Saturday 12th August - From Pants to Paradise

Sarah has struck gold again. Ok the last one was more fool's gold but we have the real thing again.

Oarsman's Bay is fantastic, probably the most hotel-like of all the places we have been to. The sand is sandy obviously but also fine and white. The sea, blue obviously but with shades of turquoise and purple and you can actually see through it and go in it unlike the idyllic shores of Bognor Regis. There is also life in them tharr seas, tonnes of fish and coral.

They say that cultures are diverse and the people from Fiji are so different to the English, but we saw one striking resemblance... One Fijian working here goes by the name of Nigel, wears very tight vests, is the campest thing around, calls out 'Afternoon tea' around 4pm everyday and does no other work whatsoever. I feel he was separated at birth from one Sunderlandian/Romfordian.

We have hot water! We can take a decent shower, and go for number twos with confidence again. It's the small things in life sometimes, even though those small things can come in the shape of cockroaches the size of Mars Bars.

Exercise has been back on the agenda, kayaking some more, snorkelling some more, Sarah wanted to climb a volcano but my lunch disagreed with me. It disagreed with me in the 'Not climbing up that near vertical shenanigan' kind of way. But we might go tomorrow morning instead.

The Fijian stage is nearly at an end and I think we are ready for New Zealand. Though sitting on the beach eating fish and fresh fruit is awesome, you can have too much. We are itching to see something else now. The Fijians are such a nice people, they are all friendly, even the ones trapping you on islands. The phrase 'Bula' meaning hello/goodbye/beer/whassup/anything has now been etched on to our souls so that if anyone ever says it we immediately scream it back at people with a big smile!

Our new favourite game is to befriend new New Zealanders to get addresses and things 'in case' we need something to eat or somewhere to stay. We could avoid hostels entirely at this rate for the next part of our trip.

Right, our last Island happy hour awaits us... to Fiji Gold and beyond!
Laters

Pricey