Before the resort brochures. Before the Instagram sunsets. Before Fiji became a destination, it was a life. When Peter Geoffrey Rae first drove a rented Suzuki jeep into the Fijian highlands in 1988 with two young sons in the backseat and the woman he loved beside him, he had no idea he was beginning a journey that would consume decades of his life. What started as a holiday detour down a gravel road became a lifelong obsession and an extraordinary story of adventure, enterprise, and survival in one of the world's most breathtaking and misunderstood places. Beyond the Cannibal Isles is not a guidebook. It is the raw, unfiltered account of a man who didn't just visit Fiji: he built it, farmed it, sailed it, fought for it, and fell headlong in love with it. From engineering a custom 22-seat highland bus to carry tourists through roads no coach had ever navigated, to hand-building an eco-resort on a remote island using thatched bures and hydro power drawn from a jungle creek, Rae's story is one of relentless ingenuity in the face of impossible odds. Along the way, he traces Fiji's remarkable history, from the ancient Lapita people and the cannibal reputation that gave these islands their fearsome name, to the arrival of Bligh, Cook, and Tasman, and the forgotten origins of surfing in the Pacific. He survives Cyclone Winston, navigates treacherous open-ocean crossings in a fibreglass boat, and spends time deep in communities most visitors will never see, the Kai-Colo of the highlands, the farmers of Kadavu, the chiefs who still carry oral memories of a vanished world. But this is also a story of injustice. Wrongfully imprisoned, denied his constitutional rights, and fighting the Fiji legal system alone from inside a remand cell, Rae emerges not broken but galvanised, determined to hold power to account, not just for himself, but for every Fijian who has endured the same silence. Told with warmth, humour, and hard-won wisdom, Beyond the Cannibal Isles is the Fiji that the postcards never show, wild, complex, deeply human, and utterly unforgettable.