FIJI TIME ON THE YASAWA”S!!
So the clocks went back during our last night, for once we were well informed, clocks changed, alarms set and off to bed. So we first wake up at 5am to the hostel alarm as two girls leave the hostel with wheely suitcases in tow!!??!! Then an hour later theirs a knock at the door and a rather anxious receptionist telling us that its 7am and our transfer is due any minute. He was clearly concerned given our light was off and mike was half asleep in his undies!!
So in a panick mike tries to wake the sleeping beauty up and get his phone to check the time and find out why the alarm hadn’t gone off when mike realized everyone had been told about the time apart from the receptionist and the two girls who were probably still standing very bemused at the bus stop and the receptionist who was frantically working his way around all the rooms waking up his lazy guests and wandering what he had done to deserve such a lazy bunch of tourists on his early shift!! He was clearly a little embarrassed with himself when Mike managed to point his mistake out. This was Fiji time gone mad!!
We got to the Ferry terminal and boarded the Yasawa flyer which is a huge yellow cateraman that delivers tourists to the beautiful pacific Fijian islands everyday.
We had a 5 hour ride ahead of us to Oarsman Bay resort, Nacula island. The Ferry stopped in the bay and we were collected by motor boat and taken to the island. It was a result, we were greeted with drinks and our bags all taken to the Bure (bungalow) we had been given a free upgrade from a dorm room to a private bungalow on the beach looking out to sea.
We were given lunch and then spent the day snorkeling on the reef just off our beach. All meals were signaled by the staff hitting the Fijian drum. At diner we sat on communal tables which turned out to be an excellent idea as we all got to know each other very quickly!! It was kinda like speed dating for couples. We had some really interesting and fun people there.
While at Oarsman bay we took part in all the activities, the first one was a boat ride to caves where we had the opportunity to climb, crawl and swim through a network of caves. It was pretty adrenaline fuelled given the complete lack of safety gear, pitch black darkness and only one flash light held by the guide who only managed to get lost once. Needless to say Loo escaped with a bit of a lump ontop of her head from the cave wall, but great experience. Mike escaped unscathed as he didn’t actually make it into the caves cos he wasn’t feeling too well. Poor bunny.
That afternoon the boys decided to get their fishing rods out and go catch diner. Jimmy took us about half an hours walk from the resort to a point where tide ran fast and we set to work while the girls sunbathed.
In the evening we played potato racing(which Laura won a beer) and musical chairs ( which mike won a beer) and every evening al the guests and staff would gather on the patio with the sun setting over the sea and drink kava and chat late into the night.
Kava is a mild narcotic, which is used in the western world to treat depression and anxiety, it tastes and looks a bit like muddy water, and as far as we could tell its main effects were a numbing sensation of your mouth and throat. They grind tree roots and add water. The chief drinks first then the spokes man then everyone else drinks one by one in the circle. The chief initiates the drinking by saying taki . they hand around the kava in a half a coconut shell. I don’t think it’ll take off in the uk.
We visited a traditional Fijian village community while there , meeting the doctor and seeing the health centre, local school where the children sang songs for us in their assembly. We walked around the houses and brought some homemade mementos from the local ladies.
As much as we loved Oarsman we did have to sneak off to the competition resort next door with was a contrast owned and operated by a successful Ozzy businessman (who we later met on another island). We were tempted across by the Vonu beer and afternoon snacks on sale as the food wasn’t always enough to get you through the hole day at Oarsman. We had some secret sign language amongst the group and had to operate a covet mission as we felt a little guilty giving money to the enemy!!
After one session on the vonu we all swam out to a boat moored off the beach and had competitions for the craziest dives into the crystal clear water with sun setting behind- magical!!
We made friends with some lovely people Kate, Ed, Manuel, Alana, ash and Pauline. But like always when you’re travelling you say goodbye to people just as much as you say hello. We were sad to see them go as we had all got on so well. It wasn’t quite the same without them.
