Truth about Fiji by Kiwis Who Have Done Business and Worked Here For Years
Mandy de Vries’ description of her life in Fiji sounds suitably paradisiacal. Living in an oceanview home along the Coral Coast which she and her husband could never have afforded in New Zealand, running a business that sees them cycle through tropical rainforest and frangipani-scented villages to a deserted beach each day, and surrounded by locals’ whose keen sense of humour ensures no day goes by without “a good belly laugh”, it’s easy to see why she calls their post-Central Otago life “amazing”.
Mandy and her husband Howard (Howie) first began fantasising about moving to Fiji after visiting for work.
“We had been coming to Fiji for several years with our previous work installing photo systems and fell in love with the Coral Coast and its people,” Mandy says.
“We were looking for an excuse to spend our Kiwi winters here, so Howie came up with the Ecotrax idea and we moved here permanently in January 2017.”
A self-described “geek” with a lifelong obsession with trains, Howie hit upon the idea after tracking down the 1879 patent for the velicopede, a kind of rail-mounted bicycle, online. Deciding it was “an amazingly simple contraption”, Howie had a go at building one, took it for a spin and realised it might just enable them to make their tropical island dreams come true.
The velicopedes that now transport visitors through the Viti Levu’s lesser-visited interior, following a railway line once used to transport sugar cane, are far less simple contraptions.
Tandem bikes set atop purpose-built carriages, they have three sources of power: their riders’ feet, the sun and the same batteries used in Nissan Leaf cars.
The award-winning tours have become popular enough with tourists to enable the couple to remain on the island for just over three years now and Mandy feels that, in their early fifties, they are finally living their best lives.
“Compared to our previous life of dealing with corporate clients, it is so relaxed, although we still work very hard.
“Our quality of life has improved no end and we’re healthier and way less stressed than we’ve ever been.”
Anyone who has ever sunk into a sun-induced coma on a whitesand Fijian beach or melted into its transparent, perpetually tepid waters surely understands the Pacific Island nation’s appeal.
Nadi and perhaps some of the other larger settlements aside, it looks like the archetypal South Sea paradise.
The tempo is so slow the island nation has its own unofficial time zone (Fiji Time), its people are famously friendly and hospitable, and staple foods include a bounty of fresh tropical fruit and fish.
Living in the country as a Kiwi, however, is an entirely different kettle of said fish.
As happy as she is there now, Mandy admits it proved quite the culture shock at first.
‘It was a crazy, loud, busy place’
The De Vries spend their first few months on Viti Levu, staying with friends in a village that felt a world - rather than a small section of the Pacific - away from Central Otago.
Conditions were “rustic”, dogs were encouraged to bark all night “to keep the spirits away”, and adjusting to the local culture and learning enough about it to ensure they properly respected it look longer than expected.
“It was a crazy, loud, busy place where anything can happen and it usually did,” Mandy says.
Still, she says they “were looked after beautifully” and soon realised that Fijians’ famous friendliness is genuine.
“We are welcomed with open arms everywhere we go which is an amazing way to live and everyone on the streets meets your eye with a friendly “Bula” every day - it’s not something reserved for tourists.
“Fijians are the happiest, most open people we’ve come across anywhere and it’s contagious.”
That said, adjusting to Fiji time when you have a day full of tasks ahead of you as opposed to a day on a sun lounger can be tough. The elastic sense of time has caused the couple their biggest headaches since arriving in Fiji, particularly when the business was in its infancy.
“The various departments that advise different requirements every time you speak to them used to drive us crazy, but we quickly realised we needed to lower our timeframe expectations and celebrate when we achieved an outcome,” Mandy says. Regular power cuts and water shortages also took some getting used to, as did having to go long stretches without “good cheeses and anything from a deli really”.
Still, the de Vries surprised themselves with how quickly they settled in and now consider Fiji their home away from home.
They are converts, Mandy says, to the more languid pace of life and less materialistic culture.
“[I]t really makes for a happy population and takes so much pressure off your daily life.”
For Michael Fosbender, a 39-year-old chef from Christchurch, setting into life on privately-owned Vomo Island in the Mamanucas was pretty much plain sailing.
He and his wife, who is also in hospitality, had been living in Aitutaki in the Cook Islands when Michael accepted the job of executive chef at the sole resort on the 225-acre island which - with a golf course, adults-only beach club, spa, gym and sports courts hidden amidst palm trees sandwiched between powdery white beaches, offers up a deluxe version of the desert island dream.
Already on island time, Michael says they felt at home from day one.
“The people are lovely, the weather is beautiful, and the job is great too … If I had come from New Zealand for the first post overseas I could imagine it would take a little bit of time to get used to it, but it would still be an easy adjustment.”
His employer, Vomo Island Resort, does its best to ensure overseas staff enjoy a standard of living that is at least as good as in their home countries, Michael says, adding that he and his wife are “very comfortable” there.
Hospitality is notorious for its long, unsociable hours worldwide, but Michael feels he has a relatively good work-life balance.
