We're here!

Just to let everyone know that wasn't following the flight we have landed safe and sound in a very lovely sunny Sidney after a wonderful flight. Today's blog to come tonight love to all xxxxx

Wednesday 31st

We got up today to a lovely sunny morning. 27 degrees is expected temperature today. We were up before everyone else to try and squeeze in some FaceTime with the family but Fiji wifi didn't really allow this very well so we scrapped this idea and sent emails instead! Laura and Tatjana joined us for breakfast today and we chowed down on some toast and fruit and a lovely cup of coffee! We went back to the room and prepared for a beach day. Bamboo has a pool which we only found out about yesterday so after grabbing a sun lounger we went for a dip. Ahhhhhh lovely a good couple of hours passed and we had a bathe in the sun. Laura started to get peckish so she had a plate of chips for lunch and we went back on the beach after lunch to find out that some theiving Australian sod had stolen Myles' sun bed, leaving our water in the sun and taking my towel from it! However the Australians being a little lacking had just dragged it to their spot. So Myles followed the tracks and asked in the politest way he could to have it back. Myles returned with his sun lounger and just to spite the Australians went for a swim. Many hours later we returned to have a sun bathe and went back to our dorm. Laura had a shower and Myles thought he would be a housewife and do all the washing. We went down for dinner to find Laura and Tatjana looking at the blackboard menu so we joined them for dinner again! We said our goodbyes and went back to steal some more wifi and go to bed eegerely awaiting our flight to Australia tomorrow!!! Last post from Fiji. Lots of love to everyone at home we miss you lots xxx

 

I thought I'd spice up things by dropping some photos in!!

Tuesday 30th

Today we were up bright and early as today is a very special day. We get to leave this hostel! Yay! We went to breakfast and had 2 doughnuts and a piece of bread. There was porridge but it looked like lumpy milk, I asked to confirm this and apparently it was indeed porridge. We slept a little better last night, probably because we were just so tired but we will still have a good nap on the beach before our boat comes. We have booked the same boat that brought us here to take us back to Nadi. (The mainland). Tatjana and Laura (the German girls) we had met the other day stayed another night as they got a private room free of charge. They wished they hadn't, their bed was riddled with bed bugs so they moved back to the dorm! It was another rubbish night sleep for them. We got to the beach and sunbathed for a while until our boat came. We had forgotten to check out as we were on 'Fiji time' they didn't like that much. We hopped on the boat as they were refuelling  and waited for the driver to turn up, a Fijian asked me to pull forward a bit so he could get the anchor up but he managed to do it before I started the engines. I was still in the drivers seat when the driver got onboard (20 mins later) and I asked if I could drive. He didn't take this as a joke and I found my seat with my tail between my legs... We flew to nadi at quite a rate of knots as the sea was very calm and got to our hostel. This was the same one we stayed in before we went island hopping and we booked 2 nights before we left. They had no recollection of this so check in took a good half hour and they wanted us to pay $16fjd per night! We refused as we were told it was $12 a night and we weren't  going to pay for their cock up. After a long heated argument in Fijian the staff agreed to upgrade us and we would only pay $12 per night, that's better. We got to our room and got chatting to the people in it. After this we went down to grab some wifi and update this marvellous blog for you all to read. We did lots of Internet things and headed for dinner. We had sweet and sour pork and spaghetti. A complementary carrot soup came and again Myles had 2 portions haha! We had found Tatjana and Laura from the mana resort and had dinner with them. They ordered after us and they finished their dinner before ours arrived. Myles thought this was not right so had a trip to the kitchen to meet the chef. Myles returned and 2 mins later we had our dinner. Being rather tired Laura headed for bed while Myles stayed up for half an hour talking to Andrew. Battery dying I went to bed to a rather good nights sleep! Well better than the last 4 nights anyway!!!

Monday 29th

Well today is the same as the past 3 so far. At around 4 o'clock this morning there was a Fijian cleaning, this in itself was noisy because they have stupid handmade brushes that scratch across the floor. However the music playing from her phone (Fijian church gospel) was just a new level. This combined with the usual noise that these particular Fijians create made for a pretty bad nights sleep. Breakfast again was poor, I have never in my life had curry, porridge and bread for breakfast. It was eaten because we were so hungry but others just left it. We headed for the beach to catch up on last nights sleep, somehow it's quieter in the beach during the day than at the middle of the night?? We chatted to people and went for a good long swim and returned to the beach to sunbathe for a while. Checkout time came for our friends and they sat and waited for their boat. 1/2 12 came and they were still here! They should have gone at 10! So we had to wait for lunch as the resort weren't going to feed the check out people. 😞 Luckily the boat came and we got lunch at 1. At 2 o'clock we had the jet ski booked as we had cash left over, it seemed pointless changing it back as the exchange rate would be awful. Anyways we walked down and signed our lives away. They had another one there that wasn't starting so I went over to check it out. There was a chap there with his hands in the engine bay, he was from kiwi land. Myles asked if he had one at home and he said yeah sort of, turns out that he's the current 11 time world jet ski champion and races for Seadoo. *(Nerd bit coming for Mark)* he has a 2 litre supercharged Seadoo, 290hp and capable of 110mph, 0-60 is around 3 seconds water dependant. He was impressed with our model but said it was a little heavy. The one we took out today was a wave runner 700S not great but still nipped along nicely still 50mph. Back for everyone to read now, we hopped on and Myles having used to drive one took Laura and frightened her for a bit until the screaming got too much and Laura had a go, she pootled about for a couple of minutes and we swapped back the water was fairly smooth so flat out was easy until the catamaran came through. Myles being Myles had it completely out the water and got a firm telling off from Laura so it was back to pooteling again for a bit. We had one last blast as it wasn't ours or our fuel and returned it back to shore, thanked the guys very much and walked back to our hostel. Laura was rather unhappy to day the least hehehe. We got back went for a swim and Laura disappeared inside. Laura does not feel well again 😷so it's doctor Myles to the rescue, (Again) haha. (Laura has even cracked into her Dioralyte sachets and finished one Sally!) be proud. We spent an afternoon in our room out of the sun and got round to dinner. Tonight we ate outside and it was dark so we don't know what it was it tasted like a burger in gravy with carrot and potato? Not 100% sure though. We sat opposite some people and played blind date. Not literally but we met a new couple. Well we met their shadows anyway, a lovely couple travelling together from Britain and got talking about the USA and Fiji advising them to check out tomorrow morning and go to another island, they booked 10 days here!! So they are off to wallalalllaalaie I think. We watched another Fijian dance night and some more fire dance which was better than the first night. We had run out of water this evening, normally tap water is safe to drink on the islands unless stated. Here it is not safe and we have got through all our bottled reserves, this in itself was a pain as they wanted us to buy it, we refused blind to do that and the bartering began. We finished by getting a bottle from the kitchen at the right price. Free. So we drunk and drunk and went to bed pleased knowing that we are back on the mainland tomorrow. And we can post these marvellous blogs for you all to read! Mucho lovo Myles and Laura xxxx

