Wednesday 27th May - Mokauea Island

Today we have been invited to join in with an Eco Project via the local Girl Scout Leader, this afternoon we are off to Mokana Mokauea Island to help with it’s clean up.

In order to get across to the Island we have to meet at Sand Island, just west of Honolulu at 3pm in order to hitch a ride on an outrigger canoe. As we have to be ther for 3 we decide this morning is a good time to travel around the south Eastern corner of the island and see what is there.

We set off just before 11am and make a number of stops on our way around to have a look, take a few photos and just see what is about. It is a fairly undeveloped corner of the island, a band between where the mountains come down and the sea starts, basically a very pleasant drive.

We stop an Waimanalo beach for a stroll on the sand and then at Sandy beach for lunch. Sandy beach has a reputation of being the best beach for body boarding in Hawaii, though only experienced body boarders should try it. Today it was almost a mill-pond and anyone could have taken a board in, though would not have been able to do much with it. There were surfable waves breaking just offshore and we saw our first surfers riding the waves in Hawaii. Whilst eating our lunch a young Hawaiian surfer comes out of the water with his board, spear and catch, he had a nice catch of four reasonably sized fish, he is all right for his dinner tonight. We also saw a second guy go into the water with his board and spear, a popular spot for catching your dinner.

We get round to Sand Island Park a bit early, but just as we are pulling in so is Dianne, the local Girl Scout (Guide) leader. We are joining in with a high school community programme today and the organiser of the exercise Donna Kahakui, a renowned Hawaiian canoe paddler who has won many competitions on the world stage and now promotes the health of our oceans through her involvement in various programmes.

Baggage joins in with the other kids and we ensure she is placed in a different group from Mum and Dad, she is far happier being allowed to get on with things on her own without us hanging around. Lisa and I miss out on the outrigger trip over to the island and get a lift on the barge, really not a lot more than a few strung together crates and some planks of wood with an outboard attached. We are promised a paddle on an outrigger for the journey back, Baggage on the other hand is in amongst the other kids and on one of the first outriggers to set off.

When we get over to the island all the kids are given a brief lesson on the history of the island and then they are assigned tasks through the groups they are put into.

Baggage finds herself on planting detail, moving indigenous plants from a nursery bed to where they can spread their leaves a bit more. We tag onto a group with a litter pick-up duty, our job involves walking all the way round the island, wading at past knee depth at time. The water around the island is bath temperature, it is very still, relatively shallow, and has had the sun beating down on it all day.

After we have all finished our first task we then reconvene in the centre of the island where drinks and fruit are dished out. The next task is testing the water purity around the island, the various groups of kids set off to different locations to with a testing kit, this time I shadow Baggage at first to get a few sneaky pictures, though she objects so I rejoin our group who are testing around the fish pond. Dianne has taken plenty of photos anyway so I will see if I can get a copy of those.

After the water testing it is time to return to the mainland. This time Lisa and I get a ride on an outrigger and Baggage in a double hull canoe, I say get a ride, but we all have to do our bit paddling the boat. Paddling an outrigger seems pretty straightforward if you are doing it in an amateurish sort of way as we were, with a couple of experienced paddlers to guide us, however when you look at a club boat going out you realise what a tight knit team the crew are and how what we were up to was really only playing.

When we get back to the shore Baggage has a swim with Dianne’s two girls before we all head off to our respective homes.

Back to the house for a shower and quick tea, again we are all pretty tired, though we feel we have done something quite useful today. At first it seemed that the time it was taken to explain to the high-school kids and us what to do tied up the staff on the island who could have more effectively been doing the work themselves, but then when you look at what was achieved in a relatively short space of time you realise that the few staff from the charity who are actually involved along with the few islanders who participated could not have achieved the same as the many hands did, albeit each pair of hands was somewhat slower in isolation. Our group for example picked up about three dustbin bags of rubbish, most of it small pieces from the far side of the island, hidden in the bushes and in some cases half submerged in the sand and water.

We all enjoyed today and are very grateful to Dianne and her husband Paul for giving us the opportunity to lend a hand, this really was something you cannot just choose to do through a guidebook.

Tonight I finish off my Volcano Red, tomorrow I will have to try out another local beer.

Tuesday 26th May - Lanikai Beach

Today we decide to make the most of what Lanikai has to offer and enjoy a day on the local beach. Wary though that we have not had much exposure to sun recently we decide not to head down there until after lunch.

This morning I drive into Kailua and visit Safeways to get some basic provisions I did not get in my semi jet lagged state on Sunday, I also find the local post office and get a bundle of stamps as we have both letters and postcards to deal with.

After Lunch we wander down to the beach and take a couple of body boards that are available at the house with us. The sky is clear and temperature up in the low 80s, there is no hint of humidity in the air as there has been later in the day. The sea was pretty much a millpond, though Baggage did spend most of the time in the water on the board, just floating about on it. Lisa and I took it in turns to join her in the water. The beach was busy, though nothing like as busy as it had been when we had popped down there on Sunday afternoon, there was plenty of space to claim your own piece of sand, and no worrying about avoiding people in the water. As on Sunday there was a constant stream of people heading over to the island on a mixture of small vessels, long canoes and paddle boards, again from a distance the beach on the island looked reasonably busy.

