Bula from Fiji!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and new year. Hopefully the weather has improved back home… it's certainly not cold here in Fiji!!

We arrived to sunshine and a very friendly bus driver to take us to our first hostel. After a couple of days in Nadi we headed off for a week of island hopping, which was fantastic. We started off on Coral view and pretty much lazed around all day and spent the evening skulling beers (I just watched! But Ben did very well - he beat the girls anyway which was his main aim!).We then headed to White sandy beach for 2 nights, which was our favourite of all the islands we visited. We did quite a bit of snorkelling as there was a coral garden nearby and so there were loads of colourful fish and a crashed WW2 plane.We then had a couple of evenings of great Fijian entertainment that was followed by silly games like musical statues before a bonfire on the beach. The locals were all laughing at us but it was great fun and I was the champion of one of the games.

We then headed to Mantra ray island (more like a posh resort) but still good fun. The next day it was then off to Waya Lailai island - where we went on a trip to snorkel with reef sharks (lee you would have been proud of us!). For anyone who knows what a couple of wimps we are this was a big challenge.Surprisingly once we got in the water - the guide pretty much had to drag me in! - it was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Although the guide did decide to put one right in my face and then let it swim under me and he then grabbed my leg pretending it was a shark - I was not impressed!Final island was then Southsea island which is the smallest island - you can walk round the whole island in about 2 minutes.

Then back to the mainland where they have 24 hr electricity and hot water!We then went on the Feejee experience tour which was a tour of the main island. This included a couple of village visits, sand boarding, kava ceremonies, beach bbq and a hike to the waterfall.The hike was definitely the best part although nothing like we expected - it was about 3 hrs long, rained the whole time and included trawling through grass taller than me, wading through streams, and walking through mud swamps up to our waists. One for the bridges also broke with half the group on it - Ben and I were very lucky as we had just made it over the other side.I managed to get stuck a few times and we were so skanky when we go back we had to bin our trainers!

We just have a few more days in Fiji so we are going to pick an island to spend a couple of more nights before heading to NZ on thurs.

Thanks for all the emails, hope everyone is well and keep us up to date with any news

Love lois and ben xxx