Vanua Levu, Taveuni & the North

Vanua Levu and Taveuni were long divided among chiefdoms, of which Cakaudrove, with its seat at Somosomo on Taveuni, was the most powerful; Macuata and Bua held the north-east and west of Vanua Levu. Cakaudrove's paramount chief, the Tui Cakau, remains one of the country's senior chiefly titles.

The north was the first part of Fiji drawn into the outside world's trade. From around 1805, ships came to the Bua Bay area for sandalwood. In the 1860s settlers from Australia and New Zealand set up coconut plantations around Savusavu, and after cession a sugar mill opened at Labasa in the 1890s, drawing Indian indentured labourers to the cane lands of the northern plain. Their descendants remain the majority in and around Labasa.

In the 20th century the north became a refuge for displaced Pacific peoples. In 1945 the British resettled the Banabans on Rabi island after phosphate mining had devastated their home island of Banaba, now part of Kiribati, and from 1947 people from Vaitupu in present-day Tuvalu bought and settled neighbouring Kioa. The national crises reached the north as well: during the coup of 2000, soldiers at the army barracks in Labasa mutinied in support of George Speight's group. Cyclone Winston in 2016 caused heavy damage in parts of the north.

The north has its own identity within Fiji. Cakaudrove, Macuata and Bua each have their own chiefly structures, and the Tui Cakau's village of Somosomo remains an important ceremonial centre. Visitors to any village bring yaqona for a sevusevu, dress modestly and keep hats off, and on Taveuni much of the land used for walks and waterfalls belongs to villages that manage it themselves.

Labasa and the cane belt are strongly Indo-Fijian. Hindu temples, mosques and churches stand in the town, Fiji Hindi is the everyday language on the farms, and Diwali and Holi are celebrated widely. Football, rather than rugby, is the favourite sport of many Indo-Fijians, and Labasa is one of the country's traditional football strongholds.

Rabi and Kioa add communities that are neither iTaukei nor Indo-Fijian. The Banabans of Rabi use Gilbertese as their everyday language and still hold Kiribati passports alongside Fijian citizenship; Kioa's people speak Tuvaluan and keep Tuvaluan customs.

The Northern Division has about 130,000 people. Labasa, with about 28,000 in the town and its surroundings, is the commercial centre, where farmers come to the market and the sugar mill runs through the crushing season. Savusavu is a small town of shops, marinas and government offices, and Taveuni's main settlements are Somosomo, Waiyevo and Matei.

Sugar cane dominates the Labasa plain and the north coast. Elsewhere the economy runs on copra, fishing and small farms, and Taveuni's farmers have turned from copra to dalo, yaqona, vanilla and tropical fruit. Tourism is smaller than on Viti Levu and focused on diving, the Savusavu marinas and a handful of resorts.

Life is slower than on Viti Levu. Buses and carriers link the villages, stores close early, and Sundays are for church. The main concerns are the ageing sugar industry, poor roads and power in rural areas, young people moving to Suva or abroad, and rebuilding after cyclones.

Labasa's food is Indo-Fijian first: curries of chicken, goat, fish and vegetables, roti and dhal, and snacks such as bhajia and samosa from market stalls, with Indian sweets for festivals. Sugar cane is chewed fresh in the harvest season, and roadside stalls sell tropical fruit from papaya and pineapple to mango.

On Taveuni and in the iTaukei villages the base is dalo, cassava, breadfruit and yams, with rourou, taro leaves cooked in coconut cream, and fresh reef fish. Kokoda, raw fish marinated in lime and coconut cream, is on every menu, and lovo feasts mark church events, weddings and visits by chiefs.

Coconut is everywhere: in cooking, as fresh drinking nuts, and as copra, the dried flesh that was long the mainstay of Taveuni's economy. Yaqona grown on Taveuni and in the hills of Vanua Levu is drunk every evening in the villages and at the sevusevu that welcomes every guest. Seafood such as lobster, crab and octopus reaches the markets in Savusavu and Labasa from the reefs.

Savusavu, on the south coast of Vanua Levu, is a favoured stop for yachts, with moorings, a yacht club in the old Copra Shed Marina and hot springs steaming along the waterfront. East along the Hibiscus Highway lie Natewa Bay and the coast towards Buca Bay. Across the mountains, Labasa is worth a visit for its market, temples and sugar-mill town atmosphere, and off the north coast lies the Great Sea Reef, a long barrier reef system.

Taveuni, across the Somosomo Strait, is known for its rainforest. The Bouma National Heritage Park, set up in 1990 by landowning clans concerned about logging, holds the Bouma Falls, Fiji's best-known waterfalls. In the mountains lies Lake Tagimaucia, and the island's highland rainforest is the only home of the tagimoucia flower. The 180th meridian crosses the island.

In the strait itself, the Rainbow Reef, with its Great White Wall of soft corals, is one of Fiji's best-known dive areas. South of Vanua Levu, the reef around Namenalala island, an outlier of Vanua Levu with a nature reserve and an Important Bird Area, was badly damaged, reef included, by Cyclone Winston in 2016.