When we were about halfway through our time in Australia we started to think about what we were actually going to do in Fiji. We knew that diving was our main priority but also we wanted to look at some nice things and do trips and that. So we booked onto something called the Fiji Experience - which is basically a bus service which stops at 4 place around the main island in Fiji and on the way to each place you do a load of excursions and stuff. When we booked it they were offering 20% off so that pretty much sold it for us. Also the fact that we had heard there were not as many WOOHOO douche bags on Fiji Experience as there are on Oz Experience and Kiwi Experience which we had carefully avoided.
So on our first morning in Nadi the little Fiji Experience bus arrived to pick us up. Almost all of the people on the bus were girls so Chris felt a little outnumbered but everyone seemed nice enough and our guide Rueben was quite funny. But also possibly a little stoned…
Our first stop of the day was Nadi town to have a mooch around the shops and buy a sarong or sulu (a kind of long skirt) which Rueben told us we would need for the village visits we’d be doing on the Fiji Experience. We wandered round trying to find a suitably manly one for Chris and ended up settling on a nice navy blue one - which did have flowers on it, but not loads. Butch.
Chris: They’re not flowers they’re pictures of a nautilus. So hah.
Our second stop was called Natadola Beach which is apparently listed in Forbes Top 25 Beaches in the World or something. It was very beautiful but Chris was slightly unconvinced by it’s alleged top 25 status as there were no loos. We did a bit of sunbathing and some paddling but no swimming as the waves were bloody huge. In the Fiji Experience brochure it had photos of people snorkeling at the beach but we’re not quite sure how they got past the death waves to actually be able to do any snorkeling. While we were on the beach our guide and driver cooked a barbecue lunch for us which had only cost us the bargain price of $5 each. We had lamb sausages, chicken legs, bread, salad and tomato ketchup in a tin. It was nice. After lunch we all had to put our sarongs on as we were heading to Malomalo village to learn about traditional village life.
Jen: Now that I think about it, couldn’t you have just put your jeans on?
Chris: Let’s pretend that’s not true.
Rueben took us on a tour of the village which had a population of 400 people - but it was the afternoon by this point so most of them were enjoying a siesta. We saw their church, their community hall and we went into the chief’s hut which is not where he lives but is a massive hut specially built for him to just hang out in. There were also some very cute small children that followed us around and waved from the houses. Inside the chief’s hut Rueben explained to us a little about village life and about the traditional Kava ceremony that we will be taking part in on the 3rd day of the Fiji Experience. It involves a lot of clapping and shouting out words all together - hopefully we will remember it all.
After leaving Malomalo we drove to our final stop of the day which was the Sigatoka sand dunes to do some sand boarding. We were supposed to do sand boarding at Fraser Island but it never happened, and in the mean time we had heard a number of stories of how easy it is to break an arm or a neck if you don’t do it right. So when we arrived at the sand dune that we were boarding down and saw how steep it was we had our reservations. Well actually just Jen had reservations. Her exact words were “there is not a f*&%ing chance in hell I’m doing that”. But Chris got straight into it and despite nearly burning the soles of his feet off, on the walk up the dune he loved it. And after watching everyone else have lots of fun Jen swallowed her reservations and had a go too. And once you got over the initial terror it was actually awesome.
Once we’d finished the sand boarding everyone was tired, sticky and covered in sand so we couldn’t wait to arrive at our first accommodation stop on the Coral Coast. It was called Mango Bay Resort and they had a dorm especially for Fiji Experience people so we were all put in together. Rueben told us there would be a traditional Kava ceremony at 6pm if we wanted to practice what we had learnt at Malomalo earlier that day but we were desperate to shower and put some laundry on as we had a distinct lack of clean pants. And towels. And t-shirts. Basically almost everything we had was started to hum. So by the time we’d sorted all that it was long past 6pm and we’d missed the ceremony.