Sunday 28th

Today we awoke to the usual racket, and headed for breakfast, today was a slice of cold toast, a funny cinnamon bun and a slice of apple. We went to our room to gather beach things and ended up sleeping for another 2 hours. After this we then went to the beach and slept some more. Lunch came around and was rice and a funny noodle sauce thing. Again it wasnt the best but was eaten. We headed back to the beach and saw some jet skis flying about so went to investigate how much they were, walking along the beach the sea went eerily smooth so we scrapped the jet ski idea and checked out the honeymoon resort. These were basically 2 story apartments with a golf corse swimming pools air con and your own golf buggys to get you around. Oh yeah and an airfield. Walking down the path, a golf buggy pulled up with a rather large Fijian man in and we were asked to leave immediately. So we ran away. Basically It's nicer than here. We got back to our beach and sunbathed for a few mins before going for a swim.  We spent all afternoon and evening on the beach relaxing meeting new people as the Japanese were gone its now nice and quiet. Laura made me an ankle bracelet out of string which I think looks rather lovely. With our new friends we played frisbie on the beach for a while and chatted until dinner. We headed in and after meeting the boring Norwegians yesterday Myles wanted to try again to meet someone more interesting so we sat with a couple of rather pretty blonde German girls. One was called Laura and the other Tatjana. They were less boring and much more friendly as they had just been working in Australia so we had quite a lot to talk about. They gave us some good tips on getting work and what they were doing there. I'm not even going to bother writing about dinner because I can't be bothered. Both Tatjana and Laura come from the blue lagoon resort and have booked 5 days here. They have now changed that and are leaving tomorrow morning!! They didn't even care they weren't getting their money back! Tonight was movie night and we watched cast away. This film is very famous here as it was shot on the island opposite this one! So we watched and enjoyed it and worked out what should be where, what was shot in a studio and what had been deleted from scenery in post production. After cast away we watched the beginning of the new James Bond but went to bed anyway as we watched it on the plane.

Saturday 27th

Today we got up an breakfast was a poor display of doughnuts and a piece of bread. I have never had such a dry breakfast in my life. We ran away from breakfast and hid on the beach until lunchtime, lunch was a green bean curry thing. I'm not going to lie it wasn't great. Earlier on some Japanese people turned up, well 20 actually. We got rid of the silly Americans and noisy Aussies and gained these! Again we ran away to the beach and Laura had a good sleep while I walked up to have a peek at the expensive resort. It did look a lot nicer than this one so I would show Laura later. I let Laura sleep for a while and woke her up to have some water every hour or so. Evening came and we went in for dinner. We sat opposite some Norwegian girls who turned out to be about the most boring people we have met so far. With Myles being a little disappointed we headed to the beach as we had heard tonight we were being treated to a variety of Fijian dances. After many hours of Fiji time the dancers appeared and were pretty good, 2 women dancers which wernt anything special followed by a man doing a blindfolded machete  (don't know how to spell it) dance which was rather impressive! After this we were escorted outside to watch a fire dance! Again very impressive! We thanked them very much and headed for bed.   

Friday 26th

Today we woke up at 6:20 to watch the sun rise and be a bit German and claim a sunbed. The island is very small and accommodates around 30 but aparantly can accommodate 130 people during the day! Including the 30 that were already here! So just incase Myles shot out and towled our sunbeds. We saw the sunrise over Nadi which was relatively poor to be honest it was cloudy over the mainland so we didn't see much, it just meant that we were first for breakfast which was beans on toast for Myles and apple, orange, scrambled egg, and 4 slices of toast. Myles saving space for the BBQ buffet lunch. We returned after breakfast to our dorm for a 10 min snooze as it was a late night & early morning. After this we went to the beach to watch the day trippers arrive and yes there were a lot! We were laying on our loungers with an Australian woman next to us who had had a little too much to drink last night and was still a little tipsy this morning, she seemed to be having great difficulty in keeping her womanly parts in her top.. But enough of that, we jumped on the 'nemo tour' which is a FREE glass bottomed boat. Needless to say if we had paid for it I would have asked for my money back, we did see a fish and a starfish though, it was nothing compared to the blue lagoon though. We returned to the loungers where the Australian was now asleep, we wrote a couple of postcards and our boat to Mana was announced for boarding. We had chartered a private boat to take us to Mana as the catamaran didn't go there. It was fairly smart and once we got into open water it was fairly quick too! Luckily the sea was like a mirror so Laura didn't feel sick. We arrived at our hostel and were greeted by all the staff. We can see further round the island to a resort which looks nicer than ours, mind you it should be for 3000fjd (each) per night! Ours is 100fjd for the both of us, including food... (That's under £30) There is a resort the other side of the island that has just qualified to be a 7* resort, that too is nicer than our hostel. We still share the same beach and weather and sea though, and can also use their jetskis! We missed our BBQ at south sea as our boat was early but still got fed here. We investigated our room and were pretty dissapointed to see exactly what our £30 was getting us. It's pretty dirty and pretty dark. Anyway we headed to the beach for 3 hours of sunbathing and a swim and the sun went in, yes there are clouds! We went back inside for a sleep and same out just before dinner, which was a funny curry thing an rather lumpy mashed potato. Dinner not enjoyed and hoping the food wasn't going to be like this all week we headed to bed.

Thursday 25th

Today was our last day at wallalalllaalaie we went for breakfast which wasn't as good as we were used to for some reason? No idea why though... We returned to our dorm to pack and check out, all paid for and we hit the beach for the day. An hour or so passed and a boat arrived full of American students. We looked at eachother and agreed that leaving today was a good call! Being American they were as loud as Americans are and were amazed by the smallest of things. Fish in the sea for example. We went for lunch which was considerably better than brekkie, there were 2 types of fish, one was in a tomato and onion sauce which was rather lovely! Along with pasta and a great potato salad. We went back to our dorm (the one we have checked out of) to use the toilets and electronicicity to charge phones. Back to the beach and a cup of coffee later we got back on our boat to catch the catamaran. Watching the poor woman trying to pull start a boat engine was not fun, some pity was taken and a few seconds later we were off... However the catamaran was late!! So we sort of floated to another island and found some shade until the catamaran appeared. We shot out and boarded to sail to south sea island. An hour later we arrived and jumped on the connecting boat to take us to shore. This is the smallest island in Fiji. It takes around 30 seconds to walk from one side to the other. It's probably no bigger than our garden at home!!  We watched a beautiful sunset and went to our dorm. We were hoping for a private room but its only one dorm on the island, its basically a big barn! although no private rooms! Oh well.. Dinner tonight was a chicken and sweet corn soup followed by roast beef. It was rather nice, Laura enjoyed the bread. After dinner there were many speeches followed by games, we went to see what games there were but we were the only ones so we ran away. Back in the dorm we had a chat to the few local sleepers and went to bed. Not expecting the greatest nights sleep tonight to be honest....

