Day 67: Valentines Day and Lovu Dinner on the Coral Coast‏

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After a really great sleep we popped our swim stuff on and headed down to the reception to pick up the kayaking gear. Because of the shallow reef you can only kayak at high tide 8-11am to ensure you don't damage any coral. We had a relaxing kayak along the coast, out towards the reef and back to shore again. I was very excited to see that when we'd gotten out of the water the horses had gone for their own little paddle (cue hundreds of photos)! After breakfast we went for our complimentary foot massage at the spa, a nice little touch on Valentines day! We then got the local bus into Sigatoka to visit the Sand Dune National park, unfortunately we'd picked a really bad time of day and the sand was too hot to walk on in sandals so we couldn't complete our walk! Back at the hotel we heard the 'happy hour' drum roll and call to the bar.. so off we went! We had a really special evening - but I'll let James fill you in on that!

Bailey's bit: So for dinner the hotel was preparing a traditional Fijian meal called Lovu. In the afternoon we were able to go and watch them preparing for the meal and Cat had a go at basket weaving. Lovu is when the food is prepared in coconut leaves (and a little tin foil) and then buried with hot stones (1), covered with coconut leaves (2), banana leaves (3), damp sacks (4) and then finally earth (5). This was then left for 1 1/2 hours before being removed (on Cats basket) (6) and prepared before being served. The meal was huge containing a wild spinach soup for starters followed up by river muscles and coconut tzatiki style dip. A main course of chicken, fish, pork, sweet potato, onion, tomato and beef wrapped in a local leaf, a local root concoction, all of which were from the fire pit. After a short break we finished off with coconut custard pie. Extremely filling but most importantly delicious! After dinner we were sung a farewell song by all of the staff, being our last night in Bedarra, which was really touching. We then watched a huge thunder storm on our balcony as I drank my spoils (the beer) from yesterday.

Daily mileage: 4.5 so after the failure of yesterday I waited until after 6 and had a much lighter lunch. However being back in the tropics I was a sweaty mess inside a mile! Plenty of Bulas! along the way.

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