We all sat together for dinner and the food was nice. Jen had mud crab which was the most expensive thing on the menu at $25 but when you work out that that is around £8.50 it’s kind of a bargain for fresh crab. When the waiter brought it over he said “Sorry we don’t have anything for you to crack it open with - you’ll have to do it Fiji style. Just watchRueben who had ordered the same thing. Fiji style means cracking it open with your teeth and picking and prodding it to get all the meat out, and when that gets a bit too difficult using a beer bottle and a napkin. OK, that last one about the beer bottle is more “Jen & Chris style” than “Fiji style” but it was effective nonetheless. Jen was the last on our table to finish dinner but it was totally worth it. After dinner we did a quiz and then ended up going to bed around 10:30 as we felt a bit knackered. Half of the group came to bed when we did - the other half crashed in at around 2am after vomiting loudly outside the door. Nice.
The Fiji Experience buses come and go three times a week so you can either stay at each place or if you want to you can do the whole thing in 4 days. This seemed a bit pointless to us but apparently not to the majority of our group who left the following day. We spent the morning on the beach and after lunch Jen did basket weaving which was one of the many free activities organised by the resort. That night we ate dinner and had some drinks with the 3 other girls who had been on our Fiji Experience bus and had stayed at Mango Bay with us which was really nice.
The next day the activities board said there would be guided snorkeling at 10am but when we arrived they said the current was too strong at the spot where they were going to take us and we couldn’t go. Chris wasn’t pleased so we went snorkeling off the beach where the water was much shallower and the current was ok, and still saw some pretty cool stuff. After lunch the activities board said there would be a cooking lesson which we really wanted to do. But that was also cancelled - and instead we did egg-throwing. Which is exactly what it sounds like. Then we played volleyball. Truthfully, Chris played volleyball - Jen stood on the volleyball court hoping that the ball wouldn’t come anywhere near her and occasionally ducking. Earlier in the day one of the activities guys had told us we could take a kayak out in the afternoon to do some snorkelling at the reef but when we asked they said we would have to wait until 5pm - which is about when the sun goes down. So we decided we would swim out to the reef - it didn’t look that far… As we were swimming there a few girls passed us - in kayaks! They said they had just asked at the activities hut and they had given them the kayaks. We felt annoyed but carried on swimming because we were on a mission. When we got to the reef, which was much further away than it looked, we encountered the current that they had warned us about earlier in the day and after about 10 minutes of floundering around decided we would swim back to shore. Against said current. It took us about half an hour! That night they showed a movie in the bar - it was supposed to be “Deception” but it turned out to be “What Happens In Vegas” - which we’ve already seen. They like to mix it up at Mango Bay.
On our last day there it pissed it down with rain all day, but they still decided to run the guided snorkeling trip that they had cancelled the day before. We went out with one of the activities guys and a fairly big group of very splashy people - splashy people make Jen cross - and we basically swam out to almost the same place we'd been the day before, but the current was not as strong and we saw some really cool stuff including a couple of stingrays. However, on the swim back the tide was going out so we pretty much got beached and then cut our feet on sharp rocks and coral walking back to the beach.
In the afternoon Jen did coconut jewellery making which actually involved sanding down a coconut, choosing a shape, watching the activities guy cut out that shape and drill a hole in it, and then sanding down the shape. So, not so much coconut jewellery making as coconut sanding. But still a good way to pass some time. Because it was so rainy they discounted the price of the massages so later that afternoon we each had a 30 minute full body massage which was dead nice. That evening there was another Kava ceremony as the next Fiji Experience bus had arrived, which we would be leaving on the following day. We went along to the ceremony and practiced our clapping and chanting and drank the Kava. It is a traditional drink that they drink in the villages which is made with cold water and ground up Kava root. It looks, smells and tastes like muddy water. But we’re reliably informed that after about 7 bowls you feel incredibly mellow and happy with the world. Jen had 1 bowl, Chris was named as chief for this ceremony so he had to drink 2 bowls. It was also our first encounter with most of the people we would be on the Fiji Experience bus the following day. They were mostly stuck-up English girls and when one of them said “I can’t drink that, if I put it in my mouth I’m going to be sick” to the Fijian guy who was leading the ceremony, we quickly took a dislike to them.
Chris: I didn’t dislike them, as much as hate them and I'm one to hold a grudge and hate people for no reason.
After the ceremony we had dinner and a few drinks with our friends from the first Fiji Experience bus and met the new guide, Joe. Then went back to the dorm around 10pm to sort out our bags as we were leaving at 8am the following day. We didn’t think there was anyone in the room as it was still fairly early but after a few snippy comments came from behind various mosquito nets we realised that the stuck-up girls were already in bed and had to be very quiet.
