Long Beach Resort, Yasawa Islands, Fiji, 16th, 1.30pm. Last country of my trip! And soon, Aiden will be in America.
So, back in Auckland, we had just woken up after our first night in the house of Hilary and Gordon. I woke up to the after-effects of my late night in Paihia, so I was grateful to find coffee and a ‘plunger’ in the kitchen. Hilary was nice enough to serve us breakfast, which was NZ cornflakes and toast. I chatted to Hilary as I ate, and once Aiden was awake, I jumped on the computer.
They gave us a lift into town. On the way, we all piled out to look at cameras at Harvey Norman, but Aiden found that they were more expensive than the internet. So we got back in the car, and carried on to the museum. We had Gordon’s phone, and we were told to get the bus back, and let them know when we did, so they could get us from the bus stop. We waved goodbye to them, then went round the museum in double time. We’ve seen a lot of museums, so we were only giving it lipservice as a tourist attraction.
We must have not followed the directions of the guide, because we walked out of the museum, and walked five minutes in the rain until we didn’t find the bus stop and turned around. We asked a passerby and he told us to go to end of the road in the opposite direction. He told us it was a ten minute walk to Queen St, where we were heading, but I didn’t want to walk in the rain. It did take about five minutes to walk to the bus stop, but once we were on it, it was a further ten minute bus journey, so I doubt we would have slogging in the rain for a mere ten minutes as the guy said, so I think it was worth it. Plus we would have probably gotten lost.
On Queen St, we got lunch at McDonalds, looked through more shops for this camera of Aiden’s, then I took us to browse Whitcoull’s, a shop very like WHSmith. We then wandered back down to the Queen St bus station and got the bus back to Albany. Hlary picked us up, and we accepted her offer to put our wet clothes in the dryer.
I got a cup of tea, and went on the internet. Gordon decided to try out a blu-ray disc in his new player with his new TV, so all four of us ended up watching ‘Knight & Day’ in the living room. We paused it to have dinner, then we went out to Greg’s house for pudding. We met his wife Rebecca and their children Isaac (7) and Imogen (9). Aiden got to chatting with Greg, like the night before, and I later found out that they talked about Greg’s SmartHouse, which he had built himself.
I talked to Rebecca, and Imogen, who showed me the houses she had made in an arts and crafts fashion. They were very imaginative. Rebecca offered me tea, and I said was it normal tea, and she said they only had Earl Grey. So I said that was fine, and she made me a cup, until, after my second sip, she found a normal tea bag. She insisted on pouring out the Earl Grey and making a fresh cup.
When we returned, we finished the film, and I stayed up after everyone, enjoyed Sky TV.
I had to get up for Skype, which Aiden wasn’t pleased about because the computer was in the study, where his makeshift bed had been erected. The first time my parents and I connected, they started laughing once I spoke, and eventually, after establishing that they weren’t drunk, they had enough breath to tell me that I was coming through very high-pitched, so I sounded like a mouse. We were more successful on the second try, and had a good conversation, our last before my return home.
We had breakfast, then I had a shower, and Hilary took us to the bus stop. She recommended that we take the ferry to Devonport, but we really didn’t feel like it. It was probably a lovely place, but we’ve been to lots of lovely places. We bought cinema tickets for Thor 3D, ate lunch at McDonalds, wandered around Borders, then waited in the foyer, admiring the posters for films. The film was pretty good; visually stunning, with some good actors, and a drool-worthy lead actor, but a bit of a simple plot, and not enough balance between action sequences and more relaxed scenes.
After we emerged from the dark theatre, we walked to the bus stop, got the bus, got picked up, then had some downtime. We went out to Hilary’s other child Karen’s house for dinner. We met her husband Paul and 13yrold son Shaun. Oh, and their bird, in its cage. We had drinks, and chat, then sat down to a nice BBQ, with friendly talk over the table. Afterwards, Shaun got his dad and step-grandfather to join forces against the two Poms in a game of Cranium, which was quite enjoyable. In the middle, we had a pause whilst Greg’s family arrived, and we all took pictures with me, their distant cousin.
Shaun went to bed, and as we sat chatting in the living room, the other child of the household, Jonathan, 16, came home from his job at KFC. We all marvelled at the new burger he brought home, which was bacon and cheese sandwiched by two pieces of breaded chicken. He talked to Aiden about cameras. We eventually went back and went to bed.
In the morning, we packed before breakfast, then put our stuff in the car, and drove to the top of Mt Eden. Aiden and I left Hilary and Gordon at the car, and took ten minutes to walk the rim of the crater and take pictures of the view of the city. Back in the car, we were dropped at the airport and said our farewells. It had been nice to meet family, but three days living with OAPs was kind of a strain for both parties.
We were really early at the airport, so we had to wait before we could check in. The woman who checked us in saw that we didn’t have tickets sitting next to each other, and was kind enough to tell us, so we could ask to change it. On the other side of security, we waited for hours to board. We got lunch at Burger King (Aiden was sorely disappointed that there was no McDonalds), and we bought some extras to use up the NZ coins we still had, like I got a really nice ice cream.
The plane left late. We had a light meal, and watched Dr Who on the netbook. It was only three hours, which these days is not a long journey for us. We got another stamp on our passports as we entered Fiji, and we walked to arrivals to the tune of a live string band, welcoming us. When we got to baggage reclaim, one conveyor had our flight on its screen but it wasn’t moving. We wandered over the other belt, and luckily caught sight of my bag.
