Nadi is the town most visitors see first, because the international airport sits right beside it, and it tends to be judged a little unfairly as a gateway rather than a place. But it has real character, with a large Indo-Fijian community whose ancestors came as indentured labourers to work the sugar cane in the nineteenth century, and the main street smells of curry, incense and diesel. The Sri Siva Subramaniya Swami Temple, a brightly painted Hindu temple with an enormous carved gopuram tower, is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and is open to visitors who take off their shoes and dress modestly.
Fuel, supermarkets, banks and repair shops are all easy here, and the population of around forty thousand makes it the main commercial centre of the west of Viti Levu. Nearby, the Garden of the Sleeping Giant has a large collection of orchids in the hills. A short ride away are the beaches of the Denarau resorts. Lautoka, eighteen kilometres to the north, is the sugar city, with a big mill, and the cane fields stretch across the plain in every direction, with a small railway carrying the harvest.
The Queens Road starts here and runs along the southern coast of the island, linking Nadi, the Coral Coast and Suva, about two hundred and twenty kilometres in all. It is a mostly good sealed road, with gentle bends, small villages and sudden views of reef and lagoon. Traffic is generally light, but speed limits are low and enforced, and in villages the limit is lower still, with speed bumps and children and dogs on the verge. Vehicles keep to the left, as in Britain.
The weather has two moods: a drier, cooler season from May to October, which is the best time to ride, and a hot, wet season with the possibility of cyclones from November to April. Heavy rain can flood low sections of the road, and fallen branches and potholes are a hazard. Greet people with a smile and a bula, the Fijian welcome, and you will be answered warmly. If you are offered kava, a mildly numbing drink made from a root, it is polite to accept at least one bowl, though it tastes like muddy water.