This blog was written just after dinner, normally that would be it however it wasn't. Our dorm had a separate little room where we were which had 6 beds in it, 2 occupied by silent Germans and 2 occupied by a couple of crazy British guys, one being a medical student (who got 8 A*s at GCSE) made us feel a little silly... Anyway we got talking to them and they were the funniest people we have met on the trip so far. We were up for hours laughing and joking, much to the disgust of the dorm. They are keeping something different than a blog it's just a saying blog. Basically they just make a note of all the stupid & funny stuff they have said or others have said to them. One from last night was added, we were talking about sci-fi films and one pronounced it sky-fi. It was as simple as that and sounds rather simple reading it but in context last night it was hilarious...

Wednesday 24th

The sound of the same alarm awoke us 3 times only this morning followed by the sound of drums for breakfast. We reluctantly crawled out of our bed and headed for the table. Today was fried bread, fruits, custard cake and cereals. Tummies full we went off to the beach for a swim before the tide went out and had a sunbathe before lunch. Lunch was fried eggs on bed of lettuce tomato and bread covered in a tomato sauce, there was also a Fijian chow mein which was rather good. Chips were a novelty too! After lunch we returned to our hammocks and Myles even put on sun cream, it was hot today! Afternoon tea was served and rather than coffee Myles just had boiling water. This wasn't to drink just to shave, it's been a week and he thought it was horrible. Shaving with cold water is just as horrible but less so than being unshaven haha! After this we went back to the beach and as the tide was back in we went for another swim. We headed back to the dorm to meet our new roomies, it's only a small dorm so we are sharing with 4 others, 3 Germans and a British student studying medical science. He has come to Fiji to work in a Fijian hospital between terms. This evening Myles was determined to get a photo of moonrise as he had missed it the past 2 days and it was full moon tonight. Stood outside for half an hour, camera on tripod, waiting with everyone making fun because there was no moon and joking saying there's no moon tonight. Dinner was an hour early tonight as it was Fijian night. I was still adamant that there was going to be a moonrise so brought all my camera gear set up to dinner and hid it in the corner. This Fijian night was FAR BETTER than any other night we have had. The whole village came to this one! We sat down for the traditional cava ceremony. They say prayers chants and then pass round the cava. It looks like muddy water and tastes pretty much the same however in Britain it's a class C narcotic drug but seemed to have no effect on Myles. Most people just get a numb tongue. Laura didn't try it though.... Again the women went first for dinner, it was very similar to the food we had at our first island, apart from the freshly caught octopus which we watch them catch 3 hours before so it was really fresh. Dinner finished and Myles spotted something oh yes he was right after all this. Moonrise. I was the only one with a camera as everyone else thought I was an idiot, I also was the only one who got a proper photo and didn't use an iPhone. We returned to the dinner table to many people wanting to see the photos. The village then treated us to songs and dances from their tribe including axes and spears! Laura danced with them and we thanked them very much and headed to bed for the night.  

Tuesday 23rd

The first thing we heard this morning was somebody's alarm followed by it going off another 5 times Because they didnt turn off the snooze this annoyed everyone greatly. The drums sounded so everyone in the dorm rolled out of bed and headed to the dining room. This morning we had fried eggs and toasted bread along with the usual stuff. Breakfast eaten we headed down to the beach to see if Laura could do the village visit today. Luckily the weather was okay so a boat had been organised so long as 4 people wanted to do it, another couple came to the activities shed so that made 3 and Laura asked another chap and he came too so that was 4 which meant village trip at 1:30 wahoo! 

After this back to bed as we were up late playing minesweeper... This never really happened as they are doing repairs on the resort, chainsaw right outside our dorm put the kibosh on that! So we went back to the beach in search of a hammock. Our usual one had stuff in it so we tried another and once we both hopped in it ground out, oh. Next hammock it was, after a snooze in the sun it was time for a few games on the iPhone and then lunch. Lunch today was pizza, sausages, more pasta and rice with yesterday's curry sauce dried on it. This wasn't a great lunch, the pizza was okay and so was the pasta but the sausages didn't look like they had been cooked and well the rice was dry so that wasn't too nice either :S disappointing! But never the less we filled our tummies enjoyed some juice and went back to the room so Laura could prepare for the village trip. This consisted of getting changed into leggings to cover her knees and a T-shirt that covered her shoulders. This was so not to offend the village people not that anyone else bothered doing so! 

We walked to the beach to see that the tide had gone out, this was a problem as the boat had gone out too.. Laura predicted very wet leggings ahead! She was correct, after saying goodbyes she headed for the boat with the 3 others getting wet legs as she went. 

Laura's afternoon 

So once I got into the boat we all sat down complete with a man carrying eggs ready to head to the village. We started the very choppy ride which took about 10 mins including a man who got off half way to collect some other things we never found out what they were, we assumed fruits of sorts. Once we got to the village the eldest man aboard helped us out and told us he was our guide. We walked around the beach and up a hill till we saw the village there were 2 very long metal buildings which belonged to the school we walked past the classrooms where children ran to the windows waving and calling 'Bula' 

After this we walked through the rest of the village called Nomboro village past lots of houses and their village hall. By this point we had reached the other side of the island and were on another rather lovely beach. We were led to another narrow path which we had to take to get to the next village which was where our guides family lived. The villages used to link by the sand between them at low tide but this was destroyed during the last cyclone. 

We followed the path passing some pigs in cages along the way and arrived at the next village called Yamata Village. This village seemed a lot poorer than the first as the houses were more shack like than the first village. Our guide went on to tell us that the cyclone effected this village worse than the first, the government usually send aid and supplies straight away but this time they had not so they were still waiting. Because of this some houses were parts of houses and some beds were outside. We continued walking hearing cheers of Bula from more children too young to go to school yet. Some waved, some chased us and even asked our names and told us theirs. Then some more cheering in Fijian the guide told us this was his house and his Granddaughter was inside. I was shocked as it was almost one of the worst houses we had seen except those without roofs. It was very basic and had a dead octopus in a bag waiting for dinner. We carried on and our guide showed us lots of different plants throughout the village and we saw the plant that they make their local kava drink from. Kava is a muddy brown watery drink that all the locals drink instead of alcohol which supposedly is a bit druggy and makes your mouth go numb like when your at the dentist. Another one is "it's like being stoned in your mouth." Needless to say we haven't tried that one! It's made by cutting the roots off this plant washing it, taking the skin off, boiling it then mashing it to a pulp and then they mix it with some other stuff to make it look like muddy water. Moving on we saw the local village church which again was basic but nice. We saw the biggest house in the village which was the Pastors house and then headed back to the school to spend some time with the children there. The school has about 80 children and is a boarding school for children from islands around come to. The classes were split into grades, kindergarten, grade 1&2, 3&4 and 5&6. I was surpirsed to see how well they spoke English initially and had a good 9 children around me asking me questions and telling me about themselves. But the first thing most of them did was look at my St Christopher necklace. We had a look in the classrooms and most were doing science some learning about eyes others food groups and one about where crabs are found. At this point I found a teacher and got chatting to him he had the mixed 3&4 class. I found out all the children learn 3 languages, English, Fijian and Indian which is new. This was a new government initiative which along with English communication skills and money management lessons meant they had to teach 7 different things which he was quite upset about! It was quite odd as a teaching assistant to see how basic the schools were, lots of the children's work on show in every classroom on any surface available but no real resources anywhere. The reading books looked very much like they came from the 60s and the text books looked like they had been going about the same. But never the less they were so happy with school and all said they loved it. After this it was boarding time so we said goodbyes and climbed back into the boat. We spoke too soon when we said it was much calmer than before because once we picked up the chap who got the fruit the waves picked up. The driver slowed down for a bit as we were all getting a little wet but then the others were calling him chicken and egging him on to speed up and boy did he! It made me wish I had taken multiple travel sickness tablets. The boat was totally out of the water at points! It was so small that it didn't even have real seats so we were just sat on the floor, that was an issue when we hit a huge wave and I was flung across the boat. I genuinely thought I was going to fall out... :S

After that I wobbled out of the boat to dry land where I did feel rather ill.  