We went to the office of Awesome Adventures, where we exchanged our vouchers for the hostel that night and our Bula Combo Passes on the islands the next day. We were surprised to be asked for a surcharge, but it was our own fault, because we didn’t read the fine print on the voucher that said we had to book the pass a week in advance. At least we didn’t have as bad a time as two girls also in the office were – their travel agent had messed up and they were being asked for hundreds of dollars.
We got a taxi through Nadi, paid for by the hostel, dumped our stuff in the private room, then went to get dinner at the restaurant. It was 9pm by then, so we were kinda peckish. As we ate, I remarked that I was sad to leave NZ without seeing Andi again. Aiden suggested I cancel my journey home and go back for a month in Paihia. I just laughed.
The seed of the idea did make a mark, and I was lucky that I talked to Will on the internet after dinner, because he voiced all the sensible reasons why it was not a good idea that I myself had been having trouble listening too from my own mind. After showers, Aiden and I were surprised to find that it was already 11pm, so bed time, listening to the creaking of the air conditioning in our private twin room.
We were up early for breakfast, which was toast, coffee, and fruit. We checked out then waited in reception. Our bus rocked up and we boarded, to be taken to Port Denarau. As I got money out the cash machine, I started getting chest pains. We queued up to check in our bags, then queued again to check in ourselves. We were startled to hear final calls for the boat as we still stood in the queue, but we were reassured that they knew we were there.
Our boat is the Awesome Adventures catamaran, which is bright yellow, the main ferry to the Yasawa Islands, of the commonwealth nation of Fiji. I settled into the 5 hour journey on the sun deck, and Aiden went to sort out our passes and that night’s accommodation at the travel desk down below. It was a beautiful sunny day, probably 29 degrees but with a nice breeze as the catamaran swished through the bright blue water. But my chest pain got really bad, and only let up after a couple of hours.
It stopped at each island, which sent out a dinghy full of people and luggage, and swapped it for another load off the ferry. Each island is essentially the same, apart from size. Beach, palm trees, huts – classic ‘paradise’. Our call came at 1.30. By then, we had retreated to the lower deck. We came out to the back of the boat, identified our luggage, and got in the dinghy. We skimmed over the water (which is exactly that shade of turquoise that you don’t believe is real when you look at the pictures), and were welcomed to Gold Coast Resort by a woman who identified herself as Lo. We showed us to our ‘bure’, a hut, that was just that. Thatched roof, mosquito net, shower/loo.
It was five feet from the beach. We had lunch in the main building up some steps, which was nice. We then just had to get into the water. It was shallow, but really clear, and room temperature. Once I started to go wrinkled, I grabbed a sunbed (a person-length piece of foam in blue plastic) and lay on the beach with a book. At 4 o’clock, we did as Lo suggested and went down the beach to the teahouse, where we got chocolate cake, and met the other people in the resort.
We made friends with the two English couples – one from Liverpool in their thirties who were on a year-long honeymoon, and one from Hertfordshire in their mid-twenties. After cake, we went back to the beach, and then as the light began to fade, read in the hammock. On the verge of not being able to see the page, we were given an electric desk light, so we retreated under the net on our beds until dinner.
Dinner wasn’t that nice. I just about coped with the fried fish, though Aiden was freaked out that it was still fish shaped with a tail and eyes, but the fried bananas tasted of crap potatoes and I don’t know what the green veg was (it looked like spinach) but it was in a disgusting sauce. Aiden retreated from the bugs early, and in hindsight I should have too. But I stayed up talking to the other English people, until I also went to bed.
I woke this morning to find my legs and feet covered in bites. About 200 of them, and I’m not exaggerating. The shower was rubbish – just a cold trickle. Breakfast was good though – endless doughnut-like things with jam and butter, and pineapple, and juice and coffee. We put our bags under a tree and laid out on the beach. I managed a few hours before I retreated to the shade.
We were in the dinghy with both the other couples, and it was only a ten minute ride on the big yellow boat to our next stop, for all six of us, at Long Beach Resort. We were greeted by singing Fijians on the sand. We were swapped from our original dorm to a double room, though with two singles as well, so that’s where we slept. We had omelette for lunch, then I parked myself on a hammock in the shade and Aiden went for a swim.
I was joined by a dog, who lay down under my hammock, and I occasionally talked to the two couples as they wandered by or sat in the hammock near me. When Aiden emerged from the sea, he joined me in the hammock. We knew when the generator was turned on because the lights of the main building came on, so we went to the computers and spent some time on the internet. Aiden booked our last nights together in Nadi, and I emailed Mo, because I’m hoping to stay the night with her son in Auckland between flights on the way back.
We stayed in our room until dinner, which we had on the veranda. By this time, my bites were really plaguing me; it was so hard not to scratch, and there were so many of them, it was starting to hurt. I realised after dinner that I was having a major allergic reaction; what it normally means is my bites swell to red lumps the size of a fifty pence coin. This time, with so many (seriously, 200, I counted) my feet swelled, my ears swelled, and I got hives on my feet, neck, and under my arms.
It was so uncomfortable, and quite painful, plus still unbearably itchy. When we retreated to the room after dinner, I couldn’t help but cry a little. Luckily, though there are no nets in our room, it’s concrete, so there aren’t gaps under the thatch. After a few episodes on the netbook, I went to bed, and it was torture. My chest pains started again, and my head ached. After what felt like hours, I did eventually get to sleep.
To be continued...
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