Fiji Time! Mainland Tour & Beachcomber Island (Hollys bday!!)

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After our island tour being fairly unaffected by the flooding, we knew our mainland tour would be slightly different. Day 1 - Nadi to The Coral Coast : After meeting with our Feejee Experience group, we headed to Natadola Beach (Apparantly the 7th best beach in the world) but didn't seem so, after having a lot of debris washed up on it after the floods. Here we introduced ourselves to one another and had a barbeque lunch, and realised how rubbish our tour guide was! After asking questions, with little response, we realised many of our big activities for the week of mainland touring, were cancelled. Gutted! This included no Namosi Highland Trek, no mud/hot pools, no trip to Suva due to the roads/bridges being broken/collapsed and no bili bili rafting (although this was promised and cancelled all in one day). Feeling slightly deflated, we were still going to make the most of everything we WERE doing, and enjoy our mainland experience.

That afternoon we headed to the Sigatoka sand dunes, for some sandboarding action! There was just the group, our 1 tour guide and the driver - no-one else was around! It seemed an extremely steep and dangerous dune to be attacking, with little organisation or instruction! Our guide literally just pulled some board out from the back of the van and told us to head up to the top on our own, warning the sand was wet, and so would be extremely quick with little grip. We both came off our boards - Kev half way down, and Holly flipping over a few times at the bottom unable to stop! Painful!!!! A 51 year old chinese guy on our tour successfully came boarding down, and hysterically laughed for about 5 minutes afterwards which was quite contageous, and soon we were all in hysterics! Mango Bay stay that night.

Day 2: We took a long boat up the Navua River up into and through the Namosi Highlands - quite incredible. We stopped for lunch on the bank of the river when our boat all of a sudden broke down in the current. A guy had to dive in and swim through the current to try and anchor the boat down. After an hour or so we got going again and headed up the river some more, to reach our tube boarding point. We grabbed a large rubber ring each, and 'tubed' down the current in the river, stopping at a waterfall for some fun! 'Uprising' resort stay. Very nice. Big dinner with all the group - met some more additions.

Day 3: We visited an orphanage in the morning in Nadi, which was primarily funded by Chuck Norris, who is building another one elsewhere in Nadi. It was an emotional experience topped off by a 7month old baby, parentless, laying in an isolated cot, asleep - you don't need pictures to remember moments like that. Due to the majority of the activities being cancelled, we headed to an indo-fijian curry house and headed to our next resort, Voli Voli Beach. That night our activities were led by a very camp Fijian receptionist called Sasha, with immaculately painted nails, and the most amazing eyebrows I have ever seen! We played some group games, had a crab race, and then Sasha performed some solo dances for us, which we think was more about Sasha's moment in spotlight than about everyone else's enjoyment!

Day 4: We headed to a nearby village for a traditional Kava Ceremony - we all had to wear sarongs for this. We took part in a greetings ceremony, followed by a Kava ceremony, and Fijian dancing. Kev had been selected earlier in the week to be the group CHief and I was Chief's spokesperson. At the end I was asked to thank the village for their kindness and custom and for welcoming us into their village.

Day 5: HOLLY'S BIRTHDAY! Awoken with candles, cake, balloons, and singing, we headed to Beachcomber Island (Party Island of Fiji) with the Feejee experience group, where we met back up with Jamie and Tracey. Small baby reef sharks frolicked in the surf near our feet, and after a snorkelling trip we headed back to get sorted for our night of partying! After Bula dancing, and a limbo competition, we carried on the night in style with bongo dancing and shape throwing!

The next day we packed our bags and headed to the airport for our next destination...New Zealand!!!!!!!

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Comments

[Gemma Sargeant]

Hey guys, Looks like you're haing a great time. Wish I was there with you! Holly I cannot believe how many clothes you seemed to have packed...you're wearing something different in each pic! Keep blogging- love it! xx