Hi from back home in England.

Been home a week now so going to try and wrap up the last couple of weeks of our travels.

We left you just after we arived in fiji. the next y we headed off the main island viti levu for the outer islands in the yasawas group. after a slight kerfuffle at the ferry port where we found that we'd been cancelled off our ferry, (even though we'd only boked it the dy before!) - we managed to sort it out and got on board.

the first island we went to was nanyua lailai, in the north of the yasawas group, and the 'resort' was called Sunrise. it was a small, and family-run, with a very camp and extrovert guy called Queen as the main host(ess). it was pretty basic though - our shower was little hosepipe sticking out the wall! and emili had a millipede fall on her in the night crawling up her leg. from here we went swimming in underwater caves, i went fishing (but didnt catch a thing! even though the guy who took us out was catching something every 5 minutes!), Emili weaved a bag from coconut palm leaves, and in the evenings we drunk some kava (which tasted pretty disgusting! although it looks like muddy water so it wasn't THAT much of a surprise!) as part of a kava ceremony which involved a lot of clapping and shouting Bula!! We also took part in some hermit crab racing (which Queen took very seriously, marking out a circle in the sand). also whilst we were there we walked to the other side of the island (only 20mins) to where they filmed Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields. It was very nice there.

From there we headed south to the biggest island in the group Naviti, and the Korovou Eco Resort. the facilities here were a little bit better - we even had a pool! here we chilled out, went to Honeymoon bay on the other side of the island, and went snorkelling over the corals, and the highlght - swimming with a manta ray! it was quite funny as we were jumping in and out of our little boat in order to keep up with it - no sooner had the guy said to get in the water then we had to clamber out to catch it up - it gave us all a good laugh though - Extreme Snorkelling! The manta ray once we got close enough was amazing. it was at least 6 foot across, black and so elegant almost flying like a bird through the water. it had 2 fish underneath it and a big shoal of smaller fish following it. we spent the evenings dancing with the 'Bula Boys', playing cards with some friends we made, and some impromptu karaoke by torchlight (as all the electric on the island got turned off at 11!) under the stars.

after a few days there we went to Bounty Island - some of you may know this from the incredibly famous 'Celebrity' Love Island series. Again another beautiful island. From here we visited another island wher we visited a village for another kava ceremony and a look round the market stalls. we also went over to Castaway Island from the Tom Hanks film which had some amazing snorkelling. i also played some beach volleyball with the locals and we saw some more Fijian singing and dancing in the evening. emili loved all the singing the fijians did when you arrived and left anywhere - even at the airport!

we loved fiji - great weather, beautiful beaches, really friendly, laid-back people. it was pretty close to paradise!

from fiji we flew to LA, where the pace of life completely changed! on arriving in LA and more specifically Hollywood Boulevard they had the red carpet out, we thought for us (perhaps they'd heard Emili's album!) but it was actually for the daytime Emmy awards. it was pretty cool to see it all happening as it would do for the Oscars.

we spent one day at universal studios which was wicked. emili got a bit freaked out at the House of Horrors by the scary monsters walking around! another day we spent checking out Venice Beach and Santa Monica which were good for people-watching but extremely tacky. the americans certainly lived up to our expectations here by being very over-the-top (and often overweight!)

from LA we got the greyhound bus to the bright lights of Las Vegas!! with so much to see and do we found we were out til gone 2 in the morning (well past our bedtimes!). we won a whopping 46 dollars on roulette! went to see the Phantom of the Opera and the Grand Canyon which were all pretty amazing! it was pretty warm there (43 degrees C and with a hot wind - it felt like we were in a fan oven!). the strip was pretty awesome with all the massive casinos and hotels.

from hot and sunny Vegas it was back home to cold, wet and grey england! we'd survived 5 months travelling the world with not too many hiccups!! but it only felt like yesterday that we left. it was really nice to be met by our parents at the airport.

Just to sum up, we've had a brilliant 5 months. Met some really sound people, visited some incredible places and experienced some amazing things. We've absolutely LOVED it, and are so glad we've done it!

Thanks to everyone who's put us up on our travels, and gave us funding and gifts before we left. You will now have all the joys of listening to our tales and looking at all our photos!

Thanks for tuning in. Over and out!

Tim and Emili x