So again we are terribly behind on our updates again but they do keep coming slowly but surely. We landed in Nadi, Fiji and ventured to our hostel that had been very kindly booked from England becuase whilst we were in New Zealnd, we had not really sorted our selves out and had no where to stay in Fiji and no way of booking anything. The hostel turned out to be perfect for us as we were able to book our island hopping from it and leave the very next day for our first island Kauta.

This part of our trip was again unlike anything we had done before. We caught a big yellow catermeran from Nadi port and found that it dropped people off at their desired destinations by stopping in the middle of the sea and waiting for the boats from which ever island they were near to come and pick up their guests. After a good while sunning ourselves on the top deck, our island Kauta was called. We went downstairs and identified our bags which were then launced off the side of the boat into a small boat. We followed and were soon on our island paradise.

Our room was more a barn kind of configuration with about 12 bunkbeds, each with mozi net covering top and bottom bunk. The floor was vinyl and the bathroom ran the length of the building but at the back and had 2 massive cement sinks which drained onto our feet, 2 toilets and 2 showers. It was all very basic but did the job....when the water was working!! For our first day, we had no water. The water was piped from a neighbouring island's spring and somewhere under the water the pipe had disconnected. So the toilets would not flush for the whole day, you can imagine how it ended up.

The food was really good and we had it in the dining room/evening entertainment room. The food was all fresh and cooked by the women on the island and given to us like we were in a canteen but we always had plenty and always with fresh fruit too.

During the day of our arrival we did nothing but lay on the beach, but really that was all there was to do. The following morning we went snorkeling with black tipped reef sharks. The guys from the island would swim down to the bottom (5m) and hand feed the sharks with fish they had caught with their little spears. It was very interesting but they made a bit too much contact with the sharks for us, pulling them backwards until they stopped fighting becuase their gills had filled with water kind of thing, not so nice. That was followed by a village walk where we saw the village that all of our islanders lived. It was very intersting and we had weaving lessons and Carrie was thrust a baby out of no were. We pretty much found that they have little or no worries in life, the only thing they bought from the mainland was chocolate and alcohol for their guests and clothing for themselves. They were completely self sufficient in everyway. We were in awe but Carrie was not sure she could handle the boredom of living like that (oh and the cold showers).

We left that island 2nights later and headed to Koravu our second island. What immediately struck us was that this island was more based around its tourism. There was a pool right next to the beach, sunbeds, fans in our clean and big dorm with relatively normal bathroom facilities. We had shower heads rather than hose pipe ends, that kind of thing. Crazy though it was, this island also had internet all be it slow internet.

The food was not as good at this island but it was easier to spend each day how we would have done on holiday. Carrie went on a Mantaray snorkeling trip but was quite disappointed with the out come. She saw one ray but it was not very big and becuase everyone jumped off the boat to see it, it dove down quickly and she could only see its outline. Apart from that we did nothing, we ate fresh coconut and papaya and talked to the people we had met and those living on the island. It was rather relaxing to say the least.

We spent 2 nights on Koravu and then it was time to head back to the mainland. Although we had planned to spend 10 days there it was a little more expensive than we had first thought and 5 days of doing absolutely nothing is enough for anyone. We spent one more night in Nadi and saw some amazing fire dancing and had dinner with the people we had been with the last 4/5days before we made our way to Australia