04/05/09

I spent most of the time on the plane attempting to get comfortable enough to sleep but had no luck. I ended up bashing in to Laura on multiple occasions and waking her up. We landed at about 2 and then spent an eternity waiting for Pat to use the toilet at the airport in Nadi as his in-flight meal had disagreed with him. It was 2am and we were in shorts and T-Shirts again! We all bundled in to a mini-van with a most of the rest of the passengers on the flight and were taken to Horizon Backpackers. When we got there we found out that HostelWorld had once again failed to get our booking through to the hostel even though they charged us 4 quid for it. It worked to our benefit though as we were given a 5 bed room with 2 double beds and 3 singles in it. We were all exhausted by now and passed out pretty soon after getting in to bed.

I woke up and assumed that I'd slept through the alarm, it felt like it was about 2pm. A few minutes later Helens 0930 alarm went off and I still felt nackered. We were up and managed to check out by 10. We spent the morning organising our next few days in Fiji at the tourist info place at the nearby hostel. We ended up choosing Robinson Crusoe Island for 10 days, but we were all pretty sure that the woman making our booking had no idea what she was going on about as the price seemed to change constantly. I had to pay the deposit in cash, so I asked where the nearest cash machine was, she told me it was outside, right at the junction and at the top of the road. Turns out we had to take a 15 minute taxi ride back in to town to get there. We were warned about pick-pockets the moment we got out of the taxi, then proceeded to get hundreds of dollars out each and walk around town for an hour or so looking for a pair of flip-flops to fit Helens tiny feet.

We got back to the hostel and all sorted out our US visas so we wouldn't be detained in a few weeks. We then went to the cafe and ordered a burger, it was huge, and filled with loads of cheese, Helen scraped hers out on to her plate and it looked like mashed potatoe. I was still feeling pretty shattered. We spent the afternoon reading cosmo until it was time to get the bus to the jetty at 1500. As we were leaving the woman who booked our trip for us took $10 of the $80 transfer fee we needed to pay and we piled on to a bus and drove for the next hour ending up at a river where we were ditched and all left to ourselves for about an hour. A boat eventually arrived and picked us all up and we were on Robinson Crusoe island by about 1800.

We soon found out that we didn't have to pay a transfer fee as it was all included in the package and the whole thing was abotu $200 cheaper than we thought because the woman hadn't put it through as a package in the first place. We were given a tour of the island, which consisted of a 32 bed dorm with 16 tiny bunk beds with a mozzie net that covers each. The best part were the showers, you have to pour a bucket of water in to a watering can held up by a pulley then turn a tap on it to get the water out.

A bell was rung at 1900 for food. It was an awesome curry buffet, there was so much food, one of the locals kept going round ordering us to 'Eat Big!', so Pat and I went for seconds. Shortly after the meal another of the guys came in to the middle of the circle and laid down a huge mat and all the new islanders had to sit down on it. We were each handed a bowl of Kava which we had to chug in front of everyone. It instantly makes your tounge go tingly and numb.

Party games were soon initiated, we were divided in to 4 teams of 9 and had to run to a stick, spin around it 10 times with our forehead on it then run back. It was pretty funny watching Pat and Rich attempt it, Pat was awful, he was flat on his arse after about 5 rotations, when he tried to get up and go again he made it half way round, then he stacked it right in to the tables scuffing his leg open in the process. It wasn't long before limbo was initiated, funnily enough I was the only bloke willing to give it a go. One of the girls was pretty tall and managed to knock it off on the highest level. It got lower and lower and was it was just Laura, Lucy and I left. The 'limbo man' showed us a new technique where we went sideways and pretty much laid on our backs which made it much easier. The three of us managed to get free drinks for being so good at it, I only wanted water but was heckled in to getting a beer. We sat around chatting to Ollie, Charlie and Lucy for a while then I went to bed as the Fiji Bitter had made my stomach hurt.