Myles' afternoon 

After seeing Laura off and taking pictures of her in the boat I made myself comfy in a hammock. Drums went for afternoon tea and I actually had to get up and do something, well I didn't, but I fancied a coffee. After coffee was drunkified I returned to the comfort of my hammock waiting for my princess to return. That's my afternoon summed up really.....

After this we relaxed together for the rest of the day followed by a freezing cold shower until dinner where there was chicken in white sauce (couldn't escape that one mum!) After this Richard and us ran from the dining room to avoid the dancing. We were too noisy and got caught by the activities lady! She screamed "where are you going" we said bed she shouted "games" and we ran away to bed with her still shrieking after us all! Games escaped it was sleep time.

Monday 22nd

This morning we woke to a fairly breezy morning again the sunrise did look pretty good though, I think I will get up to see that one tomorrow. A mad group did a mountain hike to see it, they left when it was still dark, sod that! 
Inspecting our room the bugs that we had smashed last light were ALL gone! We could only assume that the resident gecko had eaten them all?  Breakfast wasn't as good as it has been there were still pancakes but no toast :( after breakfast we were still really tired for some reason so we thought we would have some Fiji time and have a snooze. Once we awoke Laura put sun cream on and we headed for the beach, the beach here is nice but no snorkelling which did mean we could go for a swim. We spent a few hours in the hammocks sunbathing and relaxing having a bit more Fiji time. Then the drums sounded for lunch, today we had  pasta, mince and a sausage dish which was all very nice and we all had seconds. After this we were told about the activities for the rest of the day. Here they really try to sell you everything, which we don't really like but it's very much a family run resort here and they are doing a lot of improvements. Because we didn't want to do any of the activities Laura asked if she could go to the local village school tomorrow, the guide wasn't that keen until she said that she was a teacher then he was very happy to try and go regardless of the weather, funny how that happens... So we shall see if that happens tomorrow! 
After this back to the beach for a little more sunbathing in the hammocks and another snooze to work off lunch. We awoke and started chatting to some other people in hammocks and went for a swim. The sea was cold today and it had waves! With stones underfoot we jumped in and had a swim around for a while. Once we got cold (we being laura) ran for our towels and dried out in the sun. WALL.E wanted to stretch his tracks so he came out for a bit and played in the sand while we took in the sun for the last bit of the day. The evening came and got a little chilly so we hid in the dorm and Myles taught Laura how to play minesweeper. This was an interesting experience as by the time we were in bed Laura was on the expert level and playing after everyone else had gone to bed! Dinner was chicken curry last night, Laura was rather happy as there was an unlimited poppamadomm supply! It wasn't the greatest curry but in fairness we had a brilliant lunch. As I said earlier we returned to bed to have a good nights sleep. After minesweeper.

Sunday 21st

Today was our last morning at the octopus resort, we knew they had wifi but you only get 30 mins worth. So we used the laptop to do the blog updates and try and do some pictures for you all however being satellite Internet it just went bleh I'm not doing it. So we left that and tried to FaceTime as many people as we could. We were up at 6AM because of the time difference! Speaking to Laura's mum & dad it cut off half way through and said we have exceeded our bandwidth! This was after only 17 mins! After this we headed up for breakfast and today there were sausages! Needless to say Myles took advantage if this, he had omelette on toast with 7 sausages. He was happy. Being so early we headed for the beach (only a 15 second walk) and claimed our sun lounger. The morning was beautiful and the sea was like glass so we grabbed our snorkels and hit the reef. It was totally different to the day before, the sun was beaming through the water and reflecting of the incredible colours of the fish, it was amazing! After 2 hours we were nackered so went to the sun loungers to dry off. After only a few minutes we were dry and went to pack our bags and check out. We got back to the dorm and the resort had heard that the other resort had bed bugs so the beds were gone! They were all being cleaned! All checked out we had lunch, today was a good but a little dry chicken teriyaki pizza, played 2 games of pool (Myles won both) and  went to the taxi boat. Out of our little resort area in open water the sea was quite choppy so we had to change from our little boat to a superboat to take us to the catamaran which would take us to the next resort. Myles enjoyed the superboat greatly thanks to having 2 V8 engines on it and 800 horsepower! It was rather good fun... We eventually climbed aboard the catamaran and headed to our new resort. Its called wayalailai Eco haven (I think that's how you spell it) pronounced wa-la-lei-lei, far too many l's. we sat down for afternoon tea and met our new room mates! We were taken to separate dorms where we met a lovely girl called Emma, she's from London and knows Brighton well so we got on rather well! It's just us 3 in the dorm which is lovely and we have our own en-suite shower and toilet!!! We chatted for a couple of hours about Australia as that's where she had just come from which is helpful and the dinner drums went. We shot across to see what food was there, tonight was a buffet of potato mayonnaise, beef broth, BBQ chicken, coleslaw, what looked like fried mushroom and obviously pineapple and melon. The mushroom was not mushroom and we still do not know what it was. Anyway we chatted to Emma for a few hours and went back to our dorm. We got there and realised that a light was on, electricity isn't on all day so we didn't know any different. This was a bad thing as it had attracted a few critters. 15 mins were spent eradicating these before settling down for the night.