“With basically no commuting time, we’re home within two minutes. It allows for much more time with the family. Last time I lived in New Zealand, I was working a similar amount of hours in restaurants, but the finishing time here is much earlier, so I can be home and relax a bit and still be in bed at a reasonable time. I didn’t get that much in New Zealand.”
The couple and their five-year-old son spend much of their free time on the island’s two main beaches, swimming, snorkelling and - in the adults’ case - scuba diving. If it’s windy or choppy at one, the other, just a five-minute walk away, is albeit guaranteed to be still and calm. If they can’t be spotted at the beach, they’ll most likely be at the pool or in the garden Michael started and has come to enjoy tending to.
Some might expect life on such a small island to get claustrophobic, but Michael notes that Lautoka, Fiji’s second largest city, is an easy 30-minute boat ride away and - with its mixture of locals and overseas visitors and workers - is fairly cosmopolitan.
The couple found it “quite easy” to get to know people and develop a healthy social life, he says.
“The Fijian people are very open and accommodating to new people. They are very genuine and welcoming. There is also quite a large expat community in all areas of Fiji too, which is again, very welcoming.”
Missing family and friends in New Zealand aside, the only thing he has really struggled with is finding staff to work in the resort kitchen.
“There are so many resorts here now, that chefs are in high demand and hard to find.”
He is well aware though that he leads a privileged life compared to many locals.
“[T]here is a bit more poverty here, which is a little hard to get used to.”
Fijian friends had warned him before he made the move that their homeland was “a little less safe” during cyclone season, so he felt knew more or less what to expect - and he has been impressed by how cyclones are handled.
“[T]hey are so used to it here that they have everything worked out and systems updated constantly. There is generally a six- to seven-day warning before anything looks like hitting, so pretty safe still.”
The couple might consider returning to New Zealand for their son’s schooling at some stage, but Michael says he wouldn’t feel the need to for any other reason. They are, he adds, “very content. We couldn’t ask for anything better.”
‘The land of opportunity’
Nick Darling, who manages his family’s resort, Volivoli, on the Suncoast, has lived in Fiji on an off since he was a child, its natural beauty, year-round warm weather and the opportunity to live perpetually on Fiji time drawing him back from the UK in 2009.
Nick first moved to Rakiraki on the northern coast of Viti Levu in 1993 when his father Steve signed a contract to complete the last stretch of the main highway between Rakiraki and Suva. Nick and his brother Steve went to the local school, learned to dive on nearby Nananu-I-Ra island and enjoyed the kind of carefree free-range island childhoods their own children are in the process of replicating. Nick was living in London, having spent the past few years travelling, when his dad called to ask him if he would return to Rakiraki to help him run the resort which started life as a backpackers and has since evolved into a four-star resort. It being a typically cold, rainy day in the UK capital, Nick was easily swayed and found himself winging his way back to Fiji within a week.
Able to fit his work schedule around his family’s needs “to a certain degree”, Nick - like Mandy and Michael feels he has a better work-life balance than he did in New Zealand. In his case, leaving him plenty of time to fish, scuba dive, kitesurf and play golf.
Happy to fill his days with these things, the 36-year-old says his wife struggles more than he does with the resort’s remote location on a peninsular on the island’s northernmost tip, where they live as well as work.
“[P]opping round for a coffee at a mate’s place or meeting at a coffee shop isn’t really an option.”
While he finds Fiji time “a bit tough to work with at times”, he’s so in tune with the island’s rhythms now that he typically just goes with the flow.
Not that the family hasn’t had faced major challenges. The resort was badly damaged when category five Cyclone Winston, the biggest storm ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere at the time, tore through Fiji in 2016, killing 44 people, injuring hundreds and leaving some 131,000 homeless. Determined to see the damage to the resort as an opportunity for a fresh start, the family decided to rebuild, rebranding it as a boutique resort in the process.
Born in Twizel, Nick still feels New Zealand “is the best country in the world”, but says Fiji suits his family - his wife and three children - at this stage in their lives.
“Our kids get to grow up a bit old-school where it’s okay to climb a tree and fall out and not try to blame someone else because it “should” have a sign warning it’s dangerous.” Like Michael, Mandy and Nick haven’t ruled out a return to New Zealand. With a “wee grandson” in Aotearoa, Mandy says the pull has grown stronger, but she’s reluctant to give up Fiji life entirely.
“Ideally I can see us splitting our time between the two countries with the summer months spent in New Zealand.” Nick, meanwhile, says he would “maybe” return to his homeland as, in terms of the standard of living offered, “New Zealand is pretty tough to beat”.
Michael encourages other Kiwis contemplating a move to Fiji to give it a go, even if it’s just for six month to test the waters.
“There is nothing to be afraid of and you’ll have an awesome experience… I bet the majority of people would stay longer [than six months] given the chance.”
Mandy cautions that new arrivals are likely to experience “many frustrations” concerning the legalities of living and working in Fiji, but encourages those who have their heart set on living in Fiji to persevere.
“You need to be up for an adventure and a few hard times but it is the land of opportunity and, if you come with realistic expectations, you will love it as we do.”