Oni our Fijian mother type figure tried to cheer us up and showed us all the uses for the coconut. We got to make things, eat all the different aged coconut, climb the tree and drink the milk. They even use the roots as medicine for food poisoning from fish.
We loved Oarsman bay for its connection to the traditional side of Fijian life. We were there for Easter weekend and the Village has a mix of catholic and Methodist which is at the heart of their community, so we visited the church for the Good Friday service. We thought our mum’s would be happy to hear this. We also watched their Easter day parade where a huge wooden cross is carried by the villagers across the island the different tribes give offering for the other tribes then it’s taken to the water where they would swim across with it to the other islands. This was a tribute to the peace and unity that Christianity had brought to their culture. It’s definitely much better than them cannibals!!
With a heavy heart we left oarsmans bay and headed back onto the yasawa flyer next destination mantaray resort. Here we were staying in a 34 bed dorm. We had heard the food and snorkeling here was amazing… the rumors were true the food was fantastic, and snorkeling was out of this world!! There were day time activities of jewellery making and basket weaving… I think we could make pretty good OTs ! Our first night there we went down to the beach for a romantic walk. We heard some splashing in the water and we looked out to sea…. Only to see 8 baby black tipped reef sharks beach themselves in front of us…. Unbelievable!! The next night the shark beaching event had caused quite a stir so that night we went down to the beach with 20 people keen to see these sharks…. Unfortunately the sharks were a no show…so we went up to play some limbo and a good old game of ring of fire… the best made-up rule being finishing every sentence with “in my pants”… so funny!
The next day we hopped back on the yasawa flyer this time heading to the poshest resort in the yasawas octopus resort… woo hoo what flash packers we are! We had arrived… a dorm with air con and only 15 beds this time!! It was like being on holiday! Every evening there were games organized. The first night we played a bit of volley ball and every time you got a good shot you got a shot. We made friends with some lovely girls from California they reminded Laura of her and kimmy. We also made friends with a real Australian guy who lives in the bush and goes wild boar hunting, and a funny Norwegian girl called Hannah.
The next night we played more silly games with balloon dancing, pig king horse donkey and relay drinking! We managed to win pig king horse donkey and our prize was a two handed massage for both of us valued at F$200. Awesome!
We headed back to the mainland and back to blue water lodge resort for some more of their amazing food. Nicole and Meredith joined us for dinner for our last night in Fiji.
As always we were sad to leave but really excited about the next step….new Zealand!!
Friday 9 April 2010
Ah Beautiful Fiji
We had to leave the hostel at 3.30am to make the flight from Cairns to Sydney where we picked up the connecting flight to Nadi, Fiji!!!!!!
We were both ready to leave Oz, we’d had an amazing time but with the exchange rate and recently elevated shop prices oz was rediciulously expensive to live and travel and had hit the bank accounts hard!!
We landed in Fiji in the evening and Al the friendly taxi driving was there waiting with our names on his board- luxury travel, or so we thought he led us outside to his wheels, we were lightly surprised to find him loading our bags into the little old bangar. It was difficult to identify the car but Al told us it was a Toyota mark 2, probably 20-30 years old, with more rattles and knocks than a tin can full of stones!! Al turned out to be a really friendly guy and luckily his wheels didn’t reflect at all the quality of our hostel. We pulled into the gated property, to the friendly welcome from the Fijian staff and British owners. Jessie was playing his guitar and doing his version of singing in the back garden by the pool. We dumped our bags in our huge room and gave each other a high five. It was hotel quality rooms for hostel prices!! We went to the pool side where a few others were eating and joined them for an amazing restaurant quality meal for about 6 quid!! The beer was cheaper - we had a great nights sleep!!