05/05/09

I woke up at about 7 and laid in bed, at some point some loud drumming was coming from outside, it was the breakfast call, I couldn't be arsed to get out of bed though so just laid there. I was pretty much told to get up by Laura at about half 10. We started the day off with an attempt at volleyball with a handfull of the the other girls on the island. It didn't go well, I think our best effort was a ralley of about 5 hits.

We returned to the main area and Laura and I watched the Coconut show, the Lovo Digging and Fire walking. There was a massive group of day trippers that had arrived a few hours earlier. As we were watching the show a snobby family arrived and claimed that we were sitting at their table, we moved over and sat on the floor, not a single word of thanks. We watched the guy husk a load of brown coconuts and weave a handbag out of the leaves, then scrape the coconut out and milk it. We then got to see the 'limbo man' in action again, this time he shuffled up to the top of a coconut tree, and standing on the leaves he stomped down on the coconuts, sending about 20 green coconuts plumeting to the sand. Shortly after this they showed us how they cooked our lunch, it was a propper Hangi meal, they had cooked fish and potatoes in a fire underground. Some random locals we hadn't seen before then came out and did a spot of fire walking before lunch was served. Again the food was fantastic.

Another show was put on where the guys and girls did their seperate dances and finally combined them together. One of the guys looked just like a Kiwi, he was giving it all the freaky facial expressions. Following this they started spining machetes and fire.

I chilled out in a hammock with a book for the afternoon, this kids from the day tours were getting a bit annoying, splashing around in the pool causing my book to get wet and generally making a s*** load of unneccesary noise. I used the watering can showers before dinner. They were actually really good, and very water efficient.

Dinner wasn't as good as yesterdays, the beans were rock solid for some reason, but they had some really nice mash and plenty of other veg to keep me happy. We started playing cards and the party games soon started up. For the first we all had to join in a huge congo line and dance along to the music. When the music stopped we all had to rush back to the centre and the Fijian would shout out a number, we would then all have to hug ourselves in to a group of that size, the final group or and random stragglers were out. He also shouted out commands like Shark when someone would have to jump on your back or you on someone elses; Bullets and we'd all have to hit the floor, face in the sand; or Overboard and we'd have to pair up and sing row row row the boat. It was pretty funny. THe second game involved dancing with a partner and stopping when the music stopped. The bloke had us doing all sorts of weird dances and everyone was wetting themselves when the breakdancing cropped up. When this had all died down I went back to the dorm to chill out a bit more.

06/05/09

I got up for breakfast for once and had plenty of pineapple. Lex had written a heap of activities for the day on the black board but before we could begin we all had to have our faces painted with shoe polish. It took about 2 hours for Lex to paint everyones faces, during which time Laura gave the entire island a brief lesson in how to use their cameras. We were shocked at how many people just left their cameras on Easy mode. Everyone was running around taking photos in different colours, close ups of flowers and just generally being amazed at all the stuff they could do with them, but at the same time dissapointed because most people are at the end of their travels now. By the time everyones face had been painted and we started the games it was almost lunch time.

We were split in to 2 groups, the cannibals and the warriors. As there were only 2 blokes and 16 women Mike and I were split, I joined the warriors and he the cannibals. The first game was called a coconut hunt. We had to run off and find 6 coconuts with water still inside and husk them before the other team. After I had husked 4 of them I thought I'd better let the other members of the team at least have a try. A few minutes passed and eventually between them they managed the 5th, I then quickly finished off the last one. Our team managed to win because the Cannibals had husked a dead coconut. The second game was an egg and spoon race, but we had to hold the spoon in our mouths. We were behind after the first 2 people had gone, but luckily managed to catch up at the end and pinched the win. Then came the 3 legged race, Lucy and I and the next pair gave our team a shocking lead but we slowed on the final 2 runs. Laura and Helen were in hysterics and pretty much fell over the finish line steal the victory. Three from each team then had to kayak out around a buoy and back, one of the girls on my team looked so unstable she looked like she was about to capsize at any moment. I was clearly on the wrong for this event as no one could possibly compete with Laura and Helens kayaking experience. The final deciding game was called Land, Sea and Air, which involved us running to certain points on the beach when called out, our entire team went out on the first round.