The next day we ate breakfast and checked out ready for day 2 of our Fiji Experience. The main activity of the day was a 3 hour trek in the Namosi rainforest which we had been warned would be very muddy and very wet, but would end with swimming in a waterfall - and we love a waterfall…! The trek was optional and if you didn’t want to do it they would drop you off at the next resort where you could meet everyone later. We though the stuck-up girls would take that option but they were ready for the trek, By “ready” we mean they all had full faces of make-up and little plimsolls to wear. The trek was harder than any we’ve done so far on this trip but a lot of fun. At points we were ankle-deep in thick mud, at others we were thigh-deep in muddy water, it was very hot and we had to walk through very long grass - and climbing up the waterfall was very slippy and steep. But when we got to the top and had a swim it was very nice. Of course the stuck-up girls whinged the whole way round about how muddy it was, about how unattractive they looked and about how they had injuries. Although, to be fair to one of them, she had been bitten by a dingo on Fraser Island.
Chris: I wish she’d been eaten by the dingo.
They were incredibly patronising to the Fijian guys who were guiding us and kept calling them “Excuse me little man” - we also heard one of them say at one point, in between saying how much she hated it, “Why can’t they just put some planks down or something so we don’t have to walk in the mud?” BECAUSE IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY RAINFOREST YOU IDIOT!
We had a slight drama on the way back down the waterfall after Chris opted to take the local route down which involved walking across the slippy rocks rather than through the mud at the side. Jen watched in slow motion as Chris slipped on some rocks and disappeared under some fairly fast moving water. Luckily one of the guides managed to hang onto him until the last moment so he didn’t fall very far and apart from a few grazes on his back he was fine.
At the end of the trek we got into a boat that took us down a river through the rainforest back to our bus, which was very beautiful and also gave us a chance to wash all the mud off our legs in the river. When we got back on the bus they drove us to the next place we were staying at called Uprising Resort which is in Pacific Harbour - on the way there Joe told us we would have about 10 minutes before meeting for lunch, so there was no time for showers before sitting down with sweaty faces for lunch. As it was Sunday they do an all you can eat barbecue which we happily tucked into as we were bloody starving after the trek.
After lunch we had Coconut Carnival which was organised by the staff at the resort and involved them showing us lots of different items that can be made from the different parts of coconuts and coconut trees. Then they dressed Jen and our friend Molly in traditional clothing that was made from coconuts and coconut trees and they pranced about whilst everyone took photos - very funny. That night we all had dinner together and we were a bit sad as it was our last night with our 3 friends from the first Fiji Experience bus; they all had to move on to the next stop the following day as they didn’t have enough time to stay at all 3 places, and could only stay at 2. In the morning we waved them off, along with the stuck-up girls who we were more than glad to see the back of.
That day we went to the nearest town, Navua, as Chris was in desperate need of a haircut and Jen needed a tape measure to send bridesmaid dress measurements back home! We were going to take the bus there but as we were waiting at the bus stop a taxi pulled up so we jumped in. It wasn’t a very big place and most of the shops seemed to sell an odd combination of shirts, trousers, flip-flops, deodorant and aftershave. We needed some more sun cream but nobody seemed to sell it, and in one place she offered us skin whitening cream which contained SPF 15. In the end we found some in the pharmacy and Chris managed to get a haircut for $3 which is about £1 so he was pretty pleased. After hunting down a tape measure we caught the bus back to our resort where we had some lunch and sat by the pool. Chris went on a quick fact-finding mission and came back to say that he had booked us on a snorkelling trip the following day and 2 dives on the day after that. There aren’t as many free activities here at Uprising as there were at Mango Bay which is a shame - but it’s much more sunny and their pool is nicer so we manage to console ourselves.
The snorkelling trip the following day was great - we were in a group of 5 and they took us out to the reef on a cool little speedboat. The water was very flat and crystal clear and we had a lovely time bobbing around - our only complaint was that it seemed like we weren’t there for very long. Although once we were all back on the boat it became obvious why they’d cut the snorkelling short. We could see loads of sea birds hovering near the surface of the water and the guys on the boat informed us that we were going fishing. They drove the boat towards where all the birds were and pretty quickly caught a tuna! The birds moved on and so did we - once they had hooked a fish they asked if anyone wanted to reel it in, and Chris jumped at the chance. It took a while but eventually reeled in a skipjack tuna, and felt very chuffed with himself.
