Bula!
Waking up to the glorious views of Fiji today promised to be a great day and began so with a nice breakfast again around 8am. A quick breakfast later, we were packing out beach bags and headed down to grab a tender ticket to leave the ship for shore. We ended up having to wait about half an hour before our ticket was called, but even once our ticket number had been called, we were held in the mid-ship stair case for another 15mins or so due to the sheer number of people that were waiting to get off at the same time with us and who had been called too. I utilised this time wisely and ended up playing a game of solitaire, which I did end up winning (yay!). To be honest though, once the line started to move, we did get onto a tender very quickly and was soon hopping off at Dravuni Island.
As Dravuni Island is quite a small island (it is inhabited by less that 200 people), there was not much to do besides sit on the beach and go for a swim. Once our feet had touched the golden sands of the beach, we made our way to a less crowded section of the beach and set up our stuff for the day, layering on the sunscreen in the hot south pacific sun. All protected it was time to hit the water in the clear warm waters of the Pacific Ocean. The coral and seaweed surrounded the areas around the beach and was clearly visible to the naked eye even from above the water (as we didn't have any snorkelling gear). Frolicking in the water, I eventually tired of the water and got dried to do a bit of exploring of the tiny island.
Andrew and I followed a walking track that led towards the peak of the mountain on the island. What began as quite an easy trek (in bare foot) began to get more difficult and rougher on our feet. The still humidity of the air surround us and the lack of the cool gentle sea breeze that we had enjoyed along the beach was also not to be found higher up on the mountain made the trek even more difficult. After about 20mins in the scorching sun and stifling humidity, I had sweat dripping down my face and shoulders and the lashings the grass was giving my feet were enough to make both of us give up on making it to the higher second peak and be satisfied with making it to the first peak. Even from that lower point, the views of the ship and the island’s rainforest and beaches were breathtaking (or what breath we had left that could be taken) and well worth the effort.
A little more time looking at the beach and heading further along a strip where there weren’t any people to be scene cemented Fiji as an unspoilt slice of beach paradise. Before heading back to the ship, we strolled along the village area looking at the sarongs, offerings of coconut and other arts and crafts on display. Fiji had certainly lived up to expectations and definitely outshone New Caledonia as the true idyllic south pacific getaway.
One our tired bodies were delivered back to the air conditioned comfort of the ship and all the sand had been transferred from our bodies to the floor of our bathroom, the rest of the day was spent relaxing in the confines of the cabin (were I watched more episodes of The Hills) and resting until dinner time. Tonight’s entertainment after the meal was movie quote trivia, an excruciatingly difficult quiz considering we only answered 4 out of 20 questions correctly. Hopefully tomorrow night’s Multi-Media Trivia will be more suited to our knowledge.
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