We were all shattered and covered in sand for lunch, which was again brilliant. We spent the afternoon attempting to make Coconut jewellery from the previously husked coconuts unsucessfully. We spent hours sitting at a table sanding coconuts down waiting for the opportunity to use the islands one saw to cut them in to shape. Finding the right sized coconut proved rather difficult, and after hours of work most peoples finished pieces turned out to be too big or too small. Once I'd finished pissing about with the one I'd attempted I got a kayak out and paddled around the island, the other side of the island gets all the wind and the sea was really choppy so it was pretty tiring.

In the evening night visitors showed up and we all sat around and ate dinner. We noticed that whenever we have guests, our bread appears to be pre-buttered. The dinner was fantastic, the fish and meat and spuds were again cooked underground. When we had finished dinner they put on a hell of a show for us. Similar to the show they put on the other day but much better. They had a probelm with their speakers and we could see the owner getting really pissed off behind us. The dancing and fire spinning was awesome, at one point they had 3 guys on the shoulders of 3 other guys all spinning at the same time.

Once dinner had finished and the night visitors had left the tables were put in to the middle and music blared out so loudly I couldn't hear what anyone was saying and drinking games began. I couldn't face drinking so went and laid in a hammock for the night.

07/05/09

Woke up in time for breakfast again. The whole day was spent making more jewellery, I had to help so many of the girls husk their coconuts that I ended up with bubbly blisters on my right hand. I managed to find a way to cut the coconut with the saw properly so it didn't split or go wonky. Helen tried to cut hers again but had no luck so I helped her do hers while she sanded mine down for me. Laura managed to get a perfect sized coconut and made a brilliant one. Day trippers arrived at some point and were laughing at our feeble attempts at jewellery making. Lunch was served and we spent the time talking to a guy that has been travelling for years on his yacht just sailing to wherever he fancies, he even has a cat that swims. After lunch I kayaked around the island again and got back just in time to give the day trippers a wave goodbye.

The sun came out briefly in the afternoon and we all rushed to the beach to get a few rays, it didn't last long though and soon started spitting with rain again. I spent the rest of the afternoon laying around in a hammock reading just like most others. Laura was being really lazy, just sleeping in the hammock for hours on end. We had dinner and initiated a few of the guests that arrived the other day with the Kava ceremony while it was raining and then played a few games. The first involved moving a ball from one end of a line to the other, the final person running to the front and repeating it until we were all back where we started. The second was the musical dancing thing again. When the games finished Laura and I watched Oceans 12 and then went to bed.

08/05/09

I woke up as a load of people were packing their things and generally making a racket so I got up and got some breakfast. I then kayaked the other way around the island, big mistake, the wind was blowing right in my face as I went around the tip and I was moving at a fraction of a mph, it was really hard work and the waves were pummeling the front of the kayak. I pushed on and by the time I got back I was exhausted. The sun came out during the morning so we all laid on the beach soaking up as much as possible without putting any sun cream on in the hope that we would get some kind of a tan.

After lunch we all spent the afternoon constructing a make shift jail for games later. We spent ages lashing sticks to the dining area trying to make and inescapable cage and in the end did a pretty good job. We then moved on to dressing ourselves up for the activities later. The girls were all shown how to make skirts and tops out of coconut leaves while the rest of us spent ages weaving bracelets and head bands out of leaves. Matt spent all afternoon dressing up 2 coconuts that he had tied to 2 different sticks as male and female, using 2 huge crab shells as a bra. Pat went on a mission with a machete and we lost him for an hour in the jungle. When he came back he looked well chuffed with himself and voiced how great it was chopping stuff. He spent the rest of the afternoon in the jungle just chopping everything in sight.

