Bula everyone (thats hello in Fijian)!! What an eventful 2 weeks we have had in Fiji. Last time I wrote i think we had just got to Brisbane, the time was spent wandering the city and catching up with some friends, Sarahs cousin came up for the night so we had a night on the town and met up with 3 of the girls from Thailand at the same time, then the time to go to Fiji came! We landed in Nadi fine and went straight to our hotel for literally 7 hours before leaving to start out island hopping adventure. Before we could leave this hotel though we got to nknow the local Fijian drink called Kava, its made from the root of a pepper plant which is smashed up and has water added. In Fijian culture its rude to not accept at least the first one so we drank it but it is the worst thingg i have ever drunk it tastes like soil water and to top it off its actually a mild naroctic! The first island we arrived at was Beachcomber Island and is so tiny you can see both ends of the island as you are approaching on the boat, it is basically a sand bar with some buildings on, it looks like a typical desert island!! We were staying in dorms which had 120 beds lucky not all of them where full thank god. Beachcomber brought the first sight of what was to come in the way of showers and toilets, the showers where actually ok by that i mean we had hot water the toilets on the other hand used bog water to flush so they actually smelt worse afterwards! The bext day we went on a included sailing trip on a boat called Seaspray which has apparently been in a film?! We sailed around did some snorkelling, went to a local village on another island where they put on a Kava ceremony for us and we had a look around the village. The best part of the day though was going to Modriki Island where the film Castaway was filmed, theres absoultely nothing there but it was pretty cool just to stand on the same beach as Tom Hanks.

The following day we moved to another island Waya LaiLai which now ive finished the tour can say was the worse. With this move came the rain and the start of the 5 day build up to the cyclone, as it was so miserable we paid a small fee and got an upgrade to a nicer room which was worthwhile as we didnt leave it apart from to eat for 48 hours. I did manage to take part in a weaving lesson and make myself a bracelet during sleeping. The rain managed to almost stay away for an hour or so in the morning so we could go swimming with sharks on the reef. This involved getting on a tin boat with no seats and driving in a straight line into the middle of the ocean for 20 minutes then being told to get out. I did see somw sharks but only white tipped reef sharks which are harmless and not even as big as me. The rest of the day was rainning AGAIN so I read and slept some more. I should mention that the food was replusive, i cant even say why but I wouldnt have even fed it to my dog, so needless to say I was straving for most of my stay there, especially as they ran out of chocolate! To pass the evenings here we spent our time chatting to 2 scottish lads who were soooo funny and just spent the whole night telling me ans Sarah stories, one of them was as obessed with David Beckham as me so that kept us occupied for quite a while. The best story they told us was about a scottish song that starts with the line 'you canny push ur granny of a bus' probably more funny if u where there but funny all the same.

Our next move was more up north to Naviti Island and Korovou Resort, but with the move the weather just got worse so another day of sleeping was ahead of us. Everytime we got to an island we had a voucher to give in exchange for accomodation and meals so we tried out luck and changed the word dorm for twin and it worked so we got our own room for free -nice work by us. We where warned that the cyclone would hit the next morning so with all the windows boarded up we went to bed only to wake up and find it hadnt come and all the boats where cancelled so we couldnt move on to our next island. Our extra day there was spent again reading until in the afternnon the sun came out for all of 2 hours and everyone ran outisde for a tiny bit of sun. That night the cyclone finally came although it wasnt that bad and we where able to leave to our next island.

So finally we arrived at Coral View and the sun was out so it was straight to the beach to catch some well deserved rays. Everyone had said the food here was amazing but the lunch was called Candy Sausage and it looked and tasted like cat food not pleasant! The next morning before we left we went to Sawa-i-Lau caves which are ancient limestone caves famous for being in a film called Blue Lagoon or something. The first cave was accessed by walking up man made steps and once you where in you could swim underwater through a small channel into another cave that has a closed roof so it was pitch black and then swim around in the passages by torchlight one of the best parts of the trip! The end of the trip signalled the end of our stay on that island, it was time to move again.

The next island Mantray was by far the best and because of this the package only allowed us to stay for one night surprise surprise! Everything was good here the sun was shining and the food and awesome, it was 2 days spent topping up the tan and having a well deserved feed up incase the next islands food was rough.

Our next and last stop was South Sea Island the smallest island in the Manumcua group and literally the smallest island I have ever seen in my life, you can walk all the way around the edge in 2 minutes. Despite it being small it was really nice with loads of free actvities to take part in. During the day over 100 daytrippers come to the island so it gets pretty busy but of a night there was only like 12 of us and the first night it was all girls and the second night we had one german man - lucky guy! We spent the days kayaking, snorkelling and sunbaking and the evenings crab racing, and chatting over glasses of wine. From here we had one night back on Nadi before our flight home which consisting on us having a feast washed down with a cocktail as we hadnt eaten properly for 2 weeks!

Now we are back in Brisbane and its my birthday, so for my present from Sarah she brought me macdonals breakfast, muffin complete with candle, card and now we are going to hold some Koala's before heading off to Surfers Paradise tomorrow afternoon to spend a week with Bradley Sarah's cousin. Speak soon miss and love you all xxx