Bula!
Well, we're technically in australia now but internet didn't really exist in Fiji so we'll update you now.
We had a short flight over to Fiji from NZ where we got very excitable and befriended the cabin crew, especially our new BFF 'Mervyn' who kept us stocke up with red wine throughout the flight and didn't look at me too strangely when i ran down the aisle to ask for me. At the airport we were greeted by some fijian singers (the first of man), and a lot of Bula's! (Bulla means hi, hello, welcome, greetings, morning, afternoon - whatever you want it to). Unfortunately to met it sounded a lot like 'ola' so I got a very strange look at customed when I replied in my trusty spanish, only realising my mistake when sophie gave me a quick kick. But, my mum made the same mistake so clearly i'm not that stupid. We were met at the aiport by another of our new best friends - Noah - who my mum had arranged to pick us up and take us to the hotel she had treated us to for 2nights. Noah sure did like to chat and his conversations ranged from asking if we were on speaking terms with the Queen to yelling about Fiji dominating in the Hong Kong 7s. He also told us a lot about the flood and showed us the damage, which has ruined a lot in this town. We didn't actually get a chance to speak in this 'conversation' and i'm pretty sure he didn't get a chance to breathe.
We drew up at the Sheraton and and had a lovely reunion with Mum. (Checking I actually got the right person this time, I shouted out that I had seen here about 5 mins earlier but it was actually a fijian woman, oops). The 5* hotel was definately a lot nicer than our usual shabby hostels and the cocktails looking out to sea on arrival was aboluste heaven. Our backpacks got a few dodgy looks but they were soon whisked away on a golf buggy out of sight. We we got into the rooms, it's safe to say we went a little bit crazy at the luxury of it all, and my mum may have gone deaf at the screaming. We also had a table of treats waiting, including MINSTRELS! and heat magazine-amazing. The next 2 days were spent eating the best burger sin the world, enjoying 3 course breakfasts, sipping cocktails swimming in the pool and sleeping in our double beds. Tough times.The only thing to disturb the peace was some little australian kid called Hamilton who had his parents running around him all day (nothing like us, of course). It's safe to say we're both Sheraton girls and just need to find someway to keep up this standard!
Our 2 days of luxuy were up far too quickly and soon it was time to show mum our way of travelling....Bye bye hot showers and comfy beds! From here we went island hopping in the Yasawas which meant boarding a big yellow boat. We had gorgeous weather for the trip and were even treated to dolphins jumping around the boat (something soph was completely oblivious to, immersed in the world of minstrels and a new book). The boat was also home to a really disturbing 50 year old who was clearly going through a mide life crisis and thought it was acceptable to walk around the boat with his top off, beer belly on show, ipod in and take photos of himself every 2 minutes....it's definately not accpetable. We lived in fear he would be on one of islands by we thankfully escaped. After about 4 hours we reached our first stop, Long Beach, and were taken ashore by a little speedboat and greeted with the picture perfect Fihi - white beaches, crystal clear water and blue skies. We spent 3 days sunbathing and doing not a lot else. The main event of each day was probably trying to guess what concotion of food was laid in front of us each night. The food was, in a word, disgusting, and we all amanged about 3 bites of each before politely excusing ourselves, insiting that no it was lovely really, and going off to debate the contents of it. We have to say, Mum coped very well with her rock hard bed (one of the worst I've seen to be fair), cold showers and getting eaten alive by mosquitios. We were very impressed as we spent our time in the cold showers screaming down the building, and insisiting in our very melodramatic fashion that we were going to die. Having said that, we can't miss out the time that Mum got stuck in the toilet and resorted to yelling ' help' to get rescued. It was a relief to know we're not the only ones that get oursleves into these situations! To be fair, everything was a bit rickety there - one night all 3 of us plummeted to the ground as our chairs collapsed. Getting up was a little interesting. Our highlight of the stay there was watching a religious ceremony on the beach (although we did escape after 10 minutes, applauding oursleves on seeing the 'real fiji' etc). So, while long beach was very pretty we were ready to leave after 3 days and actually find some edible food.

Our next stop was 'Manta Ray' island which was so lovely (and had nice good!) The island was full of 20 years old meaning all the stuff loved looking after 'the old dear' (sorry mum) and we got a lot of attention. However, that didn't stop here from joining the drinking and our idea of a 'detox 2 weeks' soon went out the window when mum ordered numerous bottles of wine. Infact, one of my favourite images of fiji was my mum singing along to wanderwall when a power cut resulted in a guitar singalong. Fantatsic. The power cut also involved a gekko landing on Sophie who screamed the place down and sent our table off in fits of giggles. I also tried Kava. a traditional Fijian drink with hallogeunic properties. It's disgusting. Looks like muddy water, tastes like muddy water.

The next day I wandered down to the scuba diving office to get back into diving after a 3 year break. I guessed I would need to do a refresher dive but before I knew it they were shoving me on a boat with a tank on and then I was saumersaulting into the sea. Nice and lax. Scuba diving again was absolutely amazing and I came back with a huge grin on my face which meant mum brought me another dive for the next day when I saw an eagle ray and fell even further in love with diving. Now I just had to convince Soph to give it a go....

We spent a lot of time sleeping on the islands and so on the last night when Mum went to sleep, we genuinely thought we would be following her in 10 mins, but somehow, and I'm really not sure how, we ended up drinking with the owners of Awesome Adventures, who supplied us with a continuous stream of glasses of wine and sambucca. At around 1am we had agreed to go diving at 6am in the morning...with Sophie in tow!
Coming from someone so adamant she was 'never going diving in a million years', I think it was largely down to the sambucca she was going diving. They were giving us a dive at half price and there was no way I was saying no to that!
5.30 came around far too quickly and we trudged off to the dive school, lying about sophie's safety questions: 'Have you been drinking in the last 8 hours' 'Er, yes with you'. Watching soph get kitted up in the scuba hear was hilarious and I managed to be a supportive friend for around 10 seconds before laughing. She jumped (well, more like pushed), and she was soon gone from sight. When I emerged 50 minutes later I was greeted with a very excitable sophie talking at the speed of light with a huge grin on a face. after around 10 minutes I finally managed to get in - you liked it then? The dive was lovely, but seeing Sophie's reaction made it one of my best dives ever....diving at the time of the morning is so special, and we were treated to breakfast after on a liveaboard cruise. I even tried tea for the first time as I thought it was only fair seeing as Sophs had tried diving - equal yeah? I'll leave a space for soph to write about it as she's currently a little worse for wear.

Later that day we left manta ray in a torrential storm which made the boat journey very dramatic. Unfortunately, mum's week was up and I had to say goodbye in the middle of the ocean when we went to Beachcomber and she went back to the mainland for her 27 hour flight back home. Saying goodbye in heathrow was one thing, but in the middle of the ocean was very strange! Beachcomber is meant to be the party island but we ended up in bed at half 8 like the hardcore people we are - a combination of a hangover, lack of sleep and diving at 6 meant we just crashed.

We went back to the mainland the next day and headed to Beachouse to meet up with Gee and Emily. We took a local bus there which was a right palava because we couldnt actually get our bags off and had to be rescued by a fijian man who lifted them over our heads making us feel a little stupid. But we got there eventually, and had a fantatsic 4 nights relaxiing at the resort. It's where celeberity love island was filmed and was stunning, but unfortunately we found no Calum Best's lurking around. After a hellish night sleep back at Nadi, with frogs surrounding our room, it was time to wave goodbye to Fiji and say hello to Australia!
SJ xx