Arrived in Fiji late, and both absolutely knackered. We were welcomed with the most relaxed and friendly immigration people encouraging us to stay! We were given a shell necklace each and told to wait in an office where we were given our tour passes etc. The lady in there was really friendly and eventually told us to go out and wait around the corner and our transfer bus would be along in a minute to fetch us. Needless to say, by the time they had finished chatting away, we got outside and found out we had now missed our bus!! Nightmare, all you need after 26 hours traveling!! Everyone was really helpful and friendly and within a few minutes the bus was back.
Got to Smugglers Cove Hostel and our room had a small flat telly on the wall and turned it on to find Man Utd v somebody in the champions league, happy days!!
7am start on the bus to port Denerau, boarding the Yasawa Flyer out to the Yasawa Islands. First stop Bounty Island which is where Celebrity Love island was filmed and it really was beautiful. You could walk round it in about 15 minutes. The beach was amazing and we had our own ‘Bure’ bungalow on the beach and a hammock between two palms!! We met Matt and Marina here they were on the same trip, and have both had been living in New Zealand so they gave us tips on where to go when we arrive there!
We both absolutely loved Bounty Island, although i was a bit put off by the gigantic spider on the bathroom mirror that i found when i got up on the last night! ( i was hoping it would have gone back to wherever it came from by the morning but just my luck it was waiting there for me when i woke up, so lets just say that packing up and getting out on time for the boat to the next island was pretty swift!) Both really excited we headed for Kuata island, with its beautiful scenary, and traditional buildings, here we were greeted with there traditional ‘Bula’ welcome song and showed to our very basic Bure, complete with resident birds nest or atleats thats what we hoped it was !! Here in Kuata we had a local Cava ceremony in a cave. Basically, the locals gathered around in the cave sitting on a mat playing music (Fiji songs apparently!) drinking some muddy watery stuff made from the root of something which tasted disgusting and made your mouth go numb!! They would only share small amounts with us though and then neck loads themselves so a night on it might have been interesting!!
Next stop Korovou echo island. Great food here, greeted with a curry lunch. Bure was nice too with our own veranda overlooking the beach, but the beach had mainly been washed away by a hurricane last year and so we all sat round the pool and frazzled. Met a crazy Dubliner called Donal and had a music night with some french canadians who were in a band. Andy managed to get them listening to Gomez and the mighty Ocean Colour Scene!! Went down a storm.
After two nights in Korovou we headed to the furthest north island on our trip to Coral View. Great food here and more of a party atmosphere with a large group of backpackers from all over the world. Made friends with two Italians from Bologna and had a few beers. On the last day here we took a trip over to Blue Lagoon (where the film was made) for some amazing snorkeling and ran into a sea snake, didn’t fancy it after that!! That night we walked up to the summit of the rock on coral view and saw an amazing sunset. Hiking back down in the dark in flip flops was a nightmare!!
Next we had one night on Manta ray Island which we shared with a German couple from Stuttgart and Matt and Marina, drinking wine by a bonfire on the beach and watching amazingly bright shooting stars, (this was after a few cocktails made by Isaak, the camp male belly dancer!!!!!!!) Both loving this island so much we decided to do a scuba diving introduction, (with a German instructor, so Andy was happy again, seeing as he was in the Hitler youth!!!) this went so well and we were both able to swim on our own, diving to 10 meters rather than the 5 to 6 she had said. We saw a Mooray Eel, a Lion fish and of course found Nemo! This was the most AMAZING experience! And has got Andy hooked, he can’t wait to do the full course in either Oz or Thailand!
Last stop before the mainland was the ultimate partyy island, Beachcomber. Awesome island, live music every day, great food. Again you could walk round the place in 15 minutes and most importantly, it had hot showers!! (Most islands dont have any hot water, so Andys shower routine had to be reduced, haha!!!!!!!!!!!)
Next stop New Zealand!!!!