Simon & Caroline's World Tour 07/08

After the Cook Islands, Fiji had a tough act to follow, and they have definitely done well! We headed out to one of Fiji's 300 odd islands, the ferry takes you most of the way, with little dingies coming to collect you for the final trip to the beach side resorts. After checking several times with the ferryman that we were getting off at the right stop, we arrived at the beach and got a few blank looks as we were around the corner from where we needed to be. $40, and a life threatening (well, baggage threatening) wet ride later we arrived at the Bay of Plenty, greeted to our new "home" by some of the friendliest hostel owners ever. The Bay of Plenty lived up to it's name and we had loads of food (there are no shops, so the hostel gives you 3 meals a day, woohoo!) The hostel is across the bay from the Blue Lagoon, and site of the film "Return to the Blue Lagoon", we had some tremendous snorkelling there, and saw Nemo (Clown Fish), blue starfish and squid, it was like swimming in a fish tank!

After a couple of days we'd done everything there was to be done (and there was no one else there either!), so moved on south to Coconut Bay, where you could literally stumble out of your room onto a hammock and watch the world go by on "Fiji time", a very relaxing approximate time keeping affair. The evenings entertainment was hilarious, reminiscent of the New Zealand Haka, with 5 young men strutting their stuff in grass skirts (along with Britney, otherwise known as Steve). Followed on by us doing the Bula dance (think Macarena, but more cheesy!), and then musical statues, with a partner! (Caroline got Britney :-) ) We then had a sample of Fijian culture by going to the staff Kava drinking session, it's a strange muddy drink that has the same effect as a strong strepsil, making your tongue and lips a bit numb, and is meant to make you sleep well, and the locals prefer it to beer (it's ok Dad - I'm sticking to beer...). True to form we slept well that night, but that could just be the alcohol!

Final night on the Fijian Islands was on Kuata, another stressful time sitting all day in hammocks!