Bula (hello!) from Fiji! We arrived to an unsurprisingly rainy and grey Fiji but were welcomed with live music being played as we went to collect our bags. A courtesy bus took us to our hostel, Horizon backpackers in Nadi bay. To say the least, the place is a little grubby and dingy, we don't get given room keys as the door doesn't lock and instead were encouraged to rent lockers. Although, there is an award in the reception rating it as the sixth best hostel in Fiji. We're not holding out much hope for the other hostels here! The only plus point is the sister hotel next door called Smugglers cove, which is in a nice setting right on the beach. We ate our meal here for the first night which was good, before getting an early night. All we had done was fly today but we were shattered!

We awoke the next day and thought someone was having a really long shower. As we came around more, we realised it was just the rain pouring down. The morning was really noisy, people just came in and turned the light on, or walked through and out of another door, it was a bit annoying! We went for our free breakfast and were given a couple of slices of toast and then sat and waited for the weather to improve! The rain had stopped but the wind had begun, so we went for a little walk around to the end of the road as that is all that is here! Back inside the hotel, everyone is just sat around not knowing what to do with themselves! In the afternoon we took a local bus into Nadi centre, which is a bit run down and there is absolutely nothing there. One travel agent told us if we wanted to see the culture in Fiji then go to Nadi, although it is the ghetto of the island. We found Nadi town wasn't really a ghetto, just a bit dodgy maybe and there was no culture at all because there is nothing there! After half an hour we were ready to go back! We went to the bus stop and found everyone else who took the same bus as us to town, were already there waiting to go back! The route home was a little different, we drove up to a plane and across part of the beach. But, it killed some time while we wait for the sun to come out.
As we were all feeling a bit miserable at the thought of spending the next two weeks hanging around looking at the rain, we decided to explore options where we could leave Fiji and either fly back to Australia for ten days or move part of our flight home to Singapore forward and then spend some time in either Malaysia or Thailand. But these all worked out too expensive. And thank you Lynda for your help! So two weeks of Fiji tropical storm we thought it was!
The day ended exactly how it started, with torrential rain as we dozed off.

The following morning, it was hard to believe but the rain was even worse! The storm had really hit. The other guests in our room left at 5.30am and may have got out in time. After this people were stranded at the hotel and the passengers off the flights that had landed were stranded in the airport. The whole area had a power cut, but luckily the hotel had a back up generator, so we had a much better continental breakfast over there. All the windows were shut down and then they decided to turn the generator off to give it a rest so we couldn't read a book or play cards or anything! We were given candles to sit with. They kept switching the generator on and off all day.

The weather has been a real disappointment as there is nothing here to do in bad weather and it is a bit of a dodgy area to venture too far out of at night so we are restricted in what we can do, except try and relax.

We were meant to be getting picked up early tomorrow morning to be taken to the port, to take a boat over to Robinson Crusoe island. But, we received an email saying as Nadi is flooded they won't be able to pick us up. Some people managed to get to the airport today as they sent hummer vans and a huge truck. They also loaded canoes on the back which was a little disconcerting! Instead we have moved our booking to the Radisson in Denarau to tomorrow and we hope we can get there. We have then decided to move our flight back to New Zealand to Monday and spend our last week and a half there.

I think it is a real shame we are leaving Fiji early as I feel we haven't given Fiji a proper chance as the rest of the island is meant to be much more beautiful than here and we have yet to explore that. But, we just have to accept there is nothing we can do about the weather that isn't forecast to change for a least the next 10 days and we can't even get around to see it. Hopefully we will have a couple of more cheery days at the Radisson. I think we have time for another sun dance before bed...

Amy. x