We had some new arrivals just before the games started. We played the classic egg-n-spoon race then the sac race and finally a tug of war. Somehow the five of us ended up on the same team, we lost every game and ended up in jail. I think the winners got the rough end of the stick though as they then had to do some stupid dance in front of us all while we all got to sit and laugh at them. Some of the new arrivals were some really immature boys from the UK, absolute t*** .

The girls all stayed dressed up throughout the evening and we started drinking as it was Mikes last night. Don't remember too much of the night other than singing happy birthday to Ken at midnight and then trying to go for a piss after the generator had gone out and having to feel around for the bowl with my hands so I wouldn't miss the target. Laura and I took full advantage of the locks on the outside of the toilet doors and decided to lock Helen inside, we thought it was hillarious.

09/05/09

I woke up when the drum rolled for breakfast and laid in bed thinking I was going to be sick because my stomach felt empty of everything but alcohol. I had to get up and feed myself, I couldn't face the long life full cream milk on any cereal so ended up having 5 slices of cold hard toast. I sat around most of the morning still feeling hungry and craving fried egg. Mike had already left and Dave and Jamie checked out at half 11. I ended up having to ask at the kitched for them to bring the bread back out and ended up eating 2 more slices of bread.

Lunch time finally came and it was a kind of quiche / omlette. I couldn't get enough of it, I ended up having thirds and watching as Helen picked all of the veg out of her portion. I sat around in the hammock most of the afternoon reading and occasionally getting in the sun when it came out. Laura, Helen, Lucy, Bex and I were taught a fishing dance by Phillip. It was really hard to remember all the moves and I could tell Phillip was thinking 'who are these idiots', but we were all loving it, it was so funny. Pat came along and managed to get a video of it.

The night cruise arrived later and Pat, Rich, Matt and I ended up having to dress up in grass skirts for the Kava ceremony. The people on the night cruise were really rude, chatting throughout the ceremony and standing up and leaving half way through. We had the night cruise dinner again which is a lovo cooked roast. Absolutely amazing, so much veg and meat, they had the creamy coconut spinach thing as well which everyone took plenty of. The night visitors must thing we never get fed because all us islanders literally ran to the buffet table when the drum rolled and everyone went up for thirds. Laura spent the time at the dinner table ressusitating a wasp that had fallen in her daquari by blowing at it through a straw to dry it out.

We watched the night show, it was amazing again. The guys were really good at fire spinning this time, and we all got hundreds of cool photos of it. We were taught a new drinking game later, called 'f*** the Dealer', such a good drinking game. Later in the night we sat around the fire and played charades, Lucy was giving out loads of weird things to act out, one girl was given genital warts to act and surprisingly someone guessed it straight away.

10/05/09

It was mothers day in Fiji so we decided to get up and go experience a church service on the mainland. We took the boat at 9 and ended up waiting a the jetty for an hour for the bus to show after being dropped off at the other end. We arrived at the small village just before 11 and entered their church. We sat down and next to us were a handful of children, probably the best part of the day, all of a sudden the all burst in to an random impromptu song. The service started at 11 and loads of elderly women came in from the front of the church and began reading. They all seemed to be quite upset and a few of them were weeping, during one of the speeches the womans voice got really shaky. I don't know how they did it, but they would all talk for ages without a rest, just constantly flowing speech, no umm's or er's, just a never ending flow of words none of us understood. Throughout the service we had bees flying in through the window, it was quite funny watching Helen flinching whenever they went near her and trying not to draw attention to herself. There were also these huge things that looked like wasps with long dangly legs. When the sevice finished we went outside in the sun and all the local villagers were asking us to take their photo. The kids were so cool, really playful and inquisitive.

