OK a quick few things from an entertaining (and finally sunny- wohoo!) last few days in Fiji...

We had decided to fly back to Nadi as the 2 day ferry trip wasnt going to happen again, much as we enjoyed sharing the time with a body... We got a taxi to the airport and got out, looking around for something that did actually resemble an airport. It turns out it was just basically a roof with pillars to hold it up, about the size of my lounge at home, and a tiny office. We weighed our bags on bathroom scaes, then weighed ourseves (standard airport practise, naturally). We sat about a meter from the office', staring at a toy plane and wandering when the real one would arrive... After a couple of minutes, the man in the ffice got out his intercom thing (not sure if thats the right word but I'm ging with it) and made a very pointless annncement to us and the 3 or 4 other peplewho were all sat spitting distance from im- it basically went 'ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. We are now ready t board for flight bladibla, so could all passengers pease make their way t the departure gate.' We aughed- they didnt seem to think that was the appropriate response, but we basically just had to stand up. The departure gate was just a small sign on the wall next to us. Anyway, we boarded the toy pane, each of us bumping our heads in turn as we attemted t stand up inside... It had 13 people on board, the 2 pilots included. They did the usual safety talk, which was definately more interesting than normal, when you are watching a man pretty much crawl to a space and 'stand up' with his shoulders, head, neck and half his bac pressed gainst the ceiling. It was very pretty and we had great views (from both sides f the plane as it was so small). Good fun until the travel sickness set in... eek!

We made it back to Bamboo in Nadi, after having been forgotten by the staff for our ick up... psh! The rest of that way was a bit of a wash out, uploading photos and playing cards with Xiao and Filippo, then with all of us opting for a ridiculously early bed time to sleep off the gammy bellies (well if you will eat dog balls...) and woke up to SUNSHINE!!!! We pottered to the loca shopping centre (haha) to get stuff for a beach picnic feast... crisps and biscuits, that is... Just had a lazy day basically. We managed to avoid the Kava and instead sat with a bunch of very good fun traveller types, absolutely thrashing them at card games they had just taught us. Nicole, then Laura went to bed (probably sensible), but I was determined to stick it out until my luck changed and I stopped coming 1st or 2nd in this game- I was just not going to be ok with handing over my win to someone else. This may have been a bad plan, as I underestimated how ong that would take. It hit about 1.30am before I realised I hadn't paced- not an easy thing to do in a 12 bed dorm full of sleeping people that you can't wake up by turning on the lights. I spent a while taking iles of stuff into the kitchen to pack and ended up chatting to some people we'd been playing cards with. It got to the point where it seemed fairly ridiculous going to bed at all and I decided I'd only be more tired if I had an hour or so to sleep (decision helped along by certain people- you now who you are!) Elia woke up early and insisted on taing us to the airport, despite it eaning he'd have to wait there for about an hour for his next pick up (love that guy!). He was very sad and weepy when we went and nearly had me going too :-(. Ah well, I'll just have to go back to Fiji again sometime soon... hard life!).

I think it was about half an hour after we got to the airport that I remembered we were being picked up my parents' old friends, the Bowlers, and began to regret the not going to bed thing! We were piced up and taen to the YMCA ( slightly swankier than we're now used to- 3 bed rooms, hot showers, locks on bathroom doors and electric blankets!!! Legen... wait for it...dary!

We spent a really nice (if a little cold) day with Mike, Suan, Caroline and Nicola, hunting down some good views over chrstchurch etc and then went to dinner (minus Nicole unfortunately, as she was sleeping off a migrane) with the whole family plus Caroline's hubby and Nicola's boyfriend- lots of fun, despite the sleep deprvation- Thank you! After a very deep sleep in our nicey warmed beds, we pottered about a bit, went for some lunch and found a supermaret to stoc up on tic tacs and crisps (standard emergency supplies) before a nap and dinner again with Caroline, Ben, Nicola and Simon- again, a really nice evening- we really have been spoilt the last few days. Christchurch is a strange place to be at the moment- it's a bit like a ghost town- lots of buildings with big chunks missing and a general post earthquake feel, its sad to think how much has been destroyed here, but everyone's upbeat despite, which it nice.

We're now just killing time, putting off a walk to find our bus pick up point laden with all our worldly belongings... I'm half expecting at least ne of us to fall over and not be able to get back up, turtle style...

We're getting used to it being below 10 degrees again, but hopefully it won't last!