Lanikai beach is about as perfect as you can get, obviously a popular beach, though not spoilt by having been over developed, most of the beach front is lined with private houses, all low level and not a hotel in sight, neither are there any tacky beach stores, ice cream kiosks or any of the usual trimmings you associate with a lovely and accessible stretch of beach. Kailua is similar, though the availability of more parking there does mean that the actual front itself has been a little more commercialised, though compared to most places you go where people get near the beach these beaches have been left almost as found.

We stay on the beach for about three hours and by the time we leave we have all caught the sun, though none of us burnt. As we get back to the house it is just thinking about raining, within about fifteen minutes it is pouring and continues to do so until well after dark.

For dinner tonight I cook a rack of ribs that I picked up on Sunday, it cooks up really tasty and goes well with the fries and sweet-corn we serve up with it.

Baggage is not too late to bed tonight, we are all still a little tired from travelling, plus being out in the sun all afternoon seems to have tired us all out.

Beer tonight is some more of the Volcano Red, I like it, but after these bottles have gone will try something different as Hawaii does seem to have a good variety of locally brewed and bottled beer on offer. I thought of something I should have done this trip when I opened my beer tonight, I should have collected all the different beer bottle tops from the bottles I have sampled on our travels, unfortunately I did not think of this earlier and there seems little point in starting now, maybe it would have been a bit too much an anorak thing to have done anyway.

Monday 25th May - Hawaii Day 1

Though this is our first full day in Hawaii it seems more like our second, having been here since 7:20am yesterday.

Today we have decided to go to Bishop’s Museum, it is primarily a Hawaiian heritage museum, however we are going there drawn by an interactive Cartoon Network animation exhibition that has been recommended to us as being great for kids about Baggage’s age.

We set off at about 11am, we all sleep in this morning, and get there just in time for a lava melting display in their environment hall, at half an hour long it explains a lot about volcanos before getting into the lava melting, that is Baggage’s schooling for today then! The lava melting and pouring is very reminiscent of the gold pour we saw at Perth Mint, only the molten liquid coming out of the furnace does not have quite the same value attached to it.

After the lava smelting we grab a bite of lunch before heading into the animation hall, the food is good and very reasonably priced.

The animation exhibition is great, there is something for all of us. You get to make your own shot by shot film, play with a story line and see the results, record sound effects and a whole load of other themed activities. We spend almost a couple of hours in there and then we leave Baggage in there for a further hour whilst we look around some of the other exhibits.

After we leave Bishop’s it is off to Walmart, we need a whole load of stuff, and three hours later we have just about ticked everything off our list and are $400 lighter, it is a good job amongst the stuff we bought is a new bag for checking in when we move on from Hawaii. One of the other things I had to get was a new hard drive, I have already filled the two 320Gb ones I bought in Australia with video footage, today I added a further 500Gb one which I hope will see me back to Florida, though at $99 it was a pretty good buy.

On the way back to the house we are faced with a closed road due to a car accident and take a circuit to try to get around it, only to end up back in the same place. At this point I ask one of the police officers and am pointed through the car park which will take us behind the accident and back out onto the road we need to be on.

When we get back to the house we have a light and late supper before Baggage goes to bed. I then enjoy a couple of bottles of Volcano red and before we know it midnight has come and gone so we decide we had better get ourselves off to bed also.

Fiji - A quick recap

It is our last day in Fiji, we have now been travelling since last September with all but a short trip home for Christmas. A good time to start revisiting what we have done so far, I will start with Fiji and there will be a number of additions to this over the coming weeks as I add ‘after the event’ blogs on all the countries.

So what do we think of Fiji?

Well when we got here two weeks ago it was dark and raining, the 2.5 hour drive from Nadi to where we are staying in Pacific Harbour was a nightmare. Dogs, pigs, horses and Fijians, all in the road and all poorly lit, pot holes the size of moon craters and drivers coming towards us who seemed to prefer our side of the road to theirs and did not seem to know how to operate their headlight dip switch! By the time we got to our lodgings I was beginning to wonder what on earth we were doing here.

Then we woke up the following morning, the sun was shining, the palm trees swaying, the sea lapping against the shore, and the people were just so friendly... well the last of those was true anyway. It was still raining, but there is just something about the place, it grows on you, and after two weeks here none of us really want to leave today.

Pacific Harbour is a great place, unfortunately tourist numbers are significantly down as a result of the current economic climate and the perceived political instability of these islands and unless they pick up resort areas like this may well fall as casualties. The south coast of Fiji is the wetter coast, therefore it is just so lush and green, and alive with birds of many shapes and sizes. We had opted to rent a villa here, travelling with our daughter we prefