THE Feejee Experience!

Good things were said about this tour round the island in 4 days and it really delivered. I met such a great bunch of people on the bus and the tour guy and the bus driver were such a laugh as well. On the first day we just played around in the waves on a nice beach and then had a BBQ / picnic kinda thing. This was followed by a visit to a village which was really cool. Just to see some of the buildings and structures that the townspeople make themselves and their way of living. Sandboarding down a tall sand dune followed, but the steep slope up to the top meant that I only had a few goes because I was too tired to climb it for more! That night we stayed at a hostel called the Crow's Nest and there was a bit of local entertainment in the form of some singing and dancing by the local Fijean's. Our group drank a lot then had some 'Cava' which is like a Fijean drink that is taken from the root of a cava plant. Its dried and ground into little bits before being made with water. Placing the cava into a bag and then dipping the bag into a bowl of water filters the cava in with the water to make the cava. Its drank out of a big wooden bowl traditionally, although in the hostel we just had it out of a silver washbowl thing. It kinda makes your tongue go numb and the taste really is one to be acquired, otherwise you hate it. The fact that it looks like dirty dishwater doesn't help either, but I found it helped me sleep and kept me relaxed!

The next day, day 2 of the Feejee Experience. We trekked into the hills of somewhere (god I'm rubbish with names!) The clay was a bit slippy but the colour of it was beautifully contrasted inbetween the green surroundings. The rainforest was awesome and we got really muddy and wet walking through deep streams, the little stones and sands in our boots didn't matter and we completed a 3 hour walk in just over 90 minutes. We got to a large river (think its the river Nauvua or something like that) and just rugby tackled each other in there for a bit whilst waiting for our boat which had our lunch on. After lunch we floated down the river on rubber rings (hot rubber rings I must add, they'd been in the sun for a while!) and then jumped around underneath a lovely clean waterfall! The two boats then took our group back down to our bus where we left it earlier that day. Although when we got to the boat it had been robbed! The lock was bust and we couldn't get in for ages, then once onboard we were all oblivious to the fact that someone had cheekily taken our $50 notes and left everything else in our wallets and bags. They didn't take any iPods or cameras! This held us up for hours whilst the police and our driver & tour guy dude Luke dealt with it all. They suspected that it was one of the guys that helped us get up to the start of our trek at the start of our trek, he'd left the bolts from the lock off the bus door on a seat inside the bus! He was however nowhere to be found, I was about $150-$200 down, everyone else had a similar amount stolen! Gutted... This didn't stop us having a lovely dinner & a great time at a family ran hostel in Suva, which is Fiji's largest city on the south-eastern part of the mainland. We then proceeded to all get absoutely wankered in a cheesey 'Irish' bar in the city centre. Who cared if it was Sunday night and the music was wank and the crowd was iffy to say the least?! It was a great night!

Day 3 and we took a trip to an orphange. It was sad to see all the kids and stuff and they get trreated fairly strictly but it wasn't really something I wanted to see. Usually the Feejee bus goes to a school but because of the Fiji Holiday & the weekend we went to this orphange. We all bought them some fruit or toiletries & stuff as presents, and some of the little kids went beserk and clung onto some of us (thankfully I didn't have one clinging on to my leg or pulling on my arm throughout the visit, I must repel kids like I do mosquitos!) After this we paid another visit to a village. This time we took a cava root as a present to the cheif of the village, who owns 3 villages and the river that runs by it, as we wanted to use his river to go rafting down! We nominated a spokesperson; Scouse boy Matt!, and a chief of our tour; some older Aussie guy who joined us earlier in the day with his wife. The cava ceremony was an official one and everyone sat in their t-shirts and sarongs (yes, the guys wore sarongs, we were all used to wearing one by now!) and the girls sat on one side and the guys sat on the other side in front of the chief and his spokesperson and the some of the occupants of the village... Well, aside from the lady who joined us earlier that day from a hotel/hostel with her husband sat on totally the wrong side of the room and refused all the cava on all the rounds, which everyone thought was really rude, and it was! Anyway we soon went rafting down the river which was cool.... Wet again, I was getting used to it! We dried off, took the bus to the north part of the island and boarded a couple of boats to go to 'Nanaru-I-Ra' island (I think its spelt like that!) but unfortunately we missed sunset! D'oh! It would have been so so pretty as well. Anyway, some of us played volleyball before we had dinner which was a lovely buffet, then some of us got wrecked and after the bar closed we had a beach fire thing with some other guys and gals who were on the island...

I woke up to the most amazing view from our dorm room... Diving soon followed... Like, diving down to 12metres for my first time for a time of 42 minutes! It was my first dive and I was really excited about it, but when I got into the water I started to panic as I couldn't breathe comfortably... Once I was down there despite a bit of water in my mask/goggles I kept taking deep breaths and the instructor held onto me and guided me round the coral reef called the 'Dreamcatcher'. The views and sights to be seen, oh my days it was so so so pretty. I took some photos but I have yet to have them developed, once I do I will definitely scan them or something and upload them. The coral life and the coral itself is fantastic and I don't care how scared you are of the water diving must be done! When I get to Australia I will deffo do my diving lessons! Saw a baby shark as well for a brief moment, that was scary but f**king cool! Once back on the boat after we had finished diving and I burnt my thighs where the wetsuit cut off! Now my legs are red but then again some of my back is burnt too so I'm just a red/tanned/patchy English mess! We got back to the mainland after saying goodbye to Dave, Kat & Thomas who stayed on the island for a few more days (I wish i had stayed but I had no time!) and had an Indian meal for dinner. I had a goat curry but it was more bone than goat, still, the rest of the meal filled me up and onwards back round to Nadi. We hit some mud pools and started throwing mud at each other which was pretty cool, before making ourselves semi-clean in the hotpools. Then back to Nadi and it was time to say goodbye to everyone and the big green bus! The end of the Feejee Experience! Nooooo!

We had such a laugh, we had a great group of people and we did some amazing things. I wish I had more time to write about it all but at the moment I'm shattered after a flight and I've spent AGES uploading my Fiji photos. Click the pics to view the new snaps I've uploaded, there really are some gorgeous pictures!

To anyone that is thinking about doing anything in Fiji or thinking about doing the Feejee Experience, I highly reccommend it and urge you to do it as soon as you can! Take your time thou, it says its a 4 day trip but you should allow 2-3 extra days to stay on the island on the 3rd night, its really really worthwhile!

Thanks (or 'Vinaka!') for reading... :O)

P.S. Anyone who I met on the Feejee Exp., I miss you all so so much! Hope you are all well!