Take my breath away.....

Sunset over Octopus Bay
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Wow!  What can I say?  I think my Fiji experience can be summed up using one word. Stunning. or Breathtaking. or Beautiful. or Amazing. oh, and Hot!

We arrived in Nadi (pronounced Nandi, obviously), on Thursday 30th March, where we met up with Alison (for those of you who don't know Al is one of Occam's clients!), who had flown in from Oz.  We arrived in the middle of a huge thunderstorm and torrential rain, with fears that it was going to be like this all week.

Our first night was spent at the Beachside Resort just on the outskirts of Nadi, swimming in the pool (when it eventually stopped raining), and drinking cocktails, a good sign of things to come!

Looking back over the resort
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The next day we were picked up and taken to the 'port' in Nadi, where a boat took us on the hour and a half trip to Waya Island, to the Octopus resort.  I don't think any of us could believe our eyes when we saw our home for the next five nights, it was just as you would expect paradise to be.  White sands, turquoise sea, palm trees, and a very small, quiet resort.

We were on a fully catered package, mainly because there is no alternative.  The island has four villages, and a couple of other resorts, but no shops or anything, so I'm not sure how else you go about getting food if you're not on the catered package.  Anyway, the food was amazing, loads of fresh fruit, chicken, fish, salad, rice and cous cous, and just about everything was curried in some way, shape or form!  I even had Thai green watermelon curry for lunch on the first day - it was fab!

Looking left from my sun lounger
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There's not a huge amount to do on the island, although they do lay on some activities so that you don't get bored. Frankly I was quite happy to sit about on the beach, or by the pool, doing nothing after a few frantic weeks travelling round NZ.  I spent quite a lot of time snorkelling, and I did get up at 6am one morning to do a walk to the top of the 'mountain' on the island, although I didn't make it to the top, because I found the heat too much, even at that time of day. The second (or maybe third, I don't know, they all roll into one) day that we were there, it was the first anniversary of Ross and Polly managing the resort, so they laid on a boat and we went round to Nova bay, with some beers, a frisbee and a rugby ball (although no-one felt particularly active), as well as taking a couple of the locals who work at the resort, who sang songs and played their guitars.  Sheer bliss.

Looking right from my sun lounger
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There's some form of entertainment laid on most evenings.  On Saturday night we had a barbeque, followed by silly games. The first of these was the limbo, which I didn't do quite as well as I had hoped.  Sue was the joint winner of this, along with a fat middle aged bloke, which was slightly upsetting!  The game I did slightly better at (not surprisingly) was the one where you have to run along the beach, drink a bottle of beer as quick as you can, run round it five times, and stagger dizzily back along the beach, for the next person in your team to go!  Needless to say my team won this!  There was also a game where five girls sit in a line, and their partners are blindfolded and have to guess which pair of knees belongs to their girlfriend / wife.  For some strange reason Al and I were picked for this game, and she guessed my knees correctly, although later confessed to having cheated, as she could see under the blindfold!  It was a fun night, and a rather drunken one as lots of bottles of bubbly were given to the games winners.

The winning crab (it's there, honest!)
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Sunday night is movie night, and a big screen is put up on the beach. Unfortunately it was threatening rain, so they  projected the film onto a wall in the restaurant.  It was still open air as such, so had the same effect.  The film was Top Gun, which went down very well with Sue and myself, although clearly didn't have such an effect on Al, who was asleep on her bed by about 8.30!!  After the movie was over we went off to watch the final of the Hong Kong Sevens, in which we had been following the progress of Fiji.  I have to say that I was really gutted when they lost it in the last minute, the Fijians were getting so into it I really wanted them to win.

The girls
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On Tuesday night, the resort holds 'International Crab Racing'.  You buy a crab (carefully picked off the beach by the resort staff) for $3 (which is about one pound), which goes into the village scholarship fund, and two heats take place, followed by a final, which our crab won!!  We won a $30 bar tab, which allowed us to buy a bottle of bubbly, quite a fitting end to out Fiji experience, and our travels together.

On Wednesday, Al and I got the boat back to the main island, as it doesn't get in until about 3.30pm, and our flights were at 8.45 (me) and 3pm.  Sue's flight wasn't until 10pm the following night, so we said our farewells, and she spent another night at the resort.

Octopus Resort
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Al and I stayed at the Nadi Bay Hotel that night, which was very nice, and we sat in the bar and had far too many beers (something I only realised when I had to get up at 5.45 the next morning!  Oh well, I was only going to be sitting on my bum all day, something I'd rather got used to over the last few days....