Saturday 20th

This morning was our first morning at octopus. We got up had breakfast and returned to our dorm for a while. We had a walk down to the beach to have an explore, there wasn't much to see really it was just a beach! So we returned and had a snooze in the sun until lunchtime. We headed up for lunch, there wasn't a full menu as they weren't all working again yet so Laura had a chicken burger and Myles had the beef burger. Both weren't really worth writing home about so we won't. After lunch we went to the dive shop to hire our snorkelling gears (yes the Fijians call it gears) and went for a quick snorkel. The sea was fine but it had clouded over so it was a bit dark. We tired ourselves out and headed back to shore. We decided to have a shower and go to the dorm. This was a good call as the heavens opened. A proper tropical rainstorm ensued and drenched everything! So we hid in the dorm all afternoon and played on our phones haha. Dinner came round and we headed for the restaurant still baffled by the sand floor and sat t a table and by sheer coincidence we realised we had sat at the same table as the Australian family we met the night before!! Again we got chatting waiting for our soup to arrive, we waited for a while and weren't looking forward to it. It was spinach soup. The soup arrived and it looked like what we were expecting, green gunge. Both of us tried it, Laura rejected it however Myles rather liked it and had both! It was actually rather nice!! Main course was a marinated chicken with red wine jus and tomato relish. My god the relish was spicy and the jus was very very very well reduced... it was strong! Pudding was a pumpkin and coconut pie, I managed to have 3 of these as the Australian childeren had left and I had Laura's. their dad had 2 as he had his other daughters. We spent a good 3 hours chatting and getting into a rather heated debate about F1 (being an Aussie he obviously supported Mark Webber). After this we went to the coconut bar as they were giving everyone tequila shots. Both Laura and me don't really drink but we will both have anything that's free. We drank our petrol flavoured drink and went to bed.

Friday 19th

This morning we woke up to the same wind that we left las night only the rain had stopped. It's still not cold however we did crack out our jumpers for breakfast just to protect us from the wind. We had a walk down to the beach and laid in the hammocks for a very short while, we returned to the games room as we were getting sand blasted on the beach! (Death valley all over again) today is our last day on the manta ray resort, we are heading back down south to the octopus resort. Hearing reports from other people many of them say its far nicer than it is here! We thought it was pretty good here (apart from the bed bugs)! We jumped on the little boat which takes us to the super ferry, the wind hadn't dropped that much so the sea was very choppy, well it was for here, it's about the same as a calm day at home. However once we were out in open water it really was rough, they were handing out sick bags on the boat! I thought it was hilarious but Laura didn't think it was too great, luckily we were only on it for half an hour. We got to our new resort, luckily facing the other way from the wind direction so the sea was like glass. Again we were greeted by the staff with a song and given a free cocktail each! The owner was also there (a Brit!) and greeted us all. We were shown to our dorm room, this time only a 7 bed dorm, we are sharing with a couple from California a German another British girl and a man who does not speak. Anywho we dropped our bags off and hit the beach to explore. The rumors were true this place was nicer. It's by far got the best beach and water. Looks very similar to what I have seen of the Maldives, it's more if a holiday resort so there's a pool and even HOT WATER!!! Something we haven't had for 10 days now. So we proceeded to have a rather long shower and head for dinner. Tonight was a rather good buffet BBQ with a huge selection of pasta and salads. A first for both Laura and me was the restaurant, we haven't been in one with a sand floor before!! We sat with a lovely Australian family from Melbourne who we got chatting to. We would have played games tonight but we were told there had been a death in the local tribe and the staff were in their version of mourning basically. We didn't mind as we were in bed just after 8!

Thursday 18th

This morning we got up at the same time and breakfast was early! The drums went as we were getting out of bed!! So we shot up and had our fill. We came back to the room and our bed looked so appetising we snuck back into it, all was well until I saw a little black thing crawling up the mosquito net.. We got a ziplock bag and caught it to have a closer look and it was just what we suspected BEDBUGS! 41 days in and we have come across our first hostel with bed bugs! We checked with some of the people in the next bunk over and they agreed that it was a bed bug, we looked back at the net and there was another one! We lost that one and took our bag complete with bedbug to show management. They weren't surprised and were aware that there were bedbugs, asked for our bed number and went to check it out and tell housekeeping to give it an extra good clean. The beds are stripped everyday and the mattresses are hoovered outside with a Sthil Hoover which Myles approved of greatly. After this we headed down to the beach which was very empty as the weather is pants today, it's grey and very windy. Never the less we found everyone hiding in the bar on the sofas organising a walk around the island we signed ourselves up and off we went. 
During the walk everyone was found a coconut to bring back. Laura fell over on the slippery rocks which was hilarious, other than that it was pretty uneventful. We watched our guide crack open the coconuts to reveal the actual nut part which we carried back to the resort. Once we got back we cracked open the nuts to eat the inside of the good ones and we made coconut jewellery out of the shells. To do this the guide used a very blunt saw to cut the coconut into rings and from here we had to sand them down using a rock, water and sand. Myles did this and made a fantastic job of doing so making a very smooth coconut bracelet. After this we saw the manager again and asked if we could get our clothes washed as we were concerned the bed bugs would be in our clothes. (We also haven't done a wash in a while so this killed two birds with one stone and it was free!) 
She said that would be fine and to take the clothes to reception they would give it to housekeeping to get it cleaned. This turned out to be a very good deal, we had to fill out a form to say what we wanted washed and it had prices next to each item with how much it would be. A T-shirt was $2.50 each and we threw in 7 so you can see how this worked out well for us with our jeans and jumpers washed too! 
Forms filled and it was just time for lunch, after yesterday we both opted for the beer battered fish. As we arrived first our food came pretty quickly, that can't be said for everyone else it was a good hour before everyone had their meals but they were very good so we can't complain. Lunch done back to the bar sofas to chill out and have a little snooze. Boredom set in a little this afternoon, we went for a long beach walk and returned to play some games in Laura's notebook. We chatted for a long time to some new friends we made, one being Irish! We all departed for dinner which tonight we thought was rather successful. We sat down with our new friends, the funniest being Toby, an electrician from Sveeden, he just makes jokes about everything and hasn't a care in the world.  For the starter we had a rather lovely tomato soup, the entree was a spring roll in a very nice sweet tomato relish, as the waitress was collecting our spring roll plates and taking our order I jokingly said another tomato soup would be nice. The waitress laughed. A minute or 2 later to my amazement another soup appeared!! Having kept my cutlery for some unknown reason I still had my soup spoon and my entree knife and fork. The soup was finished and again I was satisfied, a different waitress collected my soup bowl, and assumed I hadn't had my entree yet, so yes you guessed it I got another entree!!! I hoofed that down and as soon as I had done my main came! Both Laura and me had pork chops in apple sauce on a bed of mash and vegetables, it was rather nice. A the waitress was collecting our main plates Toby said that it wasn't fair that Myles got 2 lots of spring rolls and he asked for one. Again the waitress laughed an a minute later 4 were brought out!! We enjoyed them tremendously and thanked her very much, only realising at this moment that half of the people on our table hasn't had their main yet!! So we apologised and ran away. We went straight to the games area and played a fantastic game of hit the coconut. In basic terms there were 2 coconuts, one on the floor and another attached to some string. The one with string you had to tie around your waist and swing it between your legs and hit the other coconut to the other side of the room. First to the other side wins, simple. This turned out to be hilarious! Both of us won our first rounds but lost the second round so missed out on the final! A girl from Switzerland won it tonight! The second game was the dancing game that was played earlier in the week we let Toby play and laughed at the bad dancing! After this it was time for bed, we prayed for no bedbugs and I don't think there were but others weren't so lucky :S 
When we got to the room there was a cat outside so we let him in as he looked rather cute and the weather had taken a turn for the worse. The wind had picked up and would you believe it it was actually raining!! The cat was rather pleased to be inside however didn't want to sleep in Laura's bed. The wind and rain got worse during the night and it was rather funny to watch people going to the toilet, they would leave the dorm looking fine and return 2 minutes later looking like a drowned rat.  We were so pleased we aren't tentif anymore!!!