The next day we awoke to sunshine and our nice complimentary breakfast. We finished this then took the local bus to the town centre. I wish we had a picture to show the bus it was a real classic with a bicycle bell to get the drivers attention when you wanted to get off!! We went to the market with Ferdinand and Holly, a Swede and a Brit. Ferdinand put our trip to shame having already travelled the trans Siberian railway through Russia, Mongolia etc and having spent time in China so we felt we were in the safe company of a seasoned traeller. The market was cool, we discovered the cultural mix of Fiji was so diverse for such a small country. Their was a mix of Indian and Fijian and just about every religion known to man practiced. The market was filled with roots sitting on the tables. We were a bit mythed as to what this was but as we got to know Fiji we discovered became very familiar with what turned out to be Kava the drink of choice in Fiji. We all had a taste in the market, it was a mouth numbing taste of muddy water but the Fijians are mad for it.
We brought loads of fruit and bread at the market and headed back to the hostel/ hotel and had a feast. In the afternoon we called Ali and agreed a price for him to take us to the hot springs for the day.
For 25 dollars Ali rattled and shook us all to the hot springs of Nadi. It was a bit of a surreal experience as we were taken to the second springs past the usual sign posted springs up a rough road into some land were their appeared to be a volleyball tournament. We pretty much drove right through the middle of the games and down to the bottom of the garden- I don’t think we were expected but after some discussion between Ali, our driver, and the apparent land owner we were introduced to a young girl who was to show us around. The first thing to do was climb down into a pit dug into the ground and cover ourselves in mud. Then we got out and dried the mud in the sun, while the locals all played volleyball right behind us!!
We then had to clean off and go over to the hot springs. The water at the source was too hot to sit in so they had channeled the springs to another “swimming pool” or pit as it really was to swim in the bath temperature waters.
The kids came and watched the tourists flap around and seemed a little intrigued by us. We dried off and Ali was ready and waiting to take us home via the supermarket, a nice but very random experience!!
That night we had another amazing meal and music and ‘singing’ by Jessie and lots of chat and beers.
The next day we were boarding the Yasawa flyer and heading out for our island experience!!
We were both ready to leave Oz, we’d had an amazing time but with the exchange rate and recently elevated shop prices oz was rediciulously expensive to live and travel and had hit the bank accounts hard!!
We landed in Fiji in the evening and Al the friendly taxi driving was there waiting with our names on his board- luxury travel, or so we thought he led us outside to his wheels, we were lightly surprised to find him loading our bags into the little old bangar. It was difficult to identify the car but Al told us it was a Toyota mark 2, probably 20-30 years old, with more rattles and knocks than a tin can full of stones!! Al turned out to be a really friendly guy and luckily his wheels didn’t reflect at all the quality of our hostel. We pulled into the gated property, to the friendly welcome from the Fijian staff and British owners. Jessie was playing his guitar and doing his version of singing in the back garden by the pool. We dumped our bags in our huge room and gave each other a high five. It was hotel quality rooms for hostel prices!! We went to the pool side where a few others were eating and joined them for an amazing restaurant quality meal for about 6 quid!! The beer was cheaper - we had a great nights sleep!!
The next day we awoke to sunshine and our nice complimentary breakfast. We finished this then took the local bus to the town centre. I wish we had a picture to show the bus it was a real classic with a bicycle bell to get the drivers attention when you wanted to get off!! We went to the market with Ferdinand and Holly, a Swede and a Brit. Ferdinand put our trip to shame having already travelled the trans Siberian railway through Russia, Mongolia etc and having spent time in China so we felt we were in the safe company of a seasoned traeller. The market was cool, we discovered the cultural mix of Fiji was so diverse for such a small country. Their was a mix of Indian and Fijian and just about every religion known to man practiced. The market was filled with roots sitting on the tables. We were a bit mythed as to what this was but as we got to know Fiji we discovered became very familiar with what turned out to be Kava the drink of choice in Fiji. We all had a taste in the market, it was a mouth numbing taste of muddy water but the Fijians are mad for it.
We brought loads of fruit and bread at the market and headed back to the hostel/ hotel and had a feast. In the afternoon we called Ali and agreed a price for him to take us to the hot springs for the day.