A group of 8 more backpackers joined us on the way back and we arrived on the island just as lunch was being served. After lunch we decided not to bother watching the show they put on for the day trippers as we've seen it so many times already, so we all laid on the beach and attempted to get a sun tan. Laura came up to me at one point and pointed out a lizard hanging out under a tree. When I went to check on it an hour later it turned out it was in fact a toad. I had a bucket shower to cool off as I'd been sweating a lot in the heat. We were then taken to the other side of the island along with the day trippers to check out the turtle. I gave Lucy a piggy back to the crab racing where we were all given numbers. A pot of crabs with numbers on their backs was then turned upside down in the middle of a circle and we watched as they ran towards the edge. I got my 15 free massage afterwards, it was pretty weird having a complete stranger rubbing my back. There were so many knots in my back, neck and shoulders, the masseuse never managed to get them out.

We had dinner and then a huge Kava ceremony to welcome all the newbies that went on forever. I was sat next to 3 young english guys that were really immature. When the Kava was finished I went for a nap. I got up again later and it was already 11, I got a beer in and sat down, we played Up down river and then screw the dealer. I got screwed on screw the dealer and ended up having to chug 2 long necks, this got me pretty battered so I went to bed.

11/05/09

Woke up at about 8 because some guy in the bunk near me snoring so loudly the beds were shaking. We had pancakes for breakfast and then the five of us along with Lucy boarded the Island Hopping boat. On the way to our first island we stopped off at a few islands where people were surfing some huge waves out on the reef and also coming in to shore. It took about an hour to get out to Castaway Island which is apparently where they stayed while filming Castaway. It was a scorching hot day so we laid on the sun beds on the beach. It was so hot I had to run in to the sea after about 10 minutes laying down. The sea was filled with sea weed and was awful to swim around in so I went for a wander around the island. I managed to find some decent rocks to climb and sat on top of one for a while. I looked around after a few minutes and saw all the others in the boat waving at me to come back, so I jumped down from the top and rolled in the grass to break my fall. When I got back to the boat I realised I had hundreds of thorns stuck in my back, legs and arms. I spent the journey to Walla Island picking the thorns out of my shoulder and hands. When we got there Laura and I played a game of table tennis and we sun bathed a bit more. We were then dropped off at a resort for lunch, the others had pizza, I had a sandwich and a few sausage rolls then we walked around the island to another resort stopping for an hour or so on the way to chill out. By this time I was pretty much burnt to a crisp as I didn't have any sun cream left. We wandered around a few of the stores at the resort and then Laura and I got shakes before our captain, Pax, picked us up again. He took us out to the reef where we spent a while snorkeling. This has to be the best place I've snorkeled so far, there were so many different colourful fish. I really didn't want to get back on the boat when we had to leave. The ride back was awful, I was red raw from sun burn, the sun was still out and baking me because I still had no sun cream and I was freezing at the same time because of the wind. I had to cover my head in my towel to stop face from bubbling for the hour long bumpy journey back. When we got back I got straight in the shower to cool my skin down and then covered myself in Aloe. We chilled out in the evening and went to bed fairly early as we were all shattered from the heat.

12/05/09

It was a really hot and sunny day so I got up early, slapped sun cream on, and then kayaked around the island. When I got back the girls and I went for a wander in to the jungle to find some good sized coconuts to make some jewelery out of. On the way we bumped in to Ella and Phillip searching for Hermit crabs for the crab racing later. As we passed, Phillip pointed out a huge pit where they used to sling the bodies they were going to cannibalise. We attempted to make a few more pieces of jewellery with no luch becuase the coconuts weren't the right shape. After a few hours attempting we all got sick of it and gave up.

The day trippers showed up and soon enough it was time for lunch. I had two heaped plates and felt so sick afterwards. I laid on the beach sweating profusely while reading. I had to keep going in to the shade because my eye sockets kept filling up with sweat and it really stung to keep them open let alone read at the same time. We watched the crab racing at some point during the afternoon and then all showered and got ready for the evening.

