After a pretty smooth Air Pacific flight to Fiji (I was a bit worried after we got on what was definitely an old plane with very dated 80s livery, so I was pleased to land), we were greeted in the airport by men wearing sarongs with flowers tucked behind their ears - very Polynesian.
We booked a coach for $20 (Fiji dollars, about £6.80) to take us to Pacific Harbour. It took about three hours so we all fell asleep as we had lost sleep in the time change - we're 12 hours ahead now!
Luckily the bus dropped us off at the entrance to our hotel. On the way down the driveway I had no idea what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised. Everything is wooden with a thatched roof, very Tiki Tiki style. There is a lovely restaurant and bar area with a big pool and it is directly on the beach. I can't really believe we're only paying £11 a night for this! Our dorm is huge and spacious, and we each get big lockers for our stuff which hold the contents of our backpacks, so I have kind of unpacked which is a novelty.
The first thing we did was have lunch in the restaurant, I had chicken skewers with veg, satay sauce and rice for about £4.30, and we each had an Absolut Vodka cocktail for about £3.30. I had Acai berry flavour, it was really nice.
Unfortunately we only managed to get about ten minutes of sunbathing in before it started to rain, and it then didn't stop until the evening. We used the free Internet for a bit before heading to our dorm to read and catch up on sleep at around 3pm. I woke up at about 6.20pm and figured I should get up and have some dinner. I tried to wake the others up but they were dead to the world, so I had dinner with two girls from our dorm who arrived when we did. I had a kids spag bol which was only about £2.70 but filled me up quite well! Hannah and Vicky eventually surfaced at around 8pm, so they had dinner. The hotel bar is quite popular with the locals, so there were a few people around and quite loud music playing, so we stayed and had a few drinks and a couple of rounds of pool. It started to get emptier though so we were in bed by midnight, hoping for a drier day the next day!
It's pretty much paradise here, so I'm looking forward to a week of doing absolutely nothing!
xxx