Bula! (that means hello in Fijian)

After arriving in Fiji we spent our first night in the town of Nadi on the main island of Viti Levu, but not before sampling the local drink called kava which was offered to us as soon as we got out of the airport by our taxi driver! We had to be polite and accept the drink but it looked and tasted like brown muddy water - not the nicest! Hostel was ok, we had our own room which was nice and that evening we sat in the bar and tried some local beer, Fiji Gold - very nice and low calorie aswell! We soon realised that our mossie spray just wasn't going to work in Fiji, we had all put a lot on but within about 10 mins of sitting outside we all had about 20 bites - and if that sounds a lot it was about 3 times that by the time we left Fiji! After a rather stressful start to Wednesday morning trying to sort out which islands we were going to go to over the next 11 days and trying to access our money as the cash machines wouldnt give us any we eventually hopped on a boat heading over to Mana Island which was about 40 mins from the mainland.

MANA ISLAND:

Here we stayed at a backpackers hostel called Ratu Kini's that was integrated with the village meaning that we got to see how the local Fijians lived which was an eye-opener! Everyone was really friendly and even the kids said Bula to us as we walked past. We were staying in our very own little thatched hut called a 'bure' - it was really basic with no hot water or lighting in the bathroom and the electricity didn't come on until 6pm but it was all an experience! We also got to sample traditional food which resulted in some interesting meals although curry featured heavily, in fact we had it for practically every meal including lunch times, not the best thing to eat when its about 40 degrees outside! We mostly just sunbathed but on Friday we took a boat over to Monuriki Island which was where the Castaway film starring Tom Hanks was filmed. It's uninhabited and really small - we were the only people there. We had a really cool afternoon eating fresh coconuts which were cut down for us by the guides and snorkeling over the coral reef where we spotted loads of interesting and brightly coloured fish. Every evening on Mana there was some entertainment provided for us by the locals, including Fijian and Polynesian dancing, crab racing (where our rubbish crab that we named Speedy came last - he didn't really live up to his title!) and fire dancing. We spent 4 nights on Mana before heading to Beachcomber Island on Sunday.

BEACHCOMBER ISLAND:

This was a tiny island covered entirely by the resort - you could walk around it in 10 mins! We stayed in a massive dorm which had about 84 beds in it, so it was a little cramped but cosy. Beachcomber was far more luxurious than Mana as we had lights in the showers and fans that worked all day long. By far the best part was the meals as we were treated to huge buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as afternoon tea with cake! Seeing as all we did was sunbathe its a good job we didn't stay longer than 4 nights because we would have got rather fat!! We did do some activities including a snorkeling trip out to the reef which was fun, turtle feeding which was slightly less strenuous, and then on the last day we all did a parasail around the island which was just amazing! You could see all of the coral reef and also we spotted a few turtles swimming about. Beachcomber had a really nice bar which we took full advantage of in the evenings especially as all drinks were put on our tab - slightly dangerous!

BOUNTY ISLAND:

We arrived on Bounty Island on Thursday evening - it was only about 10 mins from Beachcomber so we didn't have to go very far (you could see Beachcomber from Bounty Island) although to get there we had to get on 3 boats for some reason - a small one from the island to the main ferry where we spent about 2 mins before we had to get off again and onto another small boat to Bounty, and the small boats insisted on carrying our bags on the roof of the boat which was a bit scary! But they survived without anything getting too wet. We were really spoilt here as we had our own beachfront bure with air con and an en-suite!! There was also a double bed in the room which Jen nabbed after a intense game of rock, paper, scissors. We spent the whole of Friday working very hard on our tans and attempted to do a bit of snorkeling however as the tide was going out we had to abandon that as we nearly got stuck on the other side of the reef. In the evening we headed over to the other side of the island as this is where the first series of Celebrity Love Island was filmed (not that any of us actually watched it), however all that was left was the remains of the Loveshack and the pier where they did the broadcasts from. It was really run down so not very impressive! Also on Friday the island was invaded by around 100 Fijian university students who were on a trip as part of their tourism degree so that night was pretty lively in the bar and we sat laughing at them playing silly games whilst enjoying a few (or more) G & T's. Saturday was rather active as we hired out some kayaks and paddled round the island, exercising our arm muscles quite a bit. We saw lots of fish, some even jumped out the water around us. That evening we got on the ferry and headed back to the mainland for one last night in Nadi, where we indulged in some very English food (burgers/fish and chips) as we were rather sick of curry by then!

We flew to New Zealand on Sunday evening and even got some mini easter eggs on the plane! We're in a really nice hostel in Auckland at the mo and its sunny outside which we totally didn't expect. We've spent the morning washing all our clothes as we haven't had access to a laundry since we got to Fiji so everything is a bit smelly! We are going to have a wander around the city this afternoon and intend to hire a car for a couple of days to go and explore the North Island a bit before coming back to Auckland on Friday.

Hope everyone is well at home and you all had a Happy Easter! We are going to buy ourselves some easter eggs - hopefully they will be in the sale now!

Lots of love

Becki, Sam and Jen xx xx xx