We arrived at Nadi airport to a serenade by a group of Fijians, it made us pretty cheerful as we set out to our hostel, made of Bamboo. As soon as we arrived we purchased ourselves a Bula Pass, which is a hop on, hop off ferry pass to the islands off the mainland - The Yasawas. Wedge's card got barred just as we were boarding the boat for a week without ATMs, this was pretty stressful, especially for her mum and dad.

Anyway, after a 4 hour ferry journey to the very tip of the island group, we spotted Nat and Alex waiting for us along with the staff and their Bula song (Bula means hello - we heard a lot of it during the week)! We were pretty dissapointed that there was an actual cyclone passing by on the day we arrived, and spent the afternoon sunbathing and then sprinting under a tree. This resort was called Coral View, the staff were lush.

That evening we headed in for dinner (only the solitary hotels serve food on each island). As we were queing at the buffet, Jen spontaneously decided to immitate the Fijian lady's accent when she doshed out our food. She still doesn't know why she did it, but we payed for it later in the night when we were eliminated in the first round of the post-dinner games. We caught up with Nat and Alex about their adventures in New Zealand, it also being our next port of call, over local cocktails, the games and a surprisingly competative game of cards.

The next day we snorkelled and sunbathed, still affected by the cyclone. The sun eventually came out permanently, which bought Fiji into it's beauty finally, after being shrouded in clouds. The islands are breath-taking - the luscious green hilltops and palm trees standing in stark contrast with the aquamarine ocean. The following day we left for Korovou, not without a farewell song, boarding the big yellow boat. Here we were met by more friendly staff, and spent the afternoon lying by the pool and playing volley ball. This was pretty hilarious as we were so bad, Jen got applauded when she first managed to touch the ball. We were also lucky enough to be awarded the 'Second chance for the ladyyy' rule, upon serving. We had a delicious roast chicken dinner and had the 'Bula Boys' entertain us with a bit of a dance off. One of these Bula Boys also offered to take Jen for a romantic stroll along the beach which she quickly declined.

The next day was Sunday and we visited the local church service, much to all of the staffs' delight. Jen embarrased herself by asking where we'd be getting the car from - there are no cars, or roads for that matter, in the islands. This was pretty emotional and unique. The singing and dancing was abundant and the priest even asked us all to stand individually and annouce where we were from. They seemed genuinely glad to have us there. It was interesting that in an island where the resort is only allowed electric for 2 hours a day, we were reading the hymn lyrics off a hi-tech PowerPoint with surround sound. The church is integral to the Fijian way of life.

We went back to the pool and were enjoying ourselves until Jen discovered an actual crab in there. In fact we carried on having fun, playing hunt the crab. It's amazing what you'll get up to on a secluded island. We were like 5 year olds. That evening we watched the sun set from the viranda whilst enjoying a rare BBQ.

Long Beach was our next stop. Here we really appreciated the pristine water, we swam across the shallow bay to another island and got a boat trip to nearby Blue Lagoon for snorkelling amid the coral reef. There were some hideously big creatures, including a bird-sized moth and a plate-sized spider. Two boys in our dorm wouldn't move it so Jen and Nat gave it a joint effort, after lots of screaming it was escorted out in a cap. Seemingly unperturbed by these giant bugs, Jen still managed to have a string of Night Terrors. On the first occassion, Wedge genuinely thought there was an earthquake as Jen scremed and leapt out of her top bunk, falling into the girl next to her and waking up the whole dorm. She was asleep at the time. The next morning she went pretty red as a guy asked the collective room 'hey did anyone hear that girl fall out of bed last night?' She puts it down to the malaria pills.

Octopus was our next stop. We treated ourselves to a 4* resort, where we spent our final night with Nat and Alex. Wedge's bag got left behind on the boat so she used this as a good excuse to buy herself a new dress. Jen had no excuse. The resort was beautiful, complete with sand filled restaurant floor, where we enjoyed delicious 3 course meal. We were initiated into the resort with a cava ceremony - the local hallucinagenic drink. It looks like dish water and tastes like cold tea. Perhaps another source of Jen's night terror things. We played shots for shots volley ball after dinner, Wedge's boobs flying all over the place, and were awarded many shots. We fear we fell into the 'crap shots' category. However our 'Rest of the World' team did manage to beat the Fijians for the first time in eight years.

Thanks to our friend Frank convincing us, the next morning we signed up for an intro-scubadive. Cookie the diver trained us in the pool and then took us out to the coral for an amazing experience. We went down 10 metres and he kept holding our hand whilst leading us around the under water world. The coral was stunning, metres tall, changing colour when you touched it. The fish were out in force.

There was an emotional goodbye with Nat and Alex before we headed back to the mainland. On our final night we made the most of the free cava and sang along with the Bamboo Band, insisting they play our favourite songs. In the middle of the night we left for the airport, en route to New Zealand.