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Published: September 17th 2006
Kat writes:
Walking through the airport the air was filled with the sound of guitars strumming and people singing. Wearing big smiles, loud shirts and colourful flowers. Our Fijian welcome was in full swing. "Bula!" they cried "Where you from?" "England!" we replied. "Ah, the mother country. Welcome home". I knew i was going to like this place! We headed for
Nadi the main jumping off point to the islands we wanted to visit and met up with Gemma, a girl we met in Byron Bay, Australia, who also flew in today from New Zealand. After a rather messy night out at Eds Bar and a day in town getting sorted, all 3 of us were ready to head out to the islands. There are 330 islands in Fiji all in all. A little too many to see in 2.5 weeks, so we were going to stick to 2 main groups, the
Yasawa and Mamanuca Islands. They are a collection of small islands which usually have one place to stay on them and nothing else. No restaurants, shops or entertainment - just the island and you!
Oarsmans 'beautiful' Bay
After a 4 hr ferry crossing we arrived at
our destination.
Oarsmans, Nacula Island. It was beautiful. A truly picturesque beach with a neat shelf that stretched out into the ocean that was a little treat to snorkel along. It was here that we were first introduced to
'long-jawed' mackerel. Flipping away, having a mindless nosey, we spotted a massive shoal of 'fish & chips' sized silver fish. Woo, we scoot after them. But actually there was no need, as they turned back and started heading straight for us. Sweetness, a close up! But then these lovely shinny harmless fish did a 'gremlin' on us and turned from pretty to damn right scary, as they opened their mouths in unison and tried to shallow us whole! Their mouths just dropped open to leave a gaping mouth the size of a small continent. It was like they had dislocated their bottom jaw or something. Their mouths just didn't fit their faces anymore! It was so freaky and excellent at the same time. They are great and despite being only simple Mackerel, they have become my new favourite fish!
We had a good time at
Oarsmans - visiting the local village & school, climbing a hill to a lookout, racing
Important sign at the school
And all we had to worry about in the UK was keeping off the grass!hermit crabs (my sprightly crab won! And was later released. I didn't see him again but No. 12 was spotted cruising down the beach the next day, still sporting his number '12' on his shell), and playing numerous games of Yahtzee with Amanda & Jason (newly weds from Northampton on a 5 week round the whole world honeymoon!) & Adi (a teacher from Israel). There were a couple of nights that pushed on till the wee hours with those dudes. My only 2 grumbles would be that despite the gorgeous view, the loft dorm was a little on the pack 'em in side. No bunks, just single beds, but pushed close enough together to feel your neighbours breath on your face in the morning. Pleasant. Lucky for me i was sandwiched between Scott and Gemma. Safe! Amanda & Jason were bright enough to have booked a private room called a 'bure' - good on them i say. But secondly, which they did have to endure as well, was the food. Random and sparse with no alternative option. I mean battered and deep fried egg plant for dinner. Yum! Luckily they had a massive and fruitful buffet one night where we
No. 5 hermit crab race winner!
I really liked it...but i didn't really like it on me! all gorged ourselves silly and laughed about it all night.
Black out
Bobbing along in a small boat to our next island, it starts to get choppy. Apart from the 2 guys running it, we are the only people on board. Gem and I are hanging on, trying not to get rolled out, whilst getting a little wet, when I turned around to see poor Scott absolutely soaked through. It was the funniest thing. I thought we had it bad, but from head to toe, he was totally drenched. Then things got even more frantic and the 'crew' decided it was too rough to take us to the side of the island our resort was on. Instead they thought the best idea was for us to hop out on a more sheltered side, Scott to put his big rucksack on and for all of us to shimmy round the island on the rocks, hoping the waves crashing over them wouldn't take us out to sea. Nice idea. They then took the boat round. Whilst Im staying with our stuff, Gemma and Scott went to collect our other bags from the boat. Only the boat won't come too close to
Our very own Bura
With a door designed for very little people the beach, so they have to wade out, chest deep and try to carry 20kg of bags back in without getting them in the drink! The 'crew' looked on encouragingly though!
