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"Nothing like a tsunami warning to keep you up all night!"
Yesterday was our last on the Coral Coast and we were making the most of the sunshine by getting out early, our normal routine followed sea, pool, sunbed, relax! That was soon disrupted when we came down to dinner, a lovely peppered tuna steak by the way, when we saw on the news the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I think most people in the restaurant spent the evening swivelled round watching the television it was definitely one of those major disasters where you'll never forget what you were doing when you first saw it. For us though we were also watching the tsunami warnings to follow, early evening it was narrowed down to Hawaii, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand but by the time we were going to bed it was Pacific wide. We got back to the room and both of us felt we couldn't sleep without finding out more, I wasn't sure if I wanted to know! So we logged on to the internet and had a look, Fiji had issued its own tsunami warning with the arrival of the first wave expected at 3 a.m. By the time we got back into the bar it was showing this on the news as well, we had a little chat to a few people, most were worried and not planning on going to bed, the local surfers wanted to ride the waves fuelled by a few beers! By midnight the warning and advice to move to higher ground was still in place and the staff had all gone to bed so us and a dive instructor here decided to take the walk from the resort up the mountain to the road, why sit in a bar when we could be sat where we knew would be safe were our thoughts. Adrenaline started pumping a little at this point; we were packing a bag to take with us all the essentials the laptop, iPad, camera and my favourite top! Not the smartest items ever but our torches did become very important. We met up with the instructor and on the way past reception we met two Finish born Swedish girls who were also going to walk up. The night security guard told us to wait in the car park as he wanted to wake the boss to start moving people, he came back the boss didn't want to wake up! We're not quite sure why he arrived but one of the airport shuttle drivers came down and he took us all up to the top of the hill. It all seems a bit weird telling it back now, we at the top of the hill by the road, in complete darkness except for a million stars at three in the morning listening to the waves. At around four the driver wanted to go back down while we all wanted to wait a bit longer so we were turfed out of the van and into a thatched roof bus stop, we were all very jealous of the instructor who had packed a sleeping bag! At around five it had been long enough and we walked back down to the resort, we knew nothing had happened which made it even more eerie walking back. We checked out the internet and there were no updates so still very anxious we went to bed at six. Our pick up was at ten and we managed to sleep through all our alarms until nine so we missed breakfast and were heading straight back to Nadi. At our hostel here we had a look online, Fiji cancelled their tsunami warning at five thirty but it wasn't updated on the website until eight, that's Fiji time for you! We did get a tsunami wave though, it was the great height of 0.5 metres!
Our day in the hostel near the airport we spent in the room exhausted, I have been covered in no exaggeration one hundred mosquito bites and basically just grumpy at the world, which seems a little silly considering what the people of Japan are going through. For us though it was probably the scariest night we've had, with no support from the management even with the government warnings and no information, I think both of us had that feeling of wanting to go back to our side of the planet. All in a normal day travelling the world aye!
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