We flew into Nadi after a very short 3 hour flight from Auckland. We were picked up by a taxi and taken to Aquarius pacific, our hotel for the night. It was a random taxi journey which we ended up unfortunately sharing with a guy who didn’t particularly like Fijians and we had to listen to his racist insults which made for an uncomfortable journey. Once at the hotel we checked into our dorm and headed to the beach for a beer and at last some warm weather. We had a brilliant dinner and a few more drinks before calling it an early night.
The next morning we were picked up by our coach and taken to Denaru port, where we boarded the Yasawa Flyer, which took us to Long Beach Resort on the island of Matacawalevu. After a pleasant 4 hour journey, where we were able to see the beautiful islands of Fiji, we arrived. After hopping onto two boats we were greeted on the beach and shown to our room. The beach was really beautiful, even more so when the tide was in. It was extremely white and very long, and the grounds of our resort where so relaxing. Our accommodation was good but very basic, but we loved it.
Over the next 6 days we stayed at Long beach it was just perfect. The weather was so nice and it was very hot. We met two really nice couples and we stayed up long into the nights getting a bit drunk and just having a laugh. The food was very basic, and I lost my appetite after the second attempt of eating it. Rog however ate it all, plus mine. On one of our evenings we were treated to a Lobo. This was quite similar to the New Zealand Hangi, where they dug a hole, covered it with leaves and started a fire. The food consisting of meat and veg is then buried into the hole with hot rocks and covered with leaves and sand and left to cook for ¾ hours. We watched them dig our food up and it was actually quite nice. That evening we also were invited by a few of the locals (men) to join them in one of their traditions of drinking Cava. It’s a drink that is made of water and plant extract, it has no effect on you at all apart from making your tongue go tingly. When you were given the cup to drink you have to clap your hands once and say “Bula” (hello) and then everybody else claps three times whilst you drink. It was good fun and interacting with the locals on a welcoming tradition was definitely an experience.
The next day we went to church, as we walked into the village we were welcomed with very powerful singing, which took my breath away, and to be honest I had a tear in my eye. We sat on the floor of the church for an hour and it was quite good fun. The singing was just overwhelming. I also had a little boy creep toward me throughout the service and by the end of it he was basically sat on my lap, he was really sweet. There were these twin boys there as well who were so cute, they kept walking up and down the aisle holding hands and smiling.
For two of the days Roger went and taught in the school for a few hours. He really enjoyed it especially when he taught them football. Rog said all the children were so well behaved, and really enjoyed the football lesson, especially when it came to being taught to head the football.
We spent the majority of the days lounging around on the beach and reading. It was so relaxing and luckily we were moved to the front bure for our last 4 nights. This was amazing we had a hammock, a big sitting area and we had the most amazing view of the beach as we were only 2 metres from it. I learnt how to weave a basket using leaves, it was really good fun, unfortunately I wasn’t able to take my basket through customs, boo. Rog played volleyball every night with the guys from the village and the people staying at the resort. This was brilliant to watch and the locals were amazing. However they did seem to spend the majority of the time laughing around on the floor to the bewilderment of every one else, but it was funny.
On our way back we had the rockiest boat ever, everyone had sick bags. Rog had one last jump into the sea, and we made our way to the airport. We were lucky enough to have a flight with Adam and Eve a couple we met in Long beach so we had a nice flight sat with them.
We really loved our time in Fiji, it was so beautiful, and the best thing we did was deciding to spend 6 days at Long beach. It was a perfect end to our long journey.