That may have been the Fiji islands where a missionary named Reverend Baker was killed & eaten; the cannibals had never seen boots before & boiled his for hours trying to make them tender.
To this day the worst insult to a Fijian is, “Go eat Mr. Baker’s boots!”
Could be. Was getting ready to leave NZ when the airport firefighters went on strike.
Talking to a passenger from one of the last flights to land, they got the news while in the air, and Fiji was an alternative place for them to land.
The passengers and crew voted to take the [admittedly small] risk of them landing in Auckland without proper emergency crews on hand.
Apparently, that was preferable to spending time in Fiji.
We hung around Auckland for three days, missing out on spending time in Tahiti.