Woah, it's warm and humid! We certainly knew we were no longer in New Zealand. We spent our first night in Nadi before we begun our Awesome Adventures Pass the next day. We thought we would have been on a tour with a similar format to what we had in New Zealand, but we're pretty much on our own, which was fine, just not what we expected. The first place we stayed wasn't very good. Driving from the airport to the 'hotel', we use that word loosely, wasn't very impressive either. We thought Fiji was bombarded with tourists, and therefore would see that money being used, but it certainly wasn't visable.

We weren't really looking forward to this week, which sounds crazy, because we're in Fiji; we're spending the week in the Fijian Islands, we never thought we'd get a chance to say that, but Candy's tooth is really playing up, and the last thing she needs is to have a major problem where she needs to find a dentist, when we are here, so she certainly felt anxious and worried all the time.

So before we even set out, we saw Fiji as a task, not a relaxing, enjoyable holiday as we wanted it to be.

We started out travelling to Tavewa Island, where we would be staying at the Coral View Resort. On the bus on the first day travelling to the boat, we bumped into Stuart and Leanne from our tour in New Zealand, it really is a small world! After catching up with them on the boat, we got off at our stop (the boat basically goes around to all the islands dropping people at their islands). Getting off the large catamaran proved even more of a challenge, you have t transfer to a small boat that takes you to the island which isn't easy. Then you have to get out of the boat with water past your knees, then wade onto the shore. Not easy carrying our smaller backpacks and six large bottles of water! The place we stayed at was not great. We stayed in a hut, which was actually quite cute, but it was dirty and the 'resort' itself wasn't very nice. It would pretty much be the theme of the whole week. The food was dire, basically just all vegetables and questionable 'meat' all mixed up into what can only be described as 'slop'. We knew we'd hungry that week! The other thing is, the hotels are the only things on some of these islands, there is literally nowhere else to go. The people who work there, also live there. If you were hungry, it was basically tough.

After 2 nights there we went to Naviti Island and stayed at the Korovou Eco-Tour Resort. This place was much better, although it did have a disgusting bathroom. It's funny what you get used to when you're travelling, back at home we would never have put up with something like that (we're talking leeches coming up through the plughole and don't even get us started on the 'bath'!) but here, we knew there was no alternative so you just get on with it. The boats only collect at certain times so the following day we had to check out in the morning but wait until the afternoon to leave, we had a pool to hang out at though so it wasn't too bad.

The next island was Kuata and we stayed at the Kuata Natural Resort. This place was the WORST we have stayed at. We had 6 hours of electricity over 2 days, our room had no key and the staff were so rude. We were warned when we arrived that in order to save power, we wouldn't have electricity from 1pm tp 5pm which was ok, we wouldn't be in the room at that time and as it was daylight, we could get by without electricity. This turned out to be having no electricity all day and night, which meant you couldn't see a thing. We were given a kerosene lamp, which gave us both bad headaches as the smell from the oil filled the room really quickly. The first night when we went to dinner we realised when we'd been taken to our room, no one had given a key. That was ok we thought, we'd just ask at reception for it on our way to dinner. Reception was closed. We went down to what you could loosely refer to as 'dinner' and asked the staff there about the key, we were told they'd get it for us but only after dinner. So we ate what we could (which wasn't much) and the asked again to be given our key. After a lot of going back and fourth between eachother and walking us back to our hut, they established there wasn't a key for the room (yes, you read that right) and they had to rip off the mosquito netting on the window and then take out the window slats for one of the to slide in and open the door from the inside. Madness! We could lock the door from the inside so whilst we were in there, it was fine. But when it came to leaving the room what were we meant to do? The following day we asked at reception if there was any key for the room (still refusing to believe that wasn't one anywhere) they confirmed there wasn't a key but they could give us a padlock. The thing is, the door had a bolt lock on it but no other hole or loop to put the padlock through, meaning it was just a padlock swinging off the end of a bolt lock. Not securing the door at all! In the end we just had to leave it on there and hope it was a deterrant, you could just walk up to the door and get in but luckily no one did that.

So happy to leave, we headed to our last stop which was Bounty Island part of the Mamanuca Islands, and we stayed at the Bounty resort. If we had stayed at this place for the week, we would have had a completely different experience in Fiji. It was the best room we'd stayed in (even though we had to share it with two gheko's on the ceiling) and the food compared to what we'd been eating, was positively amazing! There was a really nice pool literally right on the beach looking out to the sea and the beach itself was beautiful. It was just a shame we were only there one night. But definately the best place to end the trip.

Fiji was not what we had hoped. The islands themselves were beautiful, but the accomodation and people were a huge let down. We paid for a tour and were left to do our own thing, which is fine, we've been on our own most of the trip, but it makes you question what you've paid for when we could have just done it ourselves. Overall, we think it's safe to say, we were glad to leave Fiji. The week had been long and we were definately ready to get back to a city. Next stop is America and we're so excited. Even better, we're going to see Jami and Shannon again, who we've really missed since New Zealand. So LA here we come!