Fiji was freaking awesome. We did absolutely nothing and still every night I’d pass out like a ton of bricks and have a huge issue waking up the next morning which caused my lover no end of grief because breakfast was included in our resort package but well, I just couldn’t motivate myself even at the thought of having paid for it already but somehow forced myself to go at least three of the five mornings after constant wake up calls. Anyway, that was breakfast. We developed a nice routine for the rest of the days and nights too. After breakfast, we’d go back to our room and gather our belongings for the day which would be a book, a sarong, the room key, and the all important towel pass. The towel passes were awesome because whenever you felt like you could get fresh beach towels for the pool and beach so never had to deal with any of those tedious non-5-star-resort issues like sandy towels in the toilet at the end of the day and having to dry them for the next day, having to carry the same towel around with you the whole day, etc. etc. So some days we’d start by jumping in one of the pools or sometimes we’d head straight for the beach. There were three pools – the Coral Pool, Takali Pool and Main Pool. The main pool we stayed well clear of because it was always packed to the brim with easily excitable, screaming, swimming children. The Coral Pool was right below our room and had an awesome view of the coral lagoon just beyond and was quite far away from the main pool so was never very crowded and quite pleasant. Our favourite though was the Takali Pool because it had great sunset views and it was strictly adults only so was most peaceful. We ended most of our evenings here, sipping on drinks and watching the sun set. So in between breakfast and sunset, we’d alternate with swimming in pools, the beach, lying on deck chairs, reading in the hammock, nibbling on lunch, drinking (having our drinks brought wherever we wanted because of the great bar and food service), snorkelling, jet skiing, kayaking (uh yeah, this tired us out fairly quickly every time so we’d kayak for all of 10 minutes) and then our main activity for the day – sailing the catamaran. This became a great cause for excitement as we played sailors with tacking and tightening and what not. We became rather good (well, it certainly ain’t rocket science) but each day made our man more confident and took me closer and closer to that dreaded wave break, you know, where the real ocean starts after the lagoon… the sight of that always terrifies me. Maybe because it reminds me of the outer Great Barrier Reef when we were all playing around in 12 metres or so and a few metres away, the break ominously fell to something like 200 metres apparently. But anyway, we went closer and closer each time until this one time we had the perfect wind in our sails and it was really choppy suddenly in that area and we were coasting faster and faster and suddenly I notice that his side of the catamaran is completely out of the water and in the freaking air and my side is ready to be submerged any second and oh my god, I lost it. I haven’t been so terrified since I’m not sure when… probably since the snake. Anyway, somehow we slowed down and the catamaran returned to its upright position and I insisted we turn around and head back to sweet safe land which we did. Was great fun though, the catamaran… What else did we do… well, the swimming in the lagoon was an experience in itself… the water is incredibly clear and the fish swim all around you in incredibly shallow water, its crazy! The first afternoon we decided to be very adventurous and walk in the water from our side of the resort to the main lagoon beach… this involves crossing many rocks and such and sometimes there’s no beach to walk on so you have to walk in the water and that’s of course when I met the eel. I was extremely terrified to go any further because I really wouldn’t have been keen to meet its friend, the sea snake but somehow made it out of there. I took the inland route on all future occasions and I only had to contend with creepy garden lizards… oh god, and there were regular wall lizards as well... ugggg… creepy bastards! One day we were different and went on a tour to a completely different island… caught a boat down a river which took us to the Robinson Crusoe island, went on a jet boat ride, snorkelled, made some random tour friends, watched some traditional Fiji customs (in photos later) and drank the most potent rum I have ever drunk in my life. It’s called Bounty Rum and it beats even Jamaican Coruba Rum… I had to refill it with more soft drink and it was still incredibly foul and it got me incredibly buzzed. Now, everyone knows I am the last thing from a one-drink-buzz girl so you have to believe me when I tell you how strong it was. So our days were happily spent…
In the evenings, after our poolside drinks and sunset we’d head back to shower and we’d drink our duty free alcohol and listen to music and get quite buzzed, make a ready mix for the 5 minute walk to the restaurants and head for dinner. There were 3 main restaurants open for dinner and of course we tried them all. One of them was the Black Marlin Bar which also served as the resort’s nightclub. God, it was painfully hilarious. The DJ would play everything from Madonna to Harry Belafonte, from the 80s to the 00s, and people would dance. We did our usual jive thing for a couple of songs and beat a hasty retreat. We’d then wander the beach drinking from our ready mix until we were ready to hit the sack. The other two restaurants were Kalevu and Takali and we liked Takali so much we went back there for dinner on our last night. After dinner, we headed to the Black Marlin Bar in expectation of an 80s night, as promised by a poster, but there were all of 5 people and no one seemed particularly into the 80s, so the DJ didn’t even play the 80s and played some horrendous music some guests provided him. But anyway, it was our last night so we made friends with some of the staff and got suitably smashed before retiring. The next day we left the bright blue and green tropics to return to cold, dreary Melbourne. The nicest souvenir from the trip is my awesome golden brown tan that will keep me in the island spirit throughout the paling, non-sunny winter. That, in a nutshell, was our trip and here are some photos…
The ocean view from our room... you can see the "break"... it was low tide so all that brown stuff is coral
The Coral Pool below our room
The beautiful lagoon and main beach... we met the eel somewhere down here when we were walking in the water
Oh god, the EEL in all its creepiness... that's water if you can believe it... it's so freaking clear
Bright blue starfish such as this one were scattered everywhere in the water... again, that's in water
Robinson Crusoe Island where we went daytripping
Traditional Fiji style of cooking on coals in pits... called 'lovo'
Firewalking
Firedancing
Every day they have crab races like this... number the shells of some poor crabs and assign numbers to guests and the first crab to cross the circle wins!
You can't really see, but look closely and you might see the faint glowing blue... at night, the coral was lit and we'd get ocean side dinner tables on the terrace and it was really most lovely
Sunset as viewed from the Takali Pool... it was a slightly cloudy evening though
But I'm sad to say,
I'm on my way,
won't be back for many a day
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