That afternoon we went for a walk along the beach and Chris accidentally deleted his entire memory card of photos. There were very nearly tears before bedtime. Luckily Jen is a genius and advised him to look online to see if there was a way he could recover them - and there was. So Jen saved the day.
Chris: Alright get over it.
The next morning we were picked up from the resort to go diving with a nearby company on Beqa Lagoon. We had booked two dives with them and after the clear waters of the day before we were really looking forward to it. However on this occasion the sea betrayed us somewhat and was very choppy, on the first dive the current was quite a bit stronger than we’d expected and we had to do some pretty frantic kicking. But we swam through some awesome tunnels and saw a fantastic variety of corals that we haven’t really seen before on this trip. On the second dive the captain of the boat tried to take us somewhere that was less choppy so there was not as much current under the water, this meant it was a much more leisurely dive, until we came up to the surface. It had started to get really choppy again and the boat ladder was designed in a way that it moved with the waves - so trying to get back on the boat was a bit like riding a bucking bronco. Chris managed it but Jen has stubby legs and struggled a bit. After about 5 attempts, a couple of bruised knees and a near-drowning she managed to get on. We’ve already got 6 dives booked at the next place we’re going to so hopefully the ladder will be different, or else Jen will just have to man up.
When we got back from diving we were starving so we ate some lunch and then decided to have a little sleep. We woke up from our “little sleep” at around 6pm. We were still full from lunch so we skipped dinner and just had some beers with some friends we’d made.
Today Chris managed to get a place on the infamous shark dive that we kept seeing posters for. It was with the same company that we went diving with yesterday, and some of the friends we’d made went too which was nice. Basically they dive down to 30 metres and hide behind some rocks whilst the dive guides tow big wheelie bins full of fish heads down there. All of the big fish that are attracted by the fish heads, in turn attract big sharks. It is one of the few places in the world where you are able to get that close to a wide variety of sharks - and he absolutely loved it.
Chris: Don’t forget to tell them about that massive shark that tried to attack me and I fought it off with my brute strength.
Jen: That never happened.
Jen opted not to do the shark dive and instead lay by the pool working on her tan. A rather more sedate morning. Once Chris got back we had some lunch and then a little sleep. Tonight we have to make friends with people who arrived on the Fiji Experience bus today, as tomorrow we’ll be leaving with them and doing our 3rd Fiji Experience day which includes a trip to the capital, Suva, a visit to an orphanage and another village visit where we will have to take part in a kava ceremony and Chris will have to wear his man-skirt again. We end the day with river rafting which sounds pretty awesome.
PS for some reason they spell it “Feejee Experience” but we can’t work out why…
So on our first morning in Nadi the little Fiji Experience bus arrived to pick us up. Almost all of the people on the bus were girls so Chris felt a little outnumbered but everyone seemed nice enough and our guide Rueben was quite funny. But also possibly a little stoned…
Our first stop of the day was Nadi town to have a mooch around the shops and buy a sarong or sulu (a kind of long skirt) which Rueben told us we would need for the village visits we’d be doing on the Fiji Experience. We wandered round trying to find a suitably manly one for Chris and ended up settling on a nice navy blue one - which did have flowers on it, but not loads. Butch.
Chris: They’re not flowers they’re pictures of a nautilus. So hah.
Chris in his man-skirt.
Our second stop was called Natadola Beach which is apparently listed in Forbes Top 25 Beaches in the World or something. It was very beautiful but Chris was slightly unconvinced by it’s alleged top 25 status as there were no loos. We did a bit of sunbathing and some paddling but no swimming as the waves were bloody huge. In the Fiji Experience brochure it had photos of people snorkeling at the beach but we’re not quite sure how they got past the death waves to actually be able to do any snorkeling. While we were on the beach our guide and driver cooked a barbecue lunch for us which had only cost us the bargain price of $5 each. We had lamb sausages, chicken legs, bread, salad and tomato ketchup in a tin. It was nice. After lunch we all had to put our sarongs on as we were heading to Malomalo village to learn about traditional village life.
Jen: Now that I think about it, couldn’t you have just put your jeans on?
