BULA.. hope everyone is ok back home, sorry we haven't blogged for a while but were on "fiji time" as everyone says out here!! Everything is so laid back and chilled out its perfect after all the hecticness of NZ.

Fiji is more expensive than wee tought so we have had to change our flight to Chile again after only being here 10days.

The day we arrived we checked in and sorted out our island hopping because of the cost we could really only afford 1 week on the islands. We visited 4 islands that we stayed on and 1 that we got shipwrecked on!!!

The 1st island was coral view which was a 5hour boat ride from the mainland, we got our 1st fiji welcome which was cool as all the locals sang us a song and shouted bula (hello) lots!! THis was a perfect start to the trip! The food on the islands is included and pretty different (eg: battered eggplant) but nice! The 2nd day on the island we took a 20min walk around and the beach was AMAZING! it was so quiet and the sea so clear it was almost as if i wasnt there!! we left our stuff on the veach while we went in and a dog came over and guarded it the whole time we were swimming!!! In the evening we got to know the others on the island who we will be with for the rest of our time here which was nice.

The 2nd island was called Korovu and didnt have a particulrly nice beach but had a cool pool. in the evenings all the islands do entertainment so me and hannah did musical chair pairs and we won and got free cocktails which were really nice and refreshing...but more importanatly free!!! after we sat talking to everyone and had another relaxing evening.

THe 3rd island was Kuata which was yet again another nice island, here we did reef snorkling and saw reef sharks and a couple of the people in our group got to touch them but we didnt get near enough. again more entertainment at night and we learned the BULA dance which was pretty funny!!

The 4th and final island was south sea which is the smallest island in fiji it took us 4mins to walk around it then me and Fabian swam around it too!! Here we got some sea kayaks and thought it would be a good idea to go to the opposite island to say we visited 5! so me hannah set off in a 2man and fabian by himself...all started well untill we got into open water, we noticed that ours was taking in lots of water and fabians wasn't next thing we know is mine and hannahs had capsized and we couldnt lift it back over! Fabian came back and luckily with his help the 3 of us got it back over. we couldnt get in it though because it was sinking so fabian dragged hannah to the 5th island while i struggeled away by myself! when we all got to the island our kayak was taking in water from underneath which made it so heavy!! luckily hannah went for help and they called our island who came and picked us up and took us back!!!

After that ordeal we just sat on the beach and did some snorkelling nothing to risky!! apart from this we had a really good time on all the islands (including the short and sweet visit to the 5th one!) and we headed back to the mainland where we had some food with everyone who then headed off in their seperate ways.

All in all fiji has been amazing, the weather perfect the people so friendly and the atmosphere so so relaxed. The perfect place to relax before we head to south america...only 7weeks left now cant believe how fast its going?! Much love to everyone Richard and Hannah.