Travel Guide to Pacific Harbour, Fiji Islands

fijian village near pacific harbour

Overview

Shark Dive off Pacific Harbour
Hikinfg Rainforest & Waterfalls
White Water Rafting
Exploring Villages of Namosi Highlands
Surfing & Game Fishing in Beqa Lagoon

The Pacific Harbour region is the adventure tourism centre of Fiji about two hours by road from Nadi Airport beyond the Coral Coast hotels and just 40-minutes from Suva City. It's primary attraction is the Beqa shark dive which lies in the vast Beqa Lagoon about 20 minutes by boat from Pacific Harbour.

Other attractions of the area include the Arts Village, a tourist cultural centre with themed village scenes and dance performances; and the tropical rainforests of the Namosi Highlands accessed along the Navua River where both long boat trips and 4-wheel drive excursions explore traditional villages and breath-taking waterfalls.

Pacific Harbour Holiday Planner

view of a beqa island from pacific harbour

Pacific Harbour

Pacific Harbour is primarily a residential area with a couple of hotels set alongside a decent beach and a couple of independent restaurants. It's two biggest attractions are the Arts Village / Cultural Centre, and the fantastic Pacific Harbour Golf Course, but unfortunately both are mostly overlooked by tourists and seem to have passed their best years. What is keeping the area alive today is its deep sea fishing and scuba diving appeal most notably the shark dives around Beqa Lagoon which take arouind 20-minutes by boat from Pacific Harbour.

Beqa Lagoon is a massive fringing reef thirty kilometres wide and is renowned for its shark feeding and deep sea game fishing With exceptional scuba diving including an amazing variety of soft corals and plenty of pelagics, Beqa Lagoon is a major dive attraction with a handful of dive opeartors and game fishing charters based out of Pacific Harbour, as well as surfing safaris.

Navua River & The Namosi Rainforest

The stunning interior of Viti Levu is often veiled in clouds and its roads sometimes inaccessible. Some of the richest rainforests are found inland from Pacific harbour, notably the Sovi Basin and the Namosi Highlands. Fijian villages are found throughout this interior, many of which are far from roads and electricity. Here lies the most remote and conservative village environments, and the most hospitable of Fijians.

The region is steeped in history and tradition, has some breathtaking mountain scenes, river gorges, caves, waterfalls indigenous flora, bird life and scenic lookouts. The area is excellent to explore but there is nowhere to stay, buses are infrequent and few tour companies offer these off the beaten track itineraries. To get close to this mystical environment tale an organised boat trips up the Navua River and or a 4WD drive adventure into the Namosi Highlands to explore walking tracks through the rainforest leading to waterfalls. There's even Grade 4 white water river rafting on the Lua River (from November to April only).

Beqa Lagoon

matavai bay beqa island

One of the main reasons people visit Pacific Harbour is for game fishing and scuba diving around Beqa Lagoon which is around 30-minutes by boat from Pacific Harbour. Although the famous Beqa shark dives are purely commercial with sharks being lured in by bait almost on a daily basis for the past ten years, it doesn’t negate the excitement of coming face to face with these ancient predators. On a good day you may see over a hundred sharks in the two dives, which range from 15 to 30 metres in depth, and will include Reef Sharks, Silver-tip Sharks, Tawny Nurse Sharks, Sicklefin Lemon Sharks, Bull Sharks and the occasional Tiger Shark as well as schools of other large fish taking advantage of the free feed. Both operators offer PADI dive courses as well as regular daily dives to explore the soft corals and wrecks around Beqa Lagoon. The shark dives are available through Beqa Adventure Divers or Aqua Trek Beqa.

Beqa Lagoon is a massive fringing reef thirty kilometres wide and is renowned for its shark feeding and deep sea game fishing as well as the hollow left-hander surfing break of Frigates Passage. With exceptional scuba diving including an amazing variety of soft corals and plenty of pelagics, Beqa Lagoon is a major dive attraction as well as being a nature lovers paradise on land.

Beqa Island

A small volcanic island rises out of the lagoon. Beqa Island is a traditional island with 14 small coastal villages most of which are connected via a coastal track, and lush tropical mountains to explore with a local guide. The isalnd is home to the famous Fijian fire-walkers.

There are no roads on Beqa but several walking tracks between villages make pleasant exploring, the easiest being the route from Waisomo on the northern tip of the island and along the west coast to Rukua close to Beqa Island Resort. There’s a delightful kayak trip from Lalati Resort into tranquil Malumu Bay which bites deep into the west coast almost severing it from the main bulk of Beqa. It’s possible to navigate through to the south side of the island via a mangrove estuary. Just beyond the mangroves on the south side of Beqa is Moturiki Island where thousands of fruit bats live.

To visit Beqa, the common way to get there is by small boat which depart from Pacific Harbour taking about 40-minutes. Otherwise, you could charter either a helicopter or seaplane from Nadi Airport.