Fiji.Europeans started to arrive in the islands in the late 1700s,as first sandalwood was sought and later beche de mer(sea cucumbers) became highly sought after.This led to an influx of European settlers with a resulting gradual introduction of European values.In the 1820 Levuka was established as the first European style town with both British and American settlers setting up processing stations on the islands.This led eventually to the British obtaining an annexation agreement with a local chief in 1858.The British government  after 4 years thinking time decided not to proceed with the annexation as they saw little financial benefit in doing so.However by the end of 1870 there were about 2500 european settlers in Fiji who needed some sort of central administration,so the British persuaded Cakobau,one Fijian chief to form an administration with himself as the King of Fiji.This administration ran into problems with local battles and then as the cotton price fell  and slavery became more important Cakobau needed to find a way out of his problems and so asked for annexation.The Disraeli goverment in the UK was looking for colonial expansion so agreed to annex Fiji,which happened on the 10 October 1874 under a tree in the town of Levuka.

Current tree at the site of cessation
The plaque at the site has now been moved to a new site overlooking the sea where Prince Charles handed Fiji independence on the 10 October 1970

The high school in Levuka was the first built in Fiji and cannot be altered because of the World heritage status

Not a very good photo-sorry,but down in the town was an interesting juxta position of the new and old post office

The new post office is in the background,the odd post at the front is where the pigeons came to rest after flying in from the other islands as part of the pigeon post!

The above are all views around town.One notable feature was the presence of bind weed around and about but the two varietes seemed a bit prettier than our common bindweed.

Throughout the town there were some spectacular views  but at the sea edge there was a grey brown sludge that was apparently the ash from a volcanic eruption in Samoa a week ago.

Back to the ship for lunch and whilst we ate the ship moved to the island of Leleuvia where we snorkelled.Some beautiful reefs around both islands,gorgeous multi coloured corals and elegant fish in great profusion,but no underwater camera!

And one bonus of a yellow lipped sea snake that was lurking on shore,but lives on small fish