For 25 dollars Ali rattled and shook us all to the hot springs of Nadi. It was a bit of a surreal experience as we were taken to the second springs past the usual sign posted springs up a rough road into some land were their appeared to be a volleyball tournament. We pretty much drove right through the middle of the games and down to the bottom of the garden- I don’t think we were expected but after some discussion between Ali, our driver, and the apparent land owner we were introduced to a young girl who was to show us around. The first thing to do was climb down into a pit dug into the ground and cover ourselves in mud. Then we got out and dried the mud in the sun, while the locals all played volleyball right behind us!!
We then had to clean off and go over to the hot springs. The water at the source was too hot to sit in so they had channeled the springs to another “swimming pool” or pit as it really was to swim in the bath temperature waters.
The kids came and watched the tourists flap around and seemed a little intrigued by us. We dried off and Ali was ready and waiting to take us home via the supermarket, a nice but very random experience!!
That night we had another amazing meal and music and ‘singing’ by Jessie and lots of chat and beers.
The next day we were boarding the Yasawa flyer and heading out for our island experience!!
Diving with Diana!!
We took a transfer to Cairns for the last week of the Australian leg of our adventure.
We stayed a little out of town at a Nomads backpackers hostel, the Serpent, which had a pool, a nice bar and was the cheapest we’ve had throughout the whole of aus! It had a few cubs staying there. (Cashed Up Bogans(similar to chavs)) Cairns it’s self was an interesting place, it obviously had a high unemployment rate there are a lot of drunk aborigines roaming the streets and a lot of bogans drinking in the various bogan watering holes dotted around town. There was no beach and the mud flats at the sea fronts had a lot of signs warning us about crocodiles, but the lagoon was a nice place to hang out.
We spent the first day in Cairns camera shopping for Laura to replace the love of her life…. her camera, which the rat pack had brought Laura, and our travels destroyed with a mixture of sand and hard surfaces.
So we’d met up with Diana in Cairns and headed off into town to book up our next few days.
We found Peter Pans and sat down with the sales guy we’d met on the greyhound earlier in the week. We had managed to get a fantastic deal. This might be because the sales guy was sweet on Diana. Thanks Diana our aussie hunny trap. We had bought a couple of days of adrenaline fueled fun. We hung out by the lagoon and had a delicious but not nutritious dinner at the hostel, followed by a game of darts with some randoms.
The next day we went white water rafting down the Russel river. First we hiked through the rain forest with our rafts on our backs and paddles in hand. It was only 5 minutes before we needed to cross a river and the threat of leeches was hanging over us. Mike was frantically checking his legs every couple of minutes. Diana had two leeches that mike helpfully got off for her with his paddle. Laura proudly announced when she reached the river that she had escaped leech free…. Until she took off her shoe and discovered the biggest leech out of everyone there! Being the mildly competitive type she was obviously jealous that Diana had two, but was happy in the thought that hers was by far the biggest even though the majority of its mass was indeed blood sucked from Laura’s leg!!
Once in our two man inflatable kayak we were a force to be reckoned with. Before each rapid our guide would stop us and tell us how to take the rapid… some of them grade 4!! On route we stopped at an aboriginal cave with a waterfall and painted our faces with tribal war paint. Then we carried on down the river. Diana did manage to get stuck wrapped round a rock at the top of a grade 4 rapid. She had to let her boat go and walk around instead. One of the guides jumped off the land crocodile Dundee style and wrestled the raft back to the land….amazing to watch that narly dude. We went out that night to listen to a bit of live music….. what an awesome day!!
The next day we were up early ready to dive the great barrier reef. The staff were very friendly, but it was a very busy boat. We managed to do 2 dives and Laura was very excited to see a giant clam. She also had a 1.3 meter sucker fish stuck to her leg for the duration of her first dive. Usually they sucker onto sharks but unfortunately we didn’t see any of them. Mike was really excited by the food especially the cheese platter. We had a great night out that night playing guess the nationality and convince someone that they know you game…. Diana what a legend!! Diana almost convinced this guy Elliot that he knew her.. she put in ground work and talked to one of his friends to get some deets…. So funny!! Diana got some yummy pineapple sweets at the end of the night. Laura liked them so much she happily obeyed the three second rule for them and may have eaten a few of them off the floor…very messy night!! It was sad to say goodbye to the lovely Diana, who headed back to Sydney.
