Bula!

We've now arrived in Auckland New Zealand after spending a week in Fiji which was amazing!! We spent the first and last of our 7 day in Fiji on the mainland at Nadi, but spend 5 days on Waya Island at a resort called Octopus, which was heavenly!! It was more like a five star resort than a back packer place - there were even a few couples on honeymoon so I was very happy!!

Whilst we were on Waya Island we stayed in a bure which is an authentic Fijian wooden hut which had an open air shower. As you can imagine, given that we were in the middle of a forest, we shared our bure with lots of wildlife - particularly caterpillars, lizards and to Matt's disliking, spiders!

During our stay we went to see the local village which was a stark contrast to where we were staying, as the villagers were very poor. The village was made up of lots of shacks where people sat around trying to keep out of the sun, we were told that the main income for the village was fishing, or tourism. 60 out of the 300 villagers were lucky enough to secure a job at Octopus - apparently competition is fierce!

We also visited the local kindergarten which was a real eye opener, the conditions were really basic, but the children seemed so happy, they recited lots of nursery rhymes to us at the top of their voices and loved having their photos taken, they swarmed around you afterwards to see the images! We've added some photos to our blog today so that you can see.

During our stay, the workers at Octopus put on a traditional meke show which was great, lots of Fijian singing and dancing which we joined in with, well the dancing anyway!

Now that we're in NZ, we're staying with some of Matt's family friends for a couple of nights so we're going to spend the next couple of days looking around Auckland before we pick up our camper van and explore the rest of NZ! Next update to follow soon...

Leanne and Matt xx