Fiji time

Well, it's been a tough week here in Fiji as you can imagine. We're coming up to the last of our 4 islands, Blue Lagoon, the finale to our Fijian adventure. We've been spending 2 nights at each so far... Mantaray was our first, not surprisingly named due to the large amount of Mantarays which come gracefully cruising up and down the channel nearby... the highlight of our stay here was of course, swimming with them! Sooooooooooo amazing! Such huge and graceful creatures! They swam so effortlessly up the channel against the current with us thrashing and flailing to keep up with them... the ultimate prize was after giving in to the power of the current - breathless and exhausted, the Mantarays swam back around and we glided almost as gracefully (read not at all) as them with the current - arms outstretched and not even half their size... ahhhhhmazing!!! Huge thank you's to Laura & Ian, and Chris & Danni for our wedding presents to stay here!

I'd also bought myself a new toy in America - a Nikon 1 (switswooo!) so have been playing with all it's fancy features...

We had a little rain in Paradise for a while, but happy to report it wasn't for long and we were back on track with the tough things in life...

(Honeymoon beach!)

...yes Alex even managed to get in a game of rugby *rolls eyes* ;)

So, as you can see, it's hard to relax out here... and the sunsets, well, they're just terrible too...

This sunset was at our second Island, Korovou. All the islands are run differently, by locals from the villages on the islands or nearby. They all have different feels, and you meet so many people - all island hopping around paradise! Last time I was here (6 years ago with travel buddy Ciaran) I just fell in love with Fiji, it's such a lovely pace of life, so I'm very happy to be back and exploring different islands - complete with a husband! At Korovou they made us a special honeymoon cake in the shape of a heart! It was so sweet! Until Alex nearly threw the whole thing on the floor!!! We have it on video, it's got to be worth something on You've Been Framed surely... do they even still make that programme?!

We're now on Tavewa island and have just returned from a snorkelling trip to the Blue Lagoon (not surprisingly featured in the movie Blue Lagoon!), we took some bread to feed the fish which they absolutely loved... 100+ fish zooming around right in front of our masks, even eating it out of our fingers! So fun! And I saw some Finding Nemo's so I was very happy. Hurrah!

This morning I went to the local village on a trip to see the kindergarten and to meet the Chief...

Modern day Chief, no animals skins or shell necklaces here! What a dude.

The children in the kindergarten were adorable, singing us songs...

...and eating the cookies we'd brought. I brought them marshmallows (thank you to Jordan for our little snack pack you made us! The Marshmallows went down very well!), felt a little sorry for the teacher who was left with her class on a massive sugar high from all the sweeties! Ah well, they told us to bring something!

(I wanted to bring this one home!)

The Mums set up a stall outside selling shell bracelets and wears they had made...

...but these two kiddies at the end made a killing from us, they were just too cute, but then maybe that's their Mum's sales tactic...!

... and so that's us up to date! 3 more nights and then we're NZ bound, Winter will hit us with a sharp slap after this balmy heat! So, it's bye bye from me... and bye bye from Alex who's off playing volleyball... and bye bye from these cheeky guys...

Lots of love x x x