So we had arrived at
Gold Coast, Nanuya Lailai Island. The best spit and sawdust place in Fiji i reckon. They had lost our dorm booking, which although i did, i couldn't really comment on, as i had lost something myself.....my shoes. In all the excitement to go to the next island i left my flip flops on the beach. I left without my shoes. That’s how chilled i am now people, i leave whole islands without any footwear! My feet saw the rest of Fiji in Scott's 90 bart plastic Thailand flip flops, size 10!) Anyway i digress, because they weren't expecting us and no dorms were available, we got upgraded to our very own and first 'Bure' It was awesome. A little thatched bungalow with a double and single bed. The floor inside was made of sand, the bathroom didn't have a door (cosy) and there was no electricity but it was so good! For dinner we went behind one of the Bure's where a little
Limbo!
There is no way Scott is going to be beaten by 'stripy jumper' guy. The competition is on! table was put out and one of the Fijian ladies cooked us dinner out of their little hut by ceresin lantern light. It was so tasty. After dark a little lantern was left outside our bure for us to use throughout the evening. I loved it all.
The island was gorgeous too. A half an hour walk across the island to the other side where a big blue lagoon lay waiting.
Manta Ray!!!!
Bong bong bong went the traditional drums. "Manta ray, Manta ray!" came the distant cry and we were up. One leg already out the door, we snatch up our snorkeling gear and sprinted down to the beach. We bundled on to a little boat and held tight whilst the screaming outboard motor races us out to the channel. Having reached the spot all goes quiet. The engine is on a low rumble, and all eyes are glued to the water looking for signs. One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes passes and nothing. We're anxious. But then
we are given the signal so everybody plunges into the sea. It only took me a few seconds to realise what all the fuss was about. There below me, was a 3.5 metre Manta Ray flying along effortlessly. There was a lot of shrieking through my snorkel! It was just awesome. I can't describe how cool this was but we swam with the manta ray for about 20 minutes and it was such an experience. I have seen big rays but never a manta ray and never this close. It was amazing. This was definitely a highlight of
Manta Ray Bay, Nanuya Balavu Island!
But there were other highlights too - the dorms, snorkeling, kayaking, kite flying and laying in the sun, all ace. Plus the staff entertainment was a laugh, (seeing Scott do the limbo competition always makes me smile) and the food was lush. I think we may have got extra lucky here as representatives from Fiji Tourism were staying so everything was perfect! They also grabbed us for a bunch of under water pictures. So who knows, in a few months maybe will be on the tourism advertising brochures for Fiji!
Holiday like the celebrities
'Love Shack'
Checking out Celebrity Love Island's 'Love Shack'! Down to the Mamanucas group and Bounty Island. Think
'Celebrity Love Island' the first series and you've got it. It was filmed here. A small round island, ringed by white sand and then surrounded by the South Pacific Ocean. Bliss. We rode bikes around it - took about 20 minutes in the sand) and visited where the set had been for the filming. Its a bit of a mess now but you get the idea. Scott played a lot of pool and ping pong with the locals here, as well as joined in on a bit of Kava drinking, (which by the way, all Fijian men seem to partake in every night! We missed out on meeting the village Chief on Oarmans because he had had a little too much Kava the night before!)
Last island hop
Our last island stop was
Malolo at
The Resort Walu Beach (another TV location for a program called The Resort - i don't know it) but the place was great. The first place i would actually call a resort. It had a restaurant, swimming pool and everything! We met a good group of people, Ainslee & Annie - U S A, U
View from our Bura in the sky
Our jackpot upgrade at The Resort S A!! Sarah & Dave, fellow 'Europeans' as Ainsee & Annie would put it, (English people to the rest of us,) and reunited with Adi.
After a little wait, we were shown to our dorms which were full of mosquitoes and smelt of poop. As they couldn't do much about that i did mention the worlds noisiest generator outside our window. They said we could move to the other side of the building but it wasn't ready yet. Scott stropped off, so it was only Gem and I who got the news that actually we were going to be upgraded. We followed a guy up hundreds of steps to the top of a cliff face to be taken to our new digs. A three bedroomed, two bathroomed, massive lounged, sweeping balconied bure in the sky!!! And we were going to be here for 3 nights. Hooray hooray hooray! In this instance a little grumble went a really long way! Upgraded from a 90 buck a night dorm to a 600 buck a night bure! Seriously happy days!