Chris: Let’s pretend that’s not true.
Rueben took us on a tour of the village which had a population of 400 people - but it was the afternoon by this point so most of them were enjoying a siesta. We saw their church, their community hall and we went into the chief’s hut which is not where he lives but is a massive hut specially built for him to just hang out in. There were also some very cute small children that followed us around and waved from the houses. Inside the chief’s hut Rueben explained to us a little about village life and about the traditional Kava ceremony that we will be taking part in on the 3rd day of the Fiji Experience. It involves a lot of clapping and shouting out words all together - hopefully we will remember it all.
Reuben showing us around the village.
Jen's new best friend.
Once we’d finished the sand boarding everyone was tired, sticky and covered in sand so we couldn’t wait to arrive at our first accommodation stop on the Coral Coast. It was called Mango Bay Resort and they had a dorm especially for Fiji Experience people so we were all put in together. Rueben told us there would be a traditional Kava ceremony at 6pm if we wanted to practice what we had learnt at Malomalo earlier that day but we were desperate to shower and put some laundry on as we had a distinct lack of clean pants. And towels. And t-shirts. Basically almost everything we had was started to hum. So by the time we’d sorted all that it was long past 6pm and we’d missed the ceremony.
We all sat together for dinner and the food was nice. Jen had mud crab which was the most expensive thing on the menu at $25 but when you work out that that is around £8.50 it’s kind of a bargain for fresh crab. When the waiter brought it over he said “Sorry we don’t have anything for you to crack it open with - you’ll have to do it Fiji style. Just watchRueben who had ordered the same thing. Fiji style means cracking it open with your teeth and picking and prodding it to get all the meat out, and when that gets a bit too difficult using a beer bottle and a napkin. OK, that last one about the beer bottle is more “Jen & Chris style” than “Fiji style” but it was effective nonetheless. Jen was the last on our table to finish dinner but it was totally worth it. After dinner we did a quiz and then ended up going to bed around 10:30 as we felt a bit knackered. Half of the group came to bed when we did - the other half crashed in at around 2am after vomiting loudly outside the door. Nice.
The Fiji Experience buses come and go three times a week so you can either stay at each place or if you want to you can do the whole thing in 4 days. This seemed a bit pointless to us but apparently not to the majority of our group who left the following day. We spent the morning on the beach and after lunch Jen did basket weaving which was one of the many free activities organised by the resort. That night we ate dinner and had some drinks with the 3 other girls who had been on our Fiji Experience bus and had stayed at Mango Bay with us which was really nice.
Jen's awesome basket weaving skills.
The next day the activities board said there would be guided snorkeling at 10am but when we arrived they said the current was too strong at the spot where they were going to take us and we couldn’t go. Chris wasn’t pleased so we went snorkeling off the beach where the water was much shallower and the current was ok, and still saw some pretty cool stuff. After lunch the activities board said there would be a cooking lesson which we really wanted to do. But that was also cancelled - and instead we did egg-throwing. Which is exactly what it sounds like. Then we played volleyball. Truthfully, Chris played volleyball - Jen stood on the volleyball court hoping that the ball wouldn’t come anywhere near her and occasionally ducking. Earlier in the day one of the activities guys had told us we could take a kayak out in the afternoon to do some snorkelling at the reef but when we asked they said we would have to wait until 5pm - which is about when the sun goes down. So we decided we would swim out to the reef - it didn’t look that far… As we were swimming there a few girls passed us - in kayaks! They said they had just asked at the activities hut and they had given them the kayaks. We felt annoyed but carried on swimming because we were on a mission. When we got to the reef, which was much further away than it looked, we encountered the current that they had warned us about earlier in the day and after about 10 minutes of floundering around decided we would swim back to shore. Against said current. It took us about half an hour! That night they showed a movie in the bar - it was supposed to be “Deception” but it turned out to be “What Happens In Vegas” - which we’ve already seen. They like to mix it up at Mango Bay.
On our last day there it pissed it down with rain all day, but they still decided to run the guided snorkeling trip that they had cancelled the day before. We went out with one of the activities guys and a fairly big group of very splashy people - splashy people make Jen cross - and we basically swam out to almost the same place we'd been the day before, but the current was not as strong and we saw some really cool stuff including a couple of stingrays. However, on the swim back the tide was going out so we pretty much got beached and then cut our feet on sharp rocks and coral walking back to the beach.