Wednesday 17th

Heres a short blog for you!
Today we were up fairly early, I think we were woken by the wind it was rather windy last night! We hit the breakfast table with full force and had a good hearty fill of beans on toast, many pancakes, more toast, pineapple and a couple of slices of chocolate cake. We ate nice and quickly so we could be first out on the beach which was a great success we got a great spot on a couple of sun loungers. Many hours of sunbathing followed. We cooled off by having a swim and we bid farewell to our Aussie friends. Lunch today was the same as yesterday but Laura had beer battered fish, needless to say I will be having that tomorrow!! This afternoon we went to our super secret beach and did exactly the same as we had done all morning only with more swimming. However we were invaded on our beach, there was another woman! That was far too busy for us so we left and had a brilliant snooze in our bed. Recharged, we shot up for dinner which today was; Dahl soup (not sure what it was but it tasted ok) entree was corn fritter in a sweet chilli sauce, again very nice, followed by a beef curry for a main this was very nice but a little salty for my liking. Laura ordered several thousand poppamadomms and polished off the lot! We headed down for games tonight as we had a sleep earlier, tonight was a very simple game, push the stone as far as you can without crossing the line. We were winning by quite a margin until some other people joined in at the last minute and beat us. This made us very angry. We went to bed, no more games.

Yes we are very very bad loosers.

Not such a short post after all! It's amazing how we can do absolutely nothing all day and still write about it!

Tuesday 16th

We woke today to a rather good morning, and headed to breakfast. This was a buffet today with lots to choose from. Laura had a seizure when she saw Vegemite and proceeded to have 4 slices of toast and Vegemite. Myles had pretty much everything (getting his money's worth). To work off lunch we took advantage of the free kayaks and paddled across to the island opposite ours. We had a look around and it looked exactly the same as our island so we came back. We thought we would go to our secret beach we found. It's actually the staff beach but as they are working we made it ours. We headed up for lunch and met up with our friends again, I ordered the steak burger as I felt unhealthy so did Laura, this was the right decision as everyone else ordered a club sandwich which took an hour to arrive, ours came in a few mins! After this we headed back to our private beach and had a paddle and a sunbathe, a few hours later we went to the main beach and re rented the kayaks again as the sea had calmed down and we could see all the coral and fish beautifully! We headed back to shore rather tired and got ready for dinner, also met up with our new dorm mates, Myles is outnumbered 8 girls to 1 boy in our section, not that he's complaining.... Dinner tonight was pumpkin soup with an entrée of vegetable bruschetta. Both of us had the beef steak in red wine gravy for our main, it was very tasty but rather chewy unfortunately. We decided not to play games tonight as we just wanted to go to bed which was what we did and had a rather good nights sleep indeed :)



Oh by the way I'm sorry I keep writing about dinner but its the most exciting thing on the islands when your relaxing pretty much all the time!!!

Monday 15th

Today is our last day on the Nabua lodge and we are heading to the lovely Manta-Ray resort, named this because you can swim with manta rays. We checked out of our room at 9o/c and proceeded to sit on our deck and look out at the sea. Yet another gloomy morning but there is deep blue sky on the horizon and the sun has poked through as I write this so we are hopeful. We sat on our deck and played a few games of 0's & X's until Myles found a draughts board so we spent a long while playing draughts in the sun until lunch for the check out people was called, we eat an hour earlier as that's when the catamaran comes to pick us up, we had a lovely pasta and had a farewell song sung to us by all the staff. They thanked us very much for staying and said farewell. It's amazing how grateful they are for us staying! They took us out in their boat to catch the ferry thing to take us to our next island. The ferry is a good place to be. It has wifi. Well it did after Myles fixed it. As quick as possible we put all he blogs on and emailed people who had emailed us, Laura even managed to send one text!! We got to our new island, named manta ray resort and again were greeted with song and dance shows. We were shown around the resort and were told there was a message for us! That's always exciting... It turned out to be our first hostel, apparently we hadn't paid for it! Knowing full well we hadn't paid for it we acted innocent and paid, what a let down... We then proceeded to pay for the resort we are at now, the food cost more than our accommodation! After a very disgruntled Myles paid for it expressing that the food better be bloody good we stroked the goat and left for our room. (Yeah they have a pet goat here). This is our first experience of a dorm as well, it's a 32 bed dorm so we jumped in at the deep end a little, it's quite private it's all separated by walls so it's not too bad, it's also a bit more of an up market resort so there's a better class of person staying here. Not long after we unpacked we went for dinner, it's a menu jobbie here, the starter was a carrot soup with garlic bread, entrée was a small dish of fish in an onion sauce and a crispy tortilla. For the main Laura chose the pork chops and Myles had beef sausage in a red wine jus. Fortunately for the owner (an Aussie) it made the grade and didn't get a still rather angry Myles in his office. We were invited down to the beach for games after dinner, our new friends we made over dinner persuaded us to go and we played a game of limbo and a game where you have to run around looking like morons. Laura played this. Myles did not. After this we decided to hit the dorm and leave the Aussies to their favourite time of day. Drinking. We settled in to a rather good sleep, luckily everyone that came and went from the dorm was rather respectful and quiet so thank you to them.

(Turns out the Aussies were found still drinking at 6am the next day!)

Sunday 14th

We awoke today to a bit of a gloomy day, again. Still warm enough for shorts and a T-shirt though. Breakfast today was the same arrangement of fruit and cereal but today there was scrambled eggs (Laura's dream come true) there was also fresh doughnuts! (Myles' dream come true) to work off all that bad food we had a snooze in our hammock. We were planning on a walk today but by the time we got round to doing it there was only an hour before lunch so we lounged around until it was food time. Sausages rice and gravy for lunch today, oh and pineapple and it was rather lovely. This time we really did work off lunch by walking along the beach for a couple of hours, we found a lovely quiet spot and by that I mean we never saw anyone for the whole time we were there and went for a swim. We came back and laid in the sun for a couple of hours to dry off, until Myles got bored and dug a massive hole. Walking back took much less time than walking out as the tide had receded so we could just walk along the battle tide probably only rises 2ft in total but for this place where the sea bed is so flat the tide goes out a loooong way! We came back and had a rest after that walk and say down for dinner, which tonight was fish in a coconut sauce, (the same as the first night just presented differently) we decoded to stay for tonight's activities and it was just as well we did, Myles won 2 rounds of drinks which isn't bad out of 3 games! The group wasn't that impressed by this. Following this everyone had to sing their home national anthem which was ok for us Brits as there were around 6 of us however there was only 1 Aussie! There was also only one girl from Switzerland but as she had lived in Britain for 10 years and knew the anthem we let her off! We were going to go for our evening beach walk but could feel one or 2 drops of rain would you believe! Myles sensed a tropical rainstorm so we hid in our room, a couple of minutes later and yes there was a tropical rainstorm! Only lasted a couple of mins but it was enough for everything to be wet!