We sat down on the mats and admired Moi, Nick and Phillip playing guitar. They played Jason Mraz, I'm Yours again and had everyone singing along, they were so good. We had spag bol for dinner then had the Kava ceremony again. Kat asked loads of random questions, one of which was 'How do the horses get here?', a very good question. Apparently they walk across to the island at low tide. We sat around after dinner and played a few drinking games, we were introduced to chickens which was hillarious, just listening to everyone going 'brup', 'boooowp' and making stupid hand guestures towards people. We then played 5's and 7's with Kat, Charlie and 3 other English girls. One of the new English girls kept getting irate beacuse we couldn't get past 7, and even more pissed off when we failed at like 25 or something, but whenever it came to her she kept getting it completely wrong. I ended up braving the dance floor again but decided against it after 2 songs as I probably looked like a t*** so I went to bed.

13/05/09

I woke up had breakfast and laid in a hammock reading a book. At about 10 Lex came round asking everyone if we wanted to go for a fishing drive, so we all got our swimming stuff on and walked around to the other side of the island. We spent 10 minutes unravelling the net and breaking all the coral out of it and trying to get rid of as much sea weed as possible. Lex got Dick, we use the name d*** because he is in fact a complete twat, to hold the net and wade in to the water whilst the other 10 of us waded out to sea with sticks and wacked the surface as hard as we could to scare the fish in to the net. As we converged on the net d*** brought it round and they then dragged it in. On our first attempt we managed to catch 5 fish. After we had removed them from the net we threw them in the sand. Renil picked one of them up and handed it around, I had it pinched by the gills between my fingers and could feel it gasping for breath. We put them on the floor and had to put them out of their misery. A few people tried to kill them by twatting them over the head with a stick but they didn't seem to want to die, they kept flapping about on the floor. After a while a girl went on a rampage with the stick and started smacking them all repeatedly with a huge stick and completely mashed their heads. We went for another fish but caught nothing so wandered further down shore and managed to catch loads more. Lex attatched our catch to a stick and then we headed off to say farewell to Lucy.

We had lunch and spent the rest of the day sunbathing. I got really sweaty again so had a break and climbed almost to the top of a coconut tree then went kayaking. The tide was low so I couldn't go around the island, I went out to sea quite far and spotted hundreds of flying fish jumping all over the place. As I was coming back a freak wave came along and I managed to surf it all the way back to shore. I sun bathed for a bit longer and then showered before the night trippers showed up. We all sat around for the Kava session again and then pinched the table nearest the buffet for later. Again we had a brilliant roast dinner, I ended up going through 2 plates full of veg and spinnach stuff.

The guys put on another spectacular show. They even encorporated the dance that Phillip had taught us the other day so Laura, Helen and I were dancing along and Rico was laughing at us. The fire show was brilliant again, although when Millie was given her flaming stick they had dowsed it in too much Kerosine so she had to chuck it away to stop it from burning her. They then handed her another one exactly the same so she could finish the dance, she looked like she was hating it. When the blokes came out Nick dropped his right next to the Priate Club and it ended up setting the curtains on fire, some guy rushed in and covered it in sand pretty quickly. I was shattered so attempted to have an early night, but there was some seriously loud music going on.

14/05/09

Woke up in time to have breakfast and sing goodbye to Kat and Charlie. We then checked out paid our bar tabs and then laid in the sun for as long as we could stand. I started to get far too sweaty so had a shower at 11, we then got on our boat and left Robinson Crusoe Island. As we were in the bus on the way back to Nadi we suddenly heard a huge bang, Laura thought a gun had gone off. One of the rear tyres had burst so we had to go at 40km/h all the way back.

We got to Horizon backpackers and met up with Kat and Charlie. We all ordered huge burgers, then sat around on the beach at the back of Smugglers Cove for the afternoon. Laura and I played speed, I nearly actually won for once. We then took it in turns to have showers and Pat managed to lose his wallet. We took the taxi to the airport with Kat and Charlie and queued for an eternity to check in, loads of people were confused about USA Visas but luckily we were all prepared. We boarded the biggest plane ever at 2200 and headed to LA.

I didn't manage to sleep on the plane. After about an hour I could feel my feet swelling up, they actuallly got pretty painful, I thought they were going to explode.