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After Melbourne we went back to Sydney (and stayed in the same hostel-footprints- again). We thought we may be homeless as Footprints had told us they only had room for us for one night, but after staying there for 2 weeks over xmas we knew all about their tricks!! Cheeky monkeys always have room they jus keep them a secret incase some 1 more important needed it. Well of course we argued that who could be more important than us?? and after surprisingly that didn't work we grovelled..a lot!! But it worked we manged to keep our room for the whole time we needed it! Yay!!
Especially useful as it was Mardy Gras (Gay festival) that weekend so having somewhere to stay was kinda important as u didn't wanna sleep on the street that night!! All sorts of crazy people came out of hiding!!
We met up with Ben, Danny, Charlie and Minty and also Gemma and Andrew (Annes hairdresser who we randomly bumped into in Melbourne- seriously i'll say it again,..SMALL WORLD!!) and made a picnic and sat in Hyde park and watched the carnival. It was a really great day...even tho we couldn't really see much, the atmosphere was huge! Like usual we ended up in 'The Gaff' and finished off the night with one of those giant pizza slices that u can only get in Sydney and went to bed ready for our early morning flight to Nadi, Fiji....and thats when the disasters began!!!!!
DISASTER #1- Annes Passport
So we all woke up not so bright but very early and began our packing, we were chatting away (well grunting really..we still hadn't had coffee) when Anne suddenly jumped up and said "Sh#t!! I LOST MY PASSPORT LAST NIGHT!!" . She had completely forgotten that she had lost it...now this isn't a great scenario to be in when we had to be at the airport in about an hour. So she legged it to 'The Gaff' where luckily the cleaners were cleaning and fortunately one of the cleaners had found it on the floor. Well, we don't call her Asbo Anne for nothing!!!
DISASTER #2- Airport Check-in
So after we rushed to the airport (Faye was late getting to our hostel as she had been staying at Ruperts to save money on accomodation) we found our check-in desk just to be told that the aircraft for our flight had been changed and now only 5 out of the 7 of us had seats...eh?? Say what?!?
Can they even do that?? Well after more argueing and eventual grovelling the lady managed to get us all seats.
Another disaster diverterted-just!
DISASTER #3- Fiji Experience tickets
Errr.. we forgot them. These are the tickets that we had spent $600 each on to do whats called the 'Ultimate Lai'- which consists of 7 days and 6 nights on different fiji islands incl food, activities, transport from one island to the next, entertainmwent etc. And without these tickets we would be seeing nada except the inside of our hostel in Nadi (mainland)..so possibly not the best things to forget!!!
We asked Andrew (Anne's hairdresser) who we knew was coming to Fiji the day after us if he could pick up the tickets for us where we'd left them at WKD travel) and bring them with him and we'd meet him at his hostel and get them. So that eve we trekked to his hostel only to be told be reception that he had not checked in- Huh??
We're screwed!!! No tickets-No adventure! But we got on the bus (to the boat) anyway and hoped for the best..and as luck would have it Andrew was on our bus!! And he had our tickets!! Turns out we had gone to the wrong hostel- oops!
And as they say bad things generally happen in 3's so that was our lot- THANK GOD!! Don't think any of us could take any more near misses!! And to make things even better the sun broke thru the clouds once we were on the boat (the weather so far in Fiji had been crap) and we were on our way to our first island 'Tavewa Island' to stay at 'Coral View'.
We were warmly welcomed onto the little island by the staff singing to us a traditional Fijian welcoming song ( we were welcomed onto every island with this same song..this song haunts me in my sleep!!). The island was beautiful, lots of hammocks hanging on palm tree's and white sands and blue sea. The resort itself was family owned so very basic and i felt a little like alice who had fallen down the rabbits hole into Wonderland!! We were staying in these small thatched huts in which we pactically had to crawl get into. They were very quaint. And the main room that we ate in was open aired and was decorated with palm tree leaves.
That day we went for a walk around the beach till we found a isolated spot and sunbathed and swam. Faye and I then played some volley ball with 2 brazilian girls, 2 Norweigan girls a canadian guy (Tim), an English guy (Johnny) and a German guy (Carlo). I never realised quite how bad i was at volley ball until this particular match..my team still won though, however it turned out we had a better chance of winning if i refrained from hitting the ball and just got out of everyones way!!!
That evening we had a typical Fijian meal which was delicious and it was international night so everyone had to so something to do with their country. Like a dance, a joke, a song etc.
We opted to do our 'Fish and chip shop' joke (those of you who have met us on your travels will no doubt know this joke as we tell it to EVERYONE!!! But for the rest of u..sorry can't tell u, its a travellers only joke.)
Anyway we thought our sketch was funny (even if no one else did). The other countries did some dances...the Americans taught us the Hokie Pokie. The Fijians sang to us and showed us some of their traditional dances. Overall it was a top night.