In the afternoon Jen did coconut jewellery making which actually involved sanding down a coconut, choosing a shape, watching the activities guy cut out that shape and drill a hole in it, and then sanding down the shape. So, not so much coconut jewellery making as coconut sanding. But still a good way to pass some time. Because it was so rainy they discounted the price of the massages so later that afternoon we each had a 30 minute full body massage which was dead nice. That evening there was another Kava ceremony as the next Fiji Experience bus had arrived, which we would be leaving on the following day. We went along to the ceremony and practiced our clapping and chanting and drank the Kava. It is a traditional drink that they drink in the villages which is made with cold water and ground up Kava root. It looks, smells and tastes like muddy water. But we’re reliably informed that after about 7 bowls you feel incredibly mellow and happy with the world. Jen had 1 bowl, Chris was named as chief for this ceremony so he had to drink 2 bowls. It was also our first encounter with most of the people we would be on the Fiji Experience bus the following day. They were mostly stuck-up English girls and when one of them said “I can’t drink that, if I put it in my mouth I’m going to be sick” to the Fijian guy who was leading the ceremony, we quickly took a dislike to them.
Chris: I didn’t dislike them, as much as hate them and I'm one to hold a grudge and hate people for no reason.
After the ceremony we had dinner and a few drinks with our friends from the first Fiji Experience bus and met the new guide, Joe. Then went back to the dorm around 10pm to sort out our bags as we were leaving at 8am the following day. We didn’t think there was anyone in the room as it was still fairly early but after a few snippy comments came from behind various mosquito nets we realised that the stuck-up girls were already in bed and had to be very quiet.
The next day we ate breakfast and checked out ready for day 2 of our Fiji Experience. The main activity of the day was a 3 hour trek in the Namosi rainforest which we had been warned would be very muddy and very wet, but would end with swimming in a waterfall - and we love a waterfall…! The trek was optional and if you didn’t want to do it they would drop you off at the next resort where you could meet everyone later. We though the stuck-up girls would take that option but they were ready for the trek, By “ready” we mean they all had full faces of make-up and little plimsolls to wear. The trek was harder than any we’ve done so far on this trip but a lot of fun. At points we were ankle-deep in thick mud, at others we were thigh-deep in muddy water, it was very hot and we had to walk through very long grass - and climbing up the waterfall was very slippy and steep. But when we got to the top and had a swim it was very nice. Of course the stuck-up girls whinged the whole way round about how muddy it was, about how unattractive they looked and about how they had injuries. Although, to be fair to one of them, she had been bitten by a dingo on Fraser Island.
Chris: I wish she’d been eaten by the dingo.
They were incredibly patronising to the Fijian guys who were guiding us and kept calling them “Excuse me little man” - we also heard one of them say at one point, in between saying how much she hated it, “Why can’t they just put some planks down or something so we don’t have to walk in the mud?” BECAUSE IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY RAINFOREST YOU IDIOT!
We had a slight drama on the way back down the waterfall after Chris opted to take the local route down which involved walking across the slippy rocks rather than through the mud at the side. Jen watched in slow motion as Chris slipped on some rocks and disappeared under some fairly fast moving water. Luckily one of the guides managed to hang onto him until the last moment so he didn’t fall very far and apart from a few grazes on his back he was fine.
At the end of the trek we got into a boat that took us down a river through the rainforest back to our bus, which was very beautiful and also gave us a chance to wash all the mud off our legs in the river. When we got back on the bus they drove us to the next place we were staying at called Uprising Resort which is in Pacific Harbour - on the way there Joe told us we would have about 10 minutes before meeting for lunch, so there was no time for showers before sitting down with sweaty faces for lunch. As it was Sunday they do an all you can eat barbecue which we happily tucked into as we were bloody starving after the trek.
After lunch we had Coconut Carnival which was organised by the staff at the resort and involved them showing us lots of different items that can be made from the different parts of coconuts and coconut trees. Then they dressed Jen and our friend Molly in traditional clothing that was made from coconuts and coconut trees and they pranced about whilst everyone took photos - very funny. That night we all had dinner together and we were a bit sad as it was our last night with our 3 friends from the first Fiji Experience bus; they all had to move on to the next stop the following day as they didn’t have enough time to stay at all 3 places, and could only stay at 2. In the morning we waved them off, along with the stuck-up girls who we were more than glad to see the back of.
