We have spent the last eight days in Ratu Kini's on Mana Island in the Mamanuca's, and have just returned to the mainland before we go off to Nananu-I-Ra again for our last four days in Fiji.

We arrived on Mana around lunchtime and our first task was to get somewhere to stay. We managed to play the two hostels off against each other and ended up getting rooms with private facilities at the shared facilities rate and the 7th night free, so all was off to a good start!!

As it was a Wednesday, the evening's entertainment was hermit crab racing and we purchased a feisty little dude called 'Bula Boy'. Our crab came finished in 2nd place, which won us a free massage, which Jen gladly accepted (nothing to do with the guy that was doing them!?) and a few drinks. All in all our first day had been a blinding success.

The next night was Fijian night and we got to experience our first Lovo, which is the name given to the way the food is cooked and eaten. The food is all wrapped in banana leaf and cooked in a huge pit in the ground, so that there is a really nice smoked flavour to it all. And it is eaten without cutlery, so you just dive in with your hands. After the dinner it was time for the entertainment, which took the form of traditional Fijian dances - some of these were war dances and others were dances that villagers perform for their chief.

The highlight of the evening was the fire dancing that the guys that worked there performed. We had chosen to sit at the side of the dances and all was going well until Patrick slipped and let go of the fire stick, which then came flying in our direction. Luckily, Christine had just moved or she would have got hit right in the face, but it headed straight for David instead and as he leaned back out of the way, so too did the picnic bench that we were all sitting on. David is now hoping that the resulting mark on his ankle will scar over so he can claim it was a shark!!

The next day we did nothing but lounge around in the sun, on one of the three beaches that were closest to our hostel. We did venture up to the top of the biggest hill to get some great photos of the island and the rest of the Mamanuca group, but that was about the height of our activities.

We did an island hopping trip on the Saturday, and got to see the island that Cast Away was filmed on and Cast Away island (oddly, not the same place) before stopping for lunch on Plantation island. After lunch we went past another few islands before stopping at Honeymoon Island for some snorkelling. It is supposed to be some of the best in Fiji, and it was absolutely amazing. We saw hundreds of different fish and it was just like Finding Nemo, where the coral suddenly stops and it's just deep blue water. We all touched the butt!!

The next few days were spent with some more sunbathing and exploring the island and splashing about in the waters. One of the afternoons we went to sunset beach for....wait for it........the sunset and it was really beautiful. In the evenings we took part in the limbo dancing and other silly games such as picking a bottle up in your mouth on one leg, but the rest of the time was just pure relaxation.

The night before we were due to leave we took part in Tacki with all the staff there that we had got to know really well, which basically consisted of drinking as much as we could, as quickly as we could. We succeeded in making Romano sick and gave ourselves little excuse for feeling rough the next day.

When the next day came around we were waiting on the boat transfer back to the mainland, when we got accosted by the staff who wouldn't let us leave and they persuaded us to stay for another two nights. We didn't really put up much of a fight, as it is such a great place to get stranded on. They sorted us out a section in the dorm all to ourselves and told us that if we didn't like it we could all go and sleep in the employee's bure, but we were happy enough.

Once again it was beach time until the evening, when there was another crab race. After naming the English crab Mike Hunt, and falling about laughing as Queenie was auctioning off the crabs oblivious to it all ("who wants Mike Hunt for $2"), we brought our crab for $6 and watched it come in 1st. We got a free sarong with the crab racing emblem on it and also a free introductory scuba dive worth $90.

The next night was another Fijian night and as well as the Lovo, we were asked to represent the chief and his mistress during the kava ceremony, so we both got dressed up in traditional attire and were the centre of attention (as it should be!). This was followed by another night of Tacki with the staff, although it was a lot less intense as the last one.

On our last day, we had our free scuba dive with Paul the instructor. We paid for the other person so we could both experience it, and get a little taster before our course in Australia and it was absolutely amazing. We only went down to nine metres, but there was so much life down there and we weren't afraid of getting sharked at all. Not even once!!

After we had finished, there was just time for lunch before we had to leave the island and come back to Nadi. It was pretty hard to leave as we had all had such a great time and the weather was amazing, but we are off to another island that we like in a few hours so I'm sure we will cope!!