After leaving Nanau-i-ra yesterday morning we began the final leg of our journey around the mainland of Fiji back towards Nadi.

After the boat ride back across the water, we were on the bus once more with T and Pops as we headed south along the west coast. After a short while we stopped at some rocks where after about five minutes of squinting and turning our heads we could make out some faces on the rocks that was supposed to mean something or other!? A couple of miles down the road and we stopped again next to some sugar cane fields while T jumped out to negotiate with the harvesters, and a couple of minutes later she returned with a few canes for us to sample. Despite it being essentially just raw sugar, it wasn't as sweet as we had imagined and it whet our appetites nicely as we headed to one of the nearby towns for some lunch.

The towns in the north of mainland Fiji have a strong Indian history and this influence was evident in the restaurant that we stopped at where we sampled, amongst other things, goat curry. It was actually really nice but we were slightly put off by the bone that was chopped up with the meat and one piece that we are sure was an artery or something - you could clearly see fat with a distinct hole through it like a blood vessel!!

After we had all had our fill we were back on the road again and heading to our final activity of the day, where we would be lounging around in mud!

When we arrived at the mud pools we were shown around a few of the water pools that we couldn't go into as they were too hot and we could see steam coming off of them from quite a distance. Then it was off to get changed before jumping into the hot, hot mud! It was a strange sensation as we swam around in the mud and if we stayed still for too long we sunk into the thicker mud at the bottom of the pool. We could have stayed there all day and by the time we climbed out we were covered from head to toe in thick, hot mud - the kind of thing that would cost a fortune at a day spa!

It was then time to get all the mud off and we headed to another pool which was full of hot water where we could splash around for a while and try to get ourselves clean. This proved more difficult than we imagined but we finally managed to get ourselves ready to get changed and get back on the bus as the evening was setting in.

Once we got to our hostel we grabbed a shower to try to get rid of any last remains of the mud an d then headed around the corner to another hostel where they were putting on a fire dancing show. It was pretty mad to watch as the guys were twirling the fire sticks around at an absurd rate and they were even lying on it at times.

Tomorrow we have a lazy day while we wait for Jen's cousins and sister to arrive at four o'clock in the morning the next day.