Saturday 13th

Saturday 13th

Day 5 without wifi. Getting desperate now...

However it is nice to be totally cut off from the outside world.
We awoke this morning to an amazing sunrise however it was quite windy, food drums played again and we shot in for breakfast, was a little disappointed not to get beans again but got banana cake so that was ok.
We relaxed by finding our hammock and playing many iPhone games that didn't require WIFI. Nothing much happened after that until lunch, which was a rather tasty spag bowl. Quite a few people left at lunchtime so we said goodbye and they departed. We walked off lunch by walking down the beach to the coffee and cake shop which turned out to be a pile of breeze blocks and a sheet of MDF to make a table and a little wooden painted sign. We left our change in our room and even if we did have it the 'shop' was closed anyway. So we decided to return to our hammock. On returning back, the new people arrived and we pretended to be locals by singing and clapping to greet them. I think they were fooled. Laura found a book from the reception to read, it was the only British book apart from the bible and as it turned out the bible would have been a better read. After chapter 3 the book 'fell' into the sand. Another nap ensued. Laura woke me up because her foot had gone to sleep as I was laying on it however while we were asleep she had dribbled on my head... A local dog came over as she wanted a stroke, we named her sandy as she was golden and had been rolling in the sand. She fell asleep under our hammock until she saw something she liked and legged it. Myles decided he fancied a coconut so he grabbed his knife and we went for a walk on the beach to find one. We found one after a few mins and after cracking it open it smelt a little off so it was cast into the sea. Speaking of which we had to return as the tide was coming in and we didn't want to get caught on the wrong beach. Back at the resort the drums rolled for dinner. tonight was something special. It was Saturday so it was Fijian night. Dinner cooked in an underground oven! The chef presented his days work in front of all of us on a buffet table and explained the food and the meaning. There was a huge platter of food, sweet potato, egg plant, pumpkin, spinach in a cream sauce, pork, chicken, many salads, a massive pile of fruit, another vegetable I can't remember the name of and of course the catch of the day! It was about 2 1/2 feet long and was probably the best tasting fish I have ever tasted. In Fijian tradition the men had to sit at the table while the ladies chose their food first, once all the ladies were seated the men could have their food. There was enough food that everyone could go up 3 times and there was still food left over. There was the traditional round of applause for the chef and staff and a thank you to the sun (even though it wasn't that sunny today).

To round off the day we went for a walk on the beach to walk off dinner and returned to bed.

Friday 12th

We woke up a little early this morning, still getting used to Fijian time. Breakfast starts at 8 so we were there at 7:55, we had no idea what to expect for brekkie, examining the table it looked like it was going to be corn flakes and a cup of coffee, which we had, well Laura had juice rather than coffee and all of a sudden food came out! Toast, beans, fresh fruit and pancakes!! Naturally I had beans on toast, Heinz beans too!!! Ahh a taste of home, followed by a few pancakes, Laura tucked into 5 slices of toast I think and 3 pancakes! Ahh a proper breakfast! Bellies full, we walked it off by walking to our hammocks which is where we spent the next 3 hours. Naturally you can't just lay in a hammock all day so we cooled off by having a lovely swim, the sea is just the right temperature, just less than a swimming pool. after the swim it was back to the hammocks to dry off and darken a little. A group of people had a trip to the 'blue lagoon' in the morning and came back saying it was incredible and they are planning on doing it again, so we have booked ourselves in on that. Lunchtime came, today it was a rice tower in a meaty gravy, with chicken wings and green beans, not to forget the compulsory slice of pineapple! Just as we finished the blue lagoon trip was announced so we got kitted up and headed for the boat. 15mins or so on a speedboat and we came into a lovely little beach area. Snorkels on and we dived into the sea, having never snorkelled before it took some getting used to but very quickly got the hang of it! Oh wow we have never seen anything like it! It's like what you see in the films! So many different fish, so many colours its just spectacular. Not to mention the coral! Oh we also found nemo. And one for daddy, remember the pointy angry fish that bit you in the Maldives? There were loads of them!!!! We saw one or two and got into deeper water and there was a shoal of them! We aborted and went back to shallow water! A couple of hours passed in what felt like a couple of minutes and we had to head back to our island for dinner. Dinner tonight was a Fijian beef curry. It's exactly the same as an Indian curry but it's Fijian. Oh and it comes with a slice of pineapple. Tonight's activity was a bonfire on the beach, still a little jet lagged we only stayed for a little bit and Myles got some photos of the stars. Getting into bed we realised that maybe we spent a little too long in the sun today, Laura was a lovely strawberry red, oh yes she cooked properly. However Myles even got a little pink on his chest, this never happens!

Thursday 11th

Thursday 11th
First day on our island hopping tour...
Picking up from where we left off where Laura was feeling sick and I was blogging. 

We spent another couple of hours on the boat, I didn't realise how far apart these islands were! We were on a high speed catamaran doing about 30mph for 4 1/2 hours! Anyway our stop came up and we went to the back of the boat to switch boats, yes we had to climb down the outside of the ship and drop into a diddle boat to take us to our island! We sat on the boat, had a safety briefing that included the part 'if we couldn't swim just stand up because the water is only waist high' and they apologised for the bad weather, the waves were huge they must have been 3 inches high! We slowly got to our island and jumped off the boat, into the water as it couldn't get to the island any further it was only knee deep so didn't really matter. Again we were greeted by song and dance and greeted all the staff by shouting Bula! That's basically hello but it's said all the time. We sat down for dinner and tucked into a warm pasta salad which was lovely. Laura didn't think much of it though... Lunch finished we went for a walk in the sand and a quick swim, here the water is a little clearer, you can see the fish swimming around and all sorts of wild sea life. We got back to our hostel which turned out to be a Fijian thatched hut (we thought we were staying in a dorm but got a private house!) that's what we paid for anyway! There's also a gecko living in here, we named him Steevie. We did feel bad that our bags were taken to our room, I offered to carry them but it was declined, an old lady flung mine on her back and Laura's on her front, crazy! A little while later when we were laying in our hammock a dog came along, I named him Dougle, he was so friendly he just came up and flopped his head on my arm and whined because he wanted a tummy rub. A couple of minutes later we were asked to play volleyball, needless to say we lost 3-0 that's enough of that story... Back to the hammock and we had a lovely sleep until the best sound in the world happened. The food drums. Drums indicate food, I like that sound. Dinner tonight was a sweetcorn and onion soup with a sweet bread and the main was a Spanish mackerel in a coconut sauce on a bed of potato and very sweet pineapple, with a tomato relish and green beans. Needless to say it tasted as good as it sounds. Dinner complete we said farewell to the group we came with and went to bed, via the beach to look at the amazing stars! 

Bula!

Ni sa yadra!