The following morning we had a Caving trip. We had to jump into the water in this very dark cave and once in we had to follow our leader litterally under the water to go through a small hole in the pitch black to get into the next cave. Yeah, we thought it sounded like a great idea too!! Either way we all did it - after some gentle prompting from our guide - and once into the next cave (which was completely black except for the guides torch) we swam through the cave (well huddled really), with our guide sporadically slapping his hands on the water- which created a very loud echoing noise- just to make us even more jumpy than we already were!! Then we had to go back out again the way we went in.
That day consisted of more sunbathing and volleyball (it's a hard life, i know) and that evening we were taught how to do some fijian dances and games which was lots of fun. One of the Fijians that worked there took a bit of a shining to Steph and kept dragging her up to dance with him...much to our amusment!
Our next Isand was Manta-Ray,which was very different from from Coral View. It is not owned by a Fijian family but an Australian guy so it is a lot more modern. We were put in a large dorm (but a very nice and clean dorm) and the place had a bit more of a party atmosphere. But that could of just been that there were more young English groups staying here rather than the couples and slightly older people we had at the other resort.
When we got there we decided to kayak over to the opposite isalnd, which should be about a 10 minute trip, unless u are Rose and Claire (a girl we met there) who got on their Kayak back to front and proceeded to be dragged completely the opposite way to where they wanted to be and had to be rescued!!
That eve was probably my favourite night on all the islands. All the people there were really friendly and it also happened to be one of the girls birthdays so that made it even better, esp as the staff had made her a birthday cake. We played lots of games and ended up swimming in the ocean!
Unfortunately the next day it rained..badly! But it was still a good day. Faye and myself went for a snorkle and saw some very exotic looking fish and then for a bit a a walk over the rocks- which in hindsight wasn't the best of plans as it was raining and very slippery! And after, back in the bar, we were playing rainy day games like 'i spy' and 'consequences' so we kept ourselves amused. oh yeah and the food at this place was to die for!! It was a huge buffet selection including Sushi, pasta, Indian, Salad..EVERYTHING!!! And we thought we might loose some of our aussie fat in Fiji..Fat chance!!!
But unfortunately we had only paid for one night at this place in our deal so we moved on to Kuata. Our send off was fantastic!! All our friends that we had made who had another night left on the island sang as the 'Bula' song from the shore as we sailed off- A very memorable moment!!!
In Kuata unfortunately we were not quite so happy. The weather was still bad but there wasn't really the same sort of people there that we could play games with. Our dorm was very open and very damp and that night we found out had rats (which Rose has a phobia of). There wasn't as much going on in the evening and all of us basically were a bit down here. And of course this would be the place that we had two nights in! Well after the first night (where some of the girls didn't manage to sleep at all!) we had a VERY long and slightly dramatic group discussion, where the final result was that we would pay an extra 30 pounds each just to leave this place early and stay at Bounty island an extra night- best descision we ever made!!!!
Bounty Island is where celebrity Love Island is set and it is a proper holiday resort!!! Althogh i still think the people we met were better on Manta-Ray Island. I have to admit this island was pretty spectacular. Kayaks and small catamaranes were free, snokelling was fantastic (me and faye saw a Spotted stingray). There was a pool- with sunlounges!!- a huge bar with nightly games and entertainment (incl karioke, much to Roses joy!! We even had Jess and Nat do us a very entertaining rendition of spice girls!!!), free pool and table tennis and of couse volleyball!
Our fist day myself, Faye and Nat walked around the whole isalnd (only a 30 min walk- these are not particualry big islands!) and then we all got ready for dinner (which was very nice) and the night ahead. We ended up meeting a group of English lads so spent the evening playing games and chatting to them. Some of us got up to play some of the organised games but none of us won .
The next day was actually quite a productive day. We swam in the pool and myself and Faye kayaked around the island in the morning and did some snorkelling and visited the love shack (from celebrity love island) where we left a little poem on the wall- everyone had left messages on the wall using chalk.
After lunch us girls went for a walk around the island and bumped into the Aussie owner of Manta-ray Island (he must of been lost and forgotten which island was his!!) and visited the love shack (again!). Then all of us (incl the boys we had met the night before) had a friendly kayak race around the island and then had a big game of volleyball (which i am gradually improving at- well occasionally my serves go over the net now whilst to begin with they never did!)
Again that night we went to the bar and all joined in with the games (Anne won one of them!!) and learned a couple of Fijian dances (which reminded me vaguely of the 'Macarena'). But had a relatively early night.
The next day was our last but we had till about 5pm until our boat came to take us back to main land. Myself a Faye had one last Kayak around the island and one last volley ball game. We all did a lot of serious sunbathing (well NZ isn't known for its sunbathing and thats where we r off to next) said goodbye to the boys and got on our boat back to mainland (where i found out i had just missed Pommers and his brother, which was quite anoying!! Sorry Al if your reading this, met some girls who had met u tho!!).
Now we are back in Nadi (and it's raining again!) jus waiting for our flight to New Zealand tomo!!
CAN"T WAIT!!!!
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