That day we went to the nearest town, Navua, as Chris was in desperate need of a haircut and Jen needed a tape measure to send bridesmaid dress measurements back home! We were going to take the bus there but as we were waiting at the bus stop a taxi pulled up so we jumped in. It wasn’t a very big place and most of the shops seemed to sell an odd combination of shirts, trousers, flip-flops, deodorant and aftershave. We needed some more sun cream but nobody seemed to sell it, and in one place she offered us skin whitening cream which contained SPF 15. In the end we found some in the pharmacy and Chris managed to get a haircut for $3 which is about £1 so he was pretty pleased. After hunting down a tape measure we caught the bus back to our resort where we had some lunch and sat by the pool. Chris went on a quick fact-finding mission and came back to say that he had booked us on a snorkelling trip the following day and 2 dives on the day after that. There aren’t as many free activities here at Uprising as there were at Mango Bay which is a shame - but it’s much more sunny and their pool is nicer so we manage to console ourselves.
The snorkelling trip the following day was great - we were in a group of 5 and they took us out to the reef on a cool little speedboat. The water was very flat and crystal clear and we had a lovely time bobbing around - our only complaint was that it seemed like we weren’t there for very long. Although once we were all back on the boat it became obvious why they’d cut the snorkelling short. We could see loads of sea birds hovering near the surface of the water and the guys on the boat informed us that we were going fishing. They drove the boat towards where all the birds were and pretty quickly caught a tuna! The birds moved on and so did we - once they had hooked a fish they asked if anyone wanted to reel it in, and Chris jumped at the chance. It took a while but eventually reeled in a skipjack tuna, and felt very chuffed with himself.
Chris: Alright get over it.
The next morning we were picked up from the resort to go diving with a nearby company on Beqa Lagoon. We had booked two dives with them and after the clear waters of the day before we were really looking forward to it. However on this occasion the sea betrayed us somewhat and was very choppy, on the first dive the current was quite a bit stronger than we’d expected and we had to do some pretty frantic kicking. But we swam through some awesome tunnels and saw a fantastic variety of corals that we haven’t really seen before on this trip. On the second dive the captain of the boat tried to take us somewhere that was less choppy so there was not as much current under the water, this meant it was a much more leisurely dive, until we came up to the surface. It had started to get really choppy again and the boat ladder was designed in a way that it moved with the waves - so trying to get back on the boat was a bit like riding a bucking bronco. Chris managed it but Jen has stubby legs and struggled a bit. After about 5 attempts, a couple of bruised knees and a near-drowning she managed to get on. We’ve already got 6 dives booked at the next place we’re going to so hopefully the ladder will be different, or else Jen will just have to man up.
When we got back from diving we were starving so we ate some lunch and then decided to have a little sleep. We woke up from our “little sleep” at around 6pm. We were still full from lunch so we skipped dinner and just had some beers with some friends we’d made.
Today Chris managed to get a place on the infamous shark dive that we kept seeing posters for. It was with the same company that we went diving with yesterday, and some of the friends we’d made went too which was nice. Basically they dive down to 30 metres and hide behind some rocks whilst the dive guides tow big wheelie bins full of fish heads down there. All of the big fish that are attracted by the fish heads, in turn attract big sharks. It is one of the few places in the world where you are able to get that close to a wide variety of sharks - and he absolutely loved it.
Chris: Don’t forget to tell them about that massive shark that tried to attack me and I fought it off with my brute strength.
Jen: That never happened.
Jen opted not to do the shark dive and instead lay by the pool working on her tan. A rather more sedate morning. Once Chris got back we had some lunch and then a little sleep. Tonight we have to make friends with people who arrived on the Fiji Experience bus today, as tomorrow we’ll be leaving with them and doing our 3rd Fiji Experience day which includes a trip to the capital, Suva, a visit to an orphanage and another village visit where we will have to take part in a kava ceremony and Chris will have to wear his man-skirt again. We end the day with river rafting which sounds pretty awesome.
PS for some reason they spell it “Feejee Experience” but we can’t work out why…
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