We convinced Scott (who was still in a strop) that we had been moved to a different dorm up the hill
and he had to chose a bed and tell reception its number. He was even more annoyed now as i hadn't done this for him but reluctantly he followed us to where the new 'dorm' was. I wish i had a picture of the moment he walked into the bure and clicked that it was our new digs. His reaction was priceless! Hasten to add he was now happy with our gorgeous private double room with beautiful ensuite. With a new spring in our step we all went off for a little snorkel.
Snorkelling for us is definitely a favourite activity in these warm, clear waters. We were hardly out of the water whilst in Fiji but the snorkelling at Manalu was the best. There was a decent coral reef to investigate, a ship wreck passed an extremely deep water channel (we swam quickly!) and in one spot, just off the boating channel, a massive group of my favourites, the 'long-jawed mackerel'! We often went to this spot to see them, as well as giant traveles, blue spotted sting rays, Fiji's trademark blue starfish and tonnes of other stuff.
Our time on Malolo island was great. One day,
Show me the money
Sorry girls, im afraid no matter what camera angle i went for...this was the best i could come up with. a small group of us were kayaking out to a rock island about 1km out. There was a private island out to the left, our island getting further away in the distance, the sea was deep and glistening a real safire blue, it was as flat as a pancake, and we were just paddling out in the sun shine. I remember thinking to myself, remember this......and i will. Scott will definitely too. (Although he might also remember Malolo island as the time he had a dodgy stomach and did six squits in one day! Good work my friend.)
Back to the mainland and the Coral Coast
So the islands over with, we hopped back to the mainland and made our way along the coast to
Pacific Harbour, stopping for a night at
Mango Bay on the way. A 'flashpackers' in the middle of nowhere. Well, it was nice but the owner was an ass! However, we did get to snorkel and saw a nice size reef shark out there. The first time we've seen a shark without scuba gear. Awesome.
To get to
Pacific Harbour,
Mango Bay dropped us off on the main road, unloaded our bags and
Great view...
...if only that guy would stop floating into all my pictures! disappeared. So now we sit waiting for a local bus to come (good luck) whilst waving at all the locals occasionally driving past. One such local, turned out to be an ex-pat, Kiwi, who stopped and gave us a ride all the way to
Pacific Harbour! Thanks again Shane!
So we found ourselves another place to stay, which again was a jackpot - two self contained flats for the price of a dorm(!) whilst we waited for Polly to meet us. She had just flown in from New Zealand (we met her back in Byron Bay, Oz too). Now the Byron gang was back in business so a few beers did flow (although Tom & Irja - you were missed).
The next day Scott, Polly & I had a date with some big underwater beasties.
Very big fish encounters
The sea surrounding our boat was hectic with the movement of black fins breaking the surface. Im not surprised as 'Papa' our experienced Fijian scuba diver, had just thrown a few kilos of fish heads and guts in. Tentatively i smiled at Scott, put my breathing apparatus in my mouth and jumped in, knowing he was next in
About to do the shark dive
Polly and Scott...both thring to give their best 'we're not worried' fake smiles. line. We descended to 30 meters and watched as hundreds and hundreds of massive fish were fed by these Fijian divers. Then came the sharks. Whitetips, blacktips, silvertips, Grey reefs, lemons and a huge bull shark - cruising in for a feed. We did this twice for 45 minutes. It was a scary proposition.
Big Fish Encounters - check it out! We met many diving instructors in Australia and Fiji who recommended we do this dive. You can see up to 8 different species of shark all in one place blar blar blar, so we gave it a go. And to be honest, even though no tiger sharks turned up, (kind of glad about that) it was a spectacular sight to see. However, we did have our doubts about the ethics of it and now i think i am convinced that its better to dive and see these amazing creatures without the enticement.
Bye bye Fiji and 'Vinaka!'
So we waved goodbye to Gemma and Polly and hopped on to the oldest local bus to make the 3.5hr journey back along the coast to the airport, where we were bound for New Zealand. We have had an amazing time here. The islands are absolutely
Byron Bay gang
Polly, Kat, Scott & Gemma (plus an undercover GCHQ satelite dish posing as a terrestrial TV receiver) beautiful and the people are lovely. Yet another country that we would definitely return to. Bula!
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Gem
non-member comment
Hey you guys.... I see you finally got there with the the blog, it's as long as mine now!!! But i noticed, Scott's shark's phobia in Malolo didn't quite make it in there!!!! Haha! How are you guy's enjoying NZ by the way, you must be pretty far through now??