Tour firms disagree
on fare effects
Cheaper air fares between Australia and New Zealand could cut Fiji’s tourist traffic from Australia, says a leading local tour company, Trans Tours (Fiji) Ltd.
But another company, Tapa Tours, doubts that tourist traffic will suffer.
An agreement the Australian and New Zealand governments announced at the weekend will cut trans-Tasman excursion fares to as much as 34 per cent below normal fares.
The managing director of Trans Tours, Mr David Moore, said the fares arrangement would make it more attractive for Australians and New Zealanders to visit each other’s country than to holiday in Fiji.
“It will affect Australian traffic to Fiji,” he said.
It would be possible to offer Australians a much cheaper package holiday in New Zealand at a time Fiji tour companies were still trying to get a lower fare out of Australia.
Students will work in Aust
Seventy-five students from the University of the South Pacific in Suva have received permits to go to Australia on a three-month working holiday.
They will leave on Sunday by air and will spend part of the time working at the Broken Hill Pty Ltd steelworks Newcastle, 100 miles north of Sydney.
An official of the Australian High Commission in Suva said yesterday: “We had to get fairly special approval for this.
“I believe a smaller group went several years ago but this is the first time one has gone on this sort of scale.”
The number of students going was linked with the number of jobs available for them at the steelworks.
The student counsellor at the USP, Mr Brian Hazel, who came from Newcastle and would accompany the group, found the jobs.
The high commission official described the students’ trip as a “cultural liaison visit”.
School is only
the beginning
A leading Fijian educator believes many Fijian parents make a serious mistake when they see their children’s education as something that begins at the age of six and ends abruptly at about the age of 18.
The principal of Adi Cakobau School, Mrs Taufa Bole, told a meeting of the Methodist Schools Old Scholars’ Association that education did not end when the child left school.
It continued throughout life, she said.
Mrs Bole was opening the meeting of about 400 members of the association.
She said: “Fijians tend to lay the emphasis on the mental rather than on the physical and spiritual education of their children.
“But spiritual education is vital in helping to mould children’s behaviour.”
Mrs Bole said it was a mother’s duty to train her children to become good citizens.
Taveuni schools to meet
Seven primary schools on Taveuni will take part in an athletic meeting at the Provincial School Northern ground today.
The Taveuni branch of the Fijian Teachers’ Association is organising the meeting, which will last two days.
Events will include the 50 metres, 75 metres, 100 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres, 1500 metres, long jump, high jump, discus, shot put and javelin.
The schools taking part are Niusawa Primary, Somosomo District School, Taveuni Central Indian School, Wairiki Mission, South Taveuni Indian School and Vuna District School.
Sunburn on the greens
Like the salted meat of our pioneers, bowlers in Suva have had a week or two of good soaking followed by a right royal roasting.
Since the Banana Cup weekend and championship play last weekend, persistent bowlers are recognisable by their peeling noses and freckled faces.
The Suva open singles, a great tussle between semi-finalists Peter Underhill and Eric Haddon, was a fingernail-chewing affair over the closing few ends in a 36 end 31pt marathon.
Underhill was leading 30-25 and dropped a four after which Haddon scored a single for the equaliser. As they say in Scotland, peels.
Each then killed and end for a one down position.
Athletes will be hard
to weed out
The three national athletics selectors will be busy choosing the Fiji representatives for the Commonwealth Games after the final trial at Buckhurst Park, Suva, on Saturday.
With the limited number of trialists, some of who are still raw, Derek Robinson, Tony Moore Sr and Viliame Saulekaleka will have a tough time trying to select a strong national team.
They will announce the final team after a special Fiji Amateur Athletics Association meeting on Sunday morning.
A few athletes have attained the qualifying standard but none have performed well enough to guarantee a medal.
From its original estimate of a team of 20, including two officials, the FAAA has cut down the number to a final 14 to save.
Worms foil bid
to cross ocean
SYDNEY – The raft of the leader of the 9000-mile Las Baslas expedition across the Pacific is adrift off the coast of Australia and has been declared a hazard to shipping.
Rescuers lifted the expedition leader, Mr Vital Alsar, three other crew members and a cat of the worm-eaten, water-logged raft on Tuesday, when it began to break up under tow. Fishing trawlers towed the other two rafts of the expedition into the northern New South Wales river port of Ballina.
Customs and quarantine officials cleared the two rafts. But they took off the three expedition cats in sealed boxes for re-export.