Our hostel ensured we had a good send off on our last night they had an aussie night. Were they put emu, crocodile, and kangaroo on the Barbie. They also had an animal show were we saw indigenous species and got to hold a crocodile!! It was sad to say good bye to Australia but with Australia being so expensive and Fiji calling we were excited to leave.
We stayed a little out of town at a Nomads backpackers hostel, the Serpent, which had a pool, a nice bar and was the cheapest we’ve had throughout the whole of aus! It had a few cubs staying there. (Cashed Up Bogans(similar to chavs)) Cairns it’s self was an interesting place, it obviously had a high unemployment rate there are a lot of drunk aborigines roaming the streets and a lot of bogans drinking in the various bogan watering holes dotted around town. There was no beach and the mud flats at the sea fronts had a lot of signs warning us about crocodiles, but the lagoon was a nice place to hang out.
We spent the first day in Cairns camera shopping for Laura to replace the love of her life…. her camera, which the rat pack had brought Laura, and our travels destroyed with a mixture of sand and hard surfaces.
So we’d met up with Diana in Cairns and headed off into town to book up our next few days.
We found Peter Pans and sat down with the sales guy we’d met on the greyhound earlier in the week. We had managed to get a fantastic deal. This might be because the sales guy was sweet on Diana. Thanks Diana our aussie hunny trap. We had bought a couple of days of adrenaline fueled fun. We hung out by the lagoon and had a delicious but not nutritious dinner at the hostel, followed by a game of darts with some randoms.
The next day we went white water rafting down the Russel river. First we hiked through the rain forest with our rafts on our backs and paddles in hand. It was only 5 minutes before we needed to cross a river and the threat of leeches was hanging over us. Mike was frantically checking his legs every couple of minutes. Diana had two leeches that mike helpfully got off for her with his paddle. Laura proudly announced when she reached the river that she had escaped leech free…. Until she took off her shoe and discovered the biggest leech out of everyone there! Being the mildly competitive type she was obviously jealous that Diana had two, but was happy in the thought that hers was by far the biggest even though the majority of its mass was indeed blood sucked from Laura’s leg!!
Once in our two man inflatable kayak we were a force to be reckoned with. Before each rapid our guide would stop us and tell us how to take the rapid… some of them grade 4!! On route we stopped at an aboriginal cave with a waterfall and painted our faces with tribal war paint. Then we carried on down the river. Diana did manage to get stuck wrapped round a rock at the top of a grade 4 rapid. She had to let her boat go and walk around instead. One of the guides jumped off the land crocodile Dundee style and wrestled the raft back to the land….amazing to watch that narly dude. We went out that night to listen to a bit of live music….. what an awesome day!!
The next day we were up early ready to dive the great barrier reef. The staff were very friendly, but it was a very busy boat. We managed to do 2 dives and Laura was very excited to see a giant clam. She also had a 1.3 meter sucker fish stuck to her leg for the duration of her first dive. Usually they sucker onto sharks but unfortunately we didn’t see any of them. Mike was really excited by the food especially the cheese platter. We had a great night out that night playing guess the nationality and convince someone that they know you game…. Diana what a legend!! Diana almost convinced this guy Elliot that he knew her.. she put in ground work and talked to one of his friends to get some deets…. So funny!! Diana got some yummy pineapple sweets at the end of the night. Laura liked them so much she happily obeyed the three second rule for them and may have eaten a few of them off the floor…very messy night!! It was sad to say goodbye to the lovely Diana, who headed back to Sydney.
Our hostel ensured we had a good send off on our last night they had an aussie night. Were they put emu, crocodile, and kangaroo on the Barbie. They also had an animal show were we saw indigenous species and got to hold a crocodile!! It was sad to say good bye to Australia but with Australia being so expensive and Fiji calling we were excited to leave.
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