South Pacific
HE five thousand 'routd trip' United Kingdom .1 tourists who headed for New Zealand last year bear out travel agents' claims that the frontiers of tourism have been pushed farther and farther back. After all, until there's a Cook's tour- in space New Zealand, more than 13,000 miles away, must be the final boundary. You cannot get any farther away from home.
Of course, a trip to the South Pacific is ex- pensive, though not much more so than a winter holiday in Nassau or Montego Bay. For £588 you can take a round-the-world flight—outward by Qantas Pacific route, homeward by BOAC through the Far East—economy (formerly known as tourist) class, and a comprehensive car tour of New Zealand's North and South Islands. And the airlines charge no more if you stop-over at, say, Honolulu, Fiji, Sydney or Calcutta, all of which are on the main air route.
The Dominion could' be taken as just one point in a tour embracing the more exotic islands of the South Pacific, notably Fiji, Tahiti and Hawaii. The Matson Line provides what are probably the best shipping services in the area. From San Francisco they operate round voyages of forty-three days to Tahiti, Auckland, Fiji, Samoa and Hawaii. The Mariposa and -Monterey are the vessels engaged on this route and their cuisine and cabin service is exactly comparable to what is-offered by any first-class hotel in the United States. They run to an all-The-year round schedule, for these are regular services, not cruises. The round voyage from San Francisco to Auckland costs about £401 15s. and can be paid in sterling. To this must, of course, be added -the fare from London to San Francisco--by BOAC, economy, £256 return.
What are the islands like'? I report what I saw at the end of last year. Fiji or, at any rate, the main island, Viti Levu, is well worth a week's stay. Around the glittering new Nadi Airport are several fairly good hotels—the Skylodge and Mocambo are the popular ones—and in Suva, the bustling capital, the Club Hotel is excellent: all rooms are air-conditioned. The local tourist people will do their best to sell you the idea of a car trip from Nadi Airport to Suva. Avoid 't— the road is terrible. There's a good air service linking the airport with the capital: the fare is £4. A few beachside hotels cater for sun- and sea- bathers. The best is at Korolevu. Indians, Fijians and a mixture of other Pacific races add colour to one of Britain's most exotic colonies. The main tourist season is from May to October.
If you've seen any of America's Florida of Pacific resorts you've seen Hawaii. All the same, it gave me a peculiar sensation to come upon a signpost pointing in one direction to Pearl Harbour and in another to Waikiki, Honolulu is a noisy city, but you can always escape to the fine beaches elsewhere on the island. The Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach is very well known and efficiently run on wholly United States lines and there are many others with similar amenities. Night life is very varied; restaurants providing international dishes abound. When a charming girl places a lei about your shoulders on entering the airport buildings you feel you have really arrived on a South Sea Island.
Tahiti is notable not only for scenery and the beauty of its girls but for the best cooking in the South Pacific. The whole system here is French, and the pace of living is even more leisured than in Fiji. Some beaches are of soft black sand, others of, blindingly white coral—bathing is
cellent whatever the colour.
There are two Samoas—one is, soon to 'liberated' by New- Zealand, the other is Ame can. And in the capital of American Sam Pago-Pago, it is not difficult to run into Sa e Thompson. It still rains, too—not for nothi
is the town's main hotel, which can accommoda e only ten tourists, named Rainmaker. On t e whole, this is not a place in which to tarry long. Better concentrate on Fiji and Hawaii, with your eyes only half-open, and a vague feeling of sun, sea and R. M. Ballantyne to carry you through.
'We're just trying to find out how Nazism got started.'
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