I am honeymooning here

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Bula from Fiji. ahhhh its actual heaven here i LOVE it!

Arrived in Nadi, which is basically just the hald way house between the airport and the islands, you dont really go to Fiji to go to Nadi (pronounced Nan-di), its off to the islands! Nadi had quite a carribean feel to it; street sellers on the side of the road, pretty basic, run down cars and shops but everyone smiling and getting on with their business. Checked into the Lovely Aquarius Hotel on the beach, greeted very warmly by all the staff had spent the evening fallling off hammocks and trying local dishes such as kokoda- pices of fish marinated in lime juice and coconut milk mmmm. Then i saw my first fire dance on the islands, ;lots of oily young men throwing flaming sticks all over the place. They also demonstarted their traditional 'meke' dance and got the whole hotel joining in in all sorts, but a very fun evening :-)

We picked up early next morning by a big yellow, open ir, rickety old bus that was to take us to Denerau marina, the gateway to the beautful Mamanuca and Yasawa Islands. woooop All checked in and i bumped into Sarah and Liv, two girls i first met on Fraser island, who i then saw like a million times in NZ and we were going to the same island today. yay :-) Hopped aboard our bg yellow boat, the Yasawa Flyer for a 5 hour trip up to Tavewa Island where the lovely people of Coral View resort were waiting to welcome us on the beach with cries of BULA. We were shown to our rooms then i spent the next 3 hours lying in a hammock watching the sun go down with my book. Iv had worse afternoons! :-) Then we played a bit of Volleyball with the locals. After rolling my ankle i was a bit less keen to join in, none of the men woudld pass to us! grrr but it was a good giggle. All cringing at one poor girl who forgot to put bug spray on last night, her legs were literally covered in bites. owweeeee. In the evening we were treated to a performance from all the local school children who did a number of songs and dances for us. Everyone that works at the resort is from the vilage, so there is a lovely family feel to the whole place. They r abolsute troopers though, they r constantly welcoming and saying godbye to guests, every day! But we had a lovely evening :-)

We were up early the next day for some diving, woooop. Saw SHARKS!! eeeeeeek. cut my hands to pieces on the rope on the way down but once id seen eels, sharks, and a million diff fish i kinda forgot that i was bleeding everywhere! :S After lunch Sarah Liv and I decided to Kayak over to Blue Lagoon beach (the very beach where Brooke Shields frolicked all those years ago in the movie.) Well i can assure you we looked nothing like Brooke Shields. there was a strong wind blowing in the wrong direction and a current dragging us in the wrong direction so it was 2km of boredowm and frustration! not cool! the snorkelling at the beach did make up for it but it wasnt quite the lazy paddle i was expecting!

The next day i went of to the Sawailau caves, again where Brookes Shields sat. the first cave is pretty cool, its all very open and not too cave like. the next bit was not cool; to get to the next cave we had to swim under water, guieded only by torch light to the next cave. i was like come again!? It was actually only like 2 seconds under water but it felt like eternity. And the cave we got into was pitch back (im glad they told us after that there were eels in there!) but it was really rather cool. Lots of people had inscribed their names everywhere and stuff and the echos were amazing! Swimming back through the under water tunnel was much cooler as u could see the rock formations, so pretty cool tbh :-)

There was a goodbye song over lunch - the song Isa Lei has many different meanings, namely goodbye etc. The manager/chief of resort said a lovely wee goodbye speech as well. Then it was back aboard the big yellow boat onto our next island.....

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