Fiji

Leaving Peru we had a mammoth three days of travel to get to Auckland where we met Rich and began our final leg to Fiji. That evening, we decided which islands we wanted to visit and began our tour of the Mamanucas and Yasawa islands. Fiji is comprised of the main island Viti Levu and many small islands. We learnt from talking to other travellers that the smaller offshore islands were the most beautiful and least touristy areas of Fiji.


Bounty Island was our first stop. This was a beautiful island where 'Celebrity Love Island' was filmed. We were staying on the set of the show which was amusing but not nearly as impressive as on the show! Unfortunately whilst we were here the weather was pretty bad with rain fairly continuously throughout the day. About 3pm each day we decided to brave the weather and kayak, swim and snorkel around the island. This was actually really fun and wasn't affected much by the weather. The food was buffet style, the accommodation basic and we later found this to be by far the worst place we stayed!


Our next stop was the Bay of Plenty right at the top of the Yasawa islands. This is a very new resort which is family run and only caters for a maximum of about 8 people. This made it a much less touristy experience. We spent some time chatting and getting to know the family, playing cards (when it rained again!), learning new card tricks and having an awesome time throwing a rugby ball around with the younger kids when the sun came out. The 'entertainment' was hilarious; a coconut on string which is tied round your waist and you use this to knock another coconut from one end of the room to another - a simple game with hilarious gestures required. The food and accommodation was awesome and the whole experience much more authentic than the touristy Bounty Island.


Oarsman Bay was our next stop, a more expensive resort with an incredible beach and snorkeling. The resort was much better run but in increasing the size, the resort lost some of its charm for us. We stayed one night to experience the great snorkeling and amazing cake at afternoon tea.


Long beach was another budget resort but we got very lucky and were placed in their 'Beachfront Bure' with our own hammock - something I had been craving! The beach there was beautiful and very long and it was whilst strolling down the beach with Rich that we had one of the highlights of our time in Fiji. A young local boy threw a ball to his sister and she clearly could not throw it back that far so i took the ball off her and threw it back. He threw it to Rich and a spontaneous game began. It was great because it was a great way to interact with local kids, it was spontaneous and we had so much fun. This game soon became piggy-in-the-middle which then became touch rugby, then full contact rugby! It was exhausting but an incredible afternoon and the following day we had tea with their family and chatted to them for a couple of hours, before some more fun on the beach.


Our final stop was Octopus - there was great excitement from us when we arrived; hot water (our first hot shower for 10 days!), electricity for more than 2 hrs a night, incedible food etc. This resort is way above all the others in terms of how it is run, organised, the trips provided, cleanliness, food and its facilities. It is fairly large 50 ish people but retains its charm. Most impressive was the snorkeling right on the beach, a wall of Coral up to 12metres deep only meters from the stunning curved beach. We saw an incredible variety of tropical fish including Manta Rays - see photos attached! We didnt get the authentic charm from those that ran the place but it was refreshing to be somewhere well run and somewhere so beautiful.


Our last day in Fiji was spent on the mainland where we explored Nadi and bought a few gifts. Although we had some bad weather we still had an incredible time and would love to return.

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