Having spoken to a retired Aussie couple during my morning walk on the beach, I decided to go to the weekly church service not too far from Pacific Harbour at the Catholic Church of Lomary. I got a taxi there but the service had already started. After taking off my shoes to enter, I was invited to sit at the pews at the back by a sweet little old lady. The church was packed with adults and children of all ages, dressed in the most colourful colours and prints im...

Today I met Clifford, an employee of a bank from Papua New Guinea, or PNG as its known to locals! He's in Fiji for business as the bank is in the final stages of negotiations to buy The Pearl hotel. They're in a joint venture with a mining company that is looking at exploring the mineral wealth in Fiji. Apparently, not too far off, behind the mountains, is an area rich in silver and gold. I wonder how this will change the area as the miners are eventually moved i...

On my first morning in Fiji, I woke up at 6:30am and this set the pattern for the rest of my stay. First things first: explore the surrounding area. The Pearl hotel is situated next to a lazy river at the end of a long-crescent-shaped-coconut-and-palm-tree-fringed-sandy-beach (just like the ones you might have seen postcards of or imagined or dreamed about). I walked along the beach until I reached a point where I could walk no further because someone had built...

When you are greeted at the airport by a ukulele group singing island songs and welcomed with a huge smile by a customs official, you just KNOW you've landed in paradise... Standing in the long customs queue didn't seem half bad when you're tapping our feet to cheerful island tunes! Once we'd cleared immigration we found out from the helpful Nadi Airport staff that there was an express bus which would drop us off just outside the Pearl South Pacific Resort in Pa...

So, I have to confess, I am writing this blog about my last few days in New Zealand from the comfort of my beach bure (hut) in Fiji. So, the details are a little sketchy at this stage, but I need to complete the blog about the end of my journey so I can begin afresh in Fiji. As luck would have it, the weather was bright and sunny when we left the Coromandel for Auckland, so we decided to go for a hike near the town of Thames. The name of the Valley we went to co...