(Good morning in Fijian)

Going back over the past days from the airport - we spent the day in the airport and were on the bored side, we got dinner which was a take away Chinese to share, very reasonable price actually and taught Laura how to use chopsticks again... We went down to check in which in itself was a hassle as pacific air who we were flying was bought by Quantas along with other airlines was renamed Fiji Air... We only found the desk by knowing our flight number! As we were lining up a lady came up to ask us if we would like to spend another night in LA, to which we replied no. She then offered $1600 and hotel accommodation to which we replied yes. The reason being was that the plane was oversold. So we waited for a couple of hours to see the outcome. We went back to the desk to see what was what and she said she still wasn't sure so if we wanted to wait in the departure lounge she would upgrade us to business class along with everything else to which we again replied yes! The plane was called to depart everyone boarded including us which meant that we didn't get upgraded as someone else didn't turn up... Brilliant. Oh well nothing in life is free! We sat down on a brand new plane which was lovely and given a free cookie! It was the maiden voyage of the plane with the new airline. The standard flight stuff happened which I can't be bothered to write about, the mood lighting came on and we left for Fiji. Myles fell asleep while taxing down the runway waking up when the engines spooled up, it was a perfectly still night so was a very smooth flight. We slept for a good few hours waking up when breakfast came round, this was a cheese and egg muffin and a cup of tea, it wasn't much but it filled a gap. We flew over the Fiji islands seeing the odd light or 2 and landed on the main island, It was the smoothest landing we have ever felt barley noticing we had touched down, well done pilots. We walked into the terminal which can't have been much bigger than a garden shed, greeted by some Fijianans singing and playing guitars, something you do not get at Heathrow!  We cleared customs and were collected by the chap from our hostel. A free taxi ride later and we got to our hostel, it was a quaint place, lots of palm trees sand, what you would expect really and a couple of Brits playing volleyball. As it was only half 7AM our rooms weren't ready so we left our bags in reception and investigated the beach. The water was warm although the small waves had stirred the sand slightly so it didn't meet Laura's rather high standards! We went for a walk along the beach, had a coconut drink which was opened by an old man who had just climbed the tree and carried on. A good while later we got back to the hostel. Bags in rooms and a quick sleep later we went downstairs. We had to have a sleep as the dime difference was quite large, I don't know what it is but I do know we took off on the 8th and landed on the 10th. Right now it's 09:10 here and at home it's 22:10 yesterday! We spoke to the hostel guys and got sorted our island hopping tour! A massive hassle but we got there in the end after Myles had run through all the numbers! We then returned to the beach for a swim in relatively warm water. A good swim and a sunbathe later we went for a walk down the beach to watch the sun set and spent longer than we should have done watching crabs run over the rocks. We returned to the hostel for a shower and dinner, tonight dinner was a bit special, it was oven roasted local food cooked underground on hot stones! The chicken was very good, the spinach not so and Myles found something very tasty, no idea what it was but it was good. There was also a rather good fish salad. We went for a quick walk on the beach to see the stars and return to our beds, falling asleep instantly as it was 4AM America time and 8PM Fiji time. We slept through until half 6 as we had to get a shuttle bus at 7 to go to the port. This is the start of our island hopping tour! All checked in we climbed aboard and this brings me to where we are now, me writing the blog and Laura feeling sea sick. Should have had her ginger biscuits. We shall update you when we can but as you can imagine WIFI is pretty scarce out here!

We shall update when we can.

Goodbye from paradise....! 😊 X

(Sorry if there are spelling mistakes and if some bits don't make sense but my editor is still on the ill side)

Finally in Fabulous Fiji

Just a quick message to let everyone know we got to Fiji safely, at hour hostel now and are going on a beach walk soon! Full blog to come later x

San Francisco to LA airport

Picking up from the last blog...

11 o'clock came and went, still no Greyhound bus in sight. 20 past and one arrive hurrah let's on the first 10 passengers and leaves again. Oh. 

So we have to wait an hour for a delayed bus for reasons we will never understand. Half 12 arrived and we were on our way to LA we settled down for the night shift, got as comfy as we could and had a sleep, it got to about 4 in the morning and Myles was awake, not being able to get back to sleep properly because it was just too uncomfortable so just drifted in and out while Laura managed to sleep until about half 7 when it was light again. We arrived at the Los Angeles greyhound terminal and had no idea what to do next. We came across a very helpful information lady that couldn't speak much English so we thanked her very much and proceeded to find someone English. This turned out to be a security guard in the carpark. He told us what bus to get which we proceeded to get. Being the lonely lost tourists with big rucksacks the bus driver took pity on us and let us on for free! He dropped us off at the subway stop, explaining where to go and what bus to get! Very helpful fellow indeed. We worked out this subway system as every city is different and found where to go. It's quite simple once you know what your doing its just working the dam thing out to begin with. This isn't helped with Myles' incompetence and hatred for public transport. After a free shuttle bus to the terminal we arrived. We tried to check in using the self service things but we were a little early again. This time we were 12 hours early and the computer said we aren't allowed to check in yet. so it's the waiting game again. For those who don't know we changed our flights and moved them forward a week so we had a week less in the US and a week more in Fiji for one its much cheaper and for another it's a little nicer so we now have 3 weeks there. Lunch has been done and is digesting while Laura is asleep (again) this time she wrote a bit of blog! Well the first paragraph anyways but I'll let her off as she worked out the pubic transport today 😇 so while she is sleeping I'll think of some games we can play in the terminal, I think we will go terminal hopping to have a walk around, probably play on some escalators for a while and maybe some expert level hide and seek.

Still 10 hours to go so we will have to busy ourselves somehow....

Will let you know how bored we got in the next blog. love to all speak to you from Fiji next! 

xxxx

Last day in San Fran

After watching Murray win we organised our bags, packed, sort of tidied the room and headed for Nicky's and Susanne's room. We had agreed the day before to use their room as a bag store and, well, a room! Susanne was staying there another night so had the room again tonight. We collected Nicky's card key dropped our bags and hit the town. We did a pre walk to the greyhound bus terminal to work out where it is and to see if we could do it with bags. It was just under 2 miles and we found it ok. Walking back we got slightly lost only by one street so got a little disorientated but very quickly found our way back again. There was a lot of noise in the main square so we thought we would check it out, it turned out to be a circus! We watched all of 5 mins and got bored so walked back to the hotel via  jack in the box. It's like McDonald's but better and cheaper. 99 cents later and lunch was done. We got back to the hotel and made ourselves at home in Susanna's room. We did a load of photo stuff booked a hostel in sydney and fell asleep haha! Just over an hour later Susanne walked in a little shocked that 2 people were asleep on the bed next to hers! We sat up did some more logistic work and watched sponge bob square pants. The time came to say goodbye and we left for the greyhound terminal. After walking it before we tried it again with all of our baggagery 2 miles is a long way with all of these bags but it was ok as we don't pay for walking! We got here a little early, 2 hours to be precise but we can always kill time, checked in and here we are now, waiting...

Will let you know how it goes love to all ❤