August 20th (Thursday) - Day 171 - Nadi and Mana Island
After talking about why we had to move beds I was too mad to sleep so didn't even bother. Instead we got ready to grab a very early breakfast. Once we were done with breakfast we had to go and finalise our trip with the travel desk. She told us we would need to pay cash for everything unless we were willing to pay an extra 5% on everything. So we had to run up to the cash machine. It was a good 30 minute walk but someone was just off out that way and gave us a lift there. We needed more money than we could get as we'd already taken money the day before it wouldn't let us have all we needed but we had enough to get by. We walked most the way back to the hostel but the same bloke was now on his way back and picked us up. We then just sat around for ages waiting. We checked out about 9 as the boat over to the first island was at 10. We thought we'd be going on a big catamaran or something but it was a tiny 20 foot boat. There were about 10 of us waiting for it along with all our luggage and a heap of food for the island. The beach didn't have much of a slope to it so the boat couldn't get that close. We had to wade out to jump into the boat. Somehow we all managed to fit on and we set off about half 10. I was sat at the front of the boat but the people at the back got soaked. There was loads of water coming over te top of the boat and splashing them. The boat ride in itself was an experience. It took about an hour to reach Mana Island. They had real trouble anchoring the boat as it seemed to take them about 20 minutes. We had to wade off the boat again. First impressions of the island were not what I was expecting. The tide was really far out which exposed a lot of crap, the weather was over cast and the resort was not what we were expecting. More of a run down shack. We dumped our stuff in the room and went to grab some lunch. We got chatting to a guy on the boat over and we stayed chatting for quite a while. About mid afternoon we decided to head over to the beach on the other side of the island where they filmed Survivor. That beach wasn't that great either. We headed back to the resort and grabbed a beer. This is where we stayed for the rest of the day. Got chatting to loads of people after dinner and were treated to more Fijian dancing.

August 21st (Friday) - Day 172 - Mana Island
We woke up just in time for breakfast. The weather was still not that great, really overcast. After breakfast we went over to the survivor beach where I read and had the odd dip in the sea. There were a number of dogs from the resort that sat with us. They were getting on Sarah's nerves a little. They left us when someone else came to the beach. They ran off after him barking. We'd heard about a nice beach called sunset beach that hardly anyone goes to as it's a good 15 minute walk away! We went a slightly longer way. It was such a nice beach and only one other person on it. More of the same; I read and went for a dip once in a while. Once we got back to our room we released how burnt we'd got. We had loads of sun cream on and it had been over cast all day so it was a bit of a shock to be burnt. After a little rest we went to get dinner and got chatting with everyone again. We were treated to "Fun and Games" that evening. The first fun and game was the limbo. I got quite far but this little 4 foot 5 girl won in the end. The next game (this one not so fun) was musical chairs. I managed to get in to the last 4 by knocking a guy right off the seat even though he'd won it fair and square. I went out next! The final game was musical statues with a difference. You had to do what the guy said. Sarah and I managed to last about 6/7 rounds but were knocked out when we could not get enough people for one of the moves. Sarah went to bed not long after that and I stayed up chatting to a few guys until the wee hours.

August 22nd (Saturday) - Day 173 - Mana Island
I could just copy yesterday... breakfast, sitting on the south beach, lunch, then off to the sunset beach again. We went a slightly different way which took you over the north end of the island over some new beaches we had not seen. The weird thing was 3 dogs from the resort decided to follow us. This wasn't too bad until we started walking over the rocks and they kept getting in the way. One dog couldn't make a jump and as I was not going to touch it, it stayed there whimpering for ages. It must have done it in the end as it caught up with us. Two of the dogs got distracted on the next beach and left us but one walked with us all the way to the sunset beach and stayed with us for an hour before it got bored and left. You can guess what we did on the beach? That evening after dinner we had a Polynesian dance which was very similar to the Fijian night on Thursday.

August 23rd (Sunday) - Day 174 - Mana Island
Exactly the same as yesterday! South beach in the morning, sunset beach in the afternoon except today we went the easy route to the sunset beach and the dogs didn't follow us. That evening there was no dancing so we just had a few drinks instead.