Kuata We arrived at Kuata to another Bula Welcome, on a long stretch of beach. Our little camp garden was lovely; we pitched under a palm tree to keep us dry and went off to have a nice cuppa on the decking area overlooking the sea. This place was busier and not as friendly as coral view but still nice and less rural. Meal times were a buffet but loads of food (much to Ian’s joy) but a big competition (herding instinct!) we were always at the back, its Fiji time. The first night we sat and talked to three GAP year kids from the UK who’d been in NZ for 7 months, god we felt old, they were 10years younger than us, really nice kids though. Felt weird getting travel advice from 18yr olds. We also met some guys from coral view, Lindsey and Matt from NZ we sat and chatted to them for a while about buying property in NZ, they live in London, paying off their mortgage then back to NZ. We then met up with Lisa and Dom again and spent the evening drinking Gin and chatting, we all get on really well, definitely meet up with them in Auckland, They lent us their snorkeling gear on the last day, it was good but suddenly I got cramp and attacked by sea lice (yes I am cursed) then two long tom fish faced me off….I decided to go back to the shore and leave Ian to it (he saw a reef shark). The place was full of ants and minor birds who were so cheeky and unafraid of people. I had a scare (Claire) I left my ring when doing some washing, when I went back it had gone so I ran around asking then burst into tears, actually a guy had found and saved it and gave it back……we gave him a bottle of whiskey that the Kiwis had given us and the rest of the time I was known as Claire with the ring! On Sunday we went to church! It was fun to see the village and to hear the kids break out in harmonies singing while waiting for the Minister. The fun stopped there, it was a Methodist church, the singing was great but the sermon was in Fijian and sounded like he was saying “and the wrath of god …….thumping on the desk” we felt we’d been told. One guy was really nice and welcomed us to their church etc. One evening we sat with the New Zealand family, Tom, Linda and family who are from Palmerston North, they have very kindly invited us to stay on their farm. Amy one of their daughters was a card playing shark! We were sitting one day and noticed a woman in the coral at low tide and couldn’t work out what she was doing, then she was violently bashing something with a rock. We finally realized she was catching octopus, stabbing under rocks with a sharp pole then dragging them out and bashing them…..pretty brutal We went for a walk up to the summit on the last day, in typical us style we ended up scrambling as we couldn’t find the path, when we got to the top it was really nice, views of all the islands, the Yasawas and the Mamanucas. We recorded a little video clip.