Gallery of Jim Blilie's Photos:

World Bicycle Tour, 1990-1992

The Big Show

Part 3:  FIJI

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning

all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas

and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts

of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues

from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance

which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can,

begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."  (Often attributed to Goethe)

  This page is under construction.  I'm still working on a text for each segment of the

trip and scanning in some negatives and maybe a few more slides hidden here and there.

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These are THE BIG SHOW of my slides from my trip around the world with Jeff Mellor, 1990-1992.

There are many more slides in this set than on the main world tour page:  About 2600 total.  I spent

some time in late 2009 going through all my slides from the world trip and I selected many for scanning.

The results are on this page (slide shows).  Many of these have been seen only by me and many of those

I hadn't seen since 1993.  The trip itself is outlined below.

These are scans of my Kodachrome 64 (and a very small number of Ektachrome 100) slides

From Jim and Jeff Mellor's bicycle tour around the world from Nov-1990 through Oct-1992

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010 All rights reserved

I used a very nice, yet inexpensive scanner, the  Epson V500  I like it very much.

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Fiji, 30-Nov-1990 to 10-Dec-1990, 153 miles

These shots are from our ten-day tour through the Viti Levu Island in Fiji from Nadi to Suva

via Momi and Sigatoka.  We intended to ride around the island; but Jeff got some bad news

from a doctor in Suva and we took the bust back to Nadi and the earliest flight we could get

on for Auckland, New Zealand.

Fiji route map:

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For the slide show:  

Click HERE.  Then:

Click on the first picture (upper left picture) on the black photo album page and then

Click the "play" button at the upper right of the view panel to start the slide show.

Enjoy.

Riding out of the Nadi airport	The Nadi market	Riding out of Nadi, getting used to riding on the left side of the road	Camped on the farm of the Singh family, who took us in when a back-packer's resort refused to let us camp (waaaay out at the end of some hard riding on dirt roads)	Farmer; near the Singh farm
Riding to Lautoka in a pickup driven by Kushal Singh	One of the Singh brothers, Kushal Singh, at his flat in Lautoka, Fiji Bitter!	Near the Singh farm	Near the Singh farm, kids on the road	Near the Singh farm, a temple
Near the Singh farm, cane fields	The morning we left the Singh farm, the whole family.  L-R:  Me, Parvind Singh, Jeff, Arvind Singh, Mr. and Mrs. Singh	Typical rural riding in Fiji !		Cane cutting crew
Smiles on the road	Club Masa, near Sigatoka	Views inland, near Sigatoka	Beach at Sigatoka, near the Sigatoka River, which creates the only beach break on Fiji	Near Sigatoka
Club Masa, near Sigatoka	Beach at Sigatoka	Club Masa, near Sigatoka	Sigatoka	Sigatoka sunset
Club Masa, the owner Marcus and the son of one of the employees	Kava Party on our last night at Club Masa	On the road to Suva	Shop on the coast road	Oranges (oranges must be exposed to frost to turn orange!)
The Christian Camp where we spent one night in beds.	Typical Fiji road hazard	First look at Suva	The waterfront at Suva	Suva bus station
Riding the bus back to Nadi from Suva *	Nadi bus station	Hotel at Nadi, waiting to head to New Zealand.

* Jeff was told by the doctor in Suva that he needed surgery on his wrist.  We needed to go directly to

New Zealand if he was going to have surgery.  We weren't too happy, especially Jeff, naturally.

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Outline of our trip:

From Nov. 15, 1990 to Oct. 6, 1992, with a five-month break for the winter of '91-'92, Jeff Mellor

and I traveled around the world through 26 countries, mostly by bicycle.  While in the "developed"

world, we bicycled 1000 miles per month, camping each night.  In Asia and Africa, we traveled by

train and bus and used guest-houses.  We encountered 16 different foreign languages, of which we

needed to learn at least the rudiments.  We rode a total of almost 11,000 miles on our bikes, camped out

at least 350 times, and climbed several mountains including Pt. Lenana (16,350 ft.) on Mt. Kenya in

Africa.  We took a three-week, 220-mile hike around the Annapurna Range in Nepal, which included

a 17,700 ft. high pass.  I took 13,000 photographs and wrote 1000 pages of journals.  No experience

in my life, except my university education, can compare with these travels for the depth and breadth

of learning or for the perspective gained.  It was one of the peak life experiences, up there with

marriage, children, university education.

Our trip was through these countries:

[Hawaii:  The Big Island, a 2-week shake-down within the US, started Nov 1990]

Fiji, about 10 days riding around Viti Levu from Nadi to Suva

New Zealand:  Auckland to Wellington via Coromandel Penn. and a loop around the Southern

Alps from Christchurch and back

Australia, from Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra and Mt. Kosciusko, around Tasmania, bits and

pieces inland mostly bus to Darwin

Singapore

Malaysia, from Singapore to the Thai border

Thailand (no bikes; we sent our bikes to Denmark from Bangkok, not wanting to ride in Thailand,

Nepal, India, Kenya, or Egypt)

Nepal (no bikes)

India (no bikes; just passed through Delhi and Bombay since we were running way behind)

and then on to a long tour of Europe:

Denmark

Germany

Netherlands

Belgium

France

United Kingdom

Then a winter's break at home in the USA from Oct 1991 through March 1992, then we flew

back to Lisbon Portugal in March 1992:

Portugal

Spain

France

UK, we rode from Plymouth to Land's End then from Land's End to John O'Groats at the tip of

Scotland and via ferries to the Orkneys, Shetlands, and on to Norway over the North Sea (with a

detour from Holyhead in Wales over to Ireland and back)

Ireland

Norway

Sweden

Germany (former East Germany)

Poland

Czech Republic

Austria

Germany (Bavaria) and home in Oct 1992 from Frankfurt am Main

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

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Time and mileage table:

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Background image is a view inland on Viti Levu, coconut palms, cane field hills, and mountains,  Dec 1990

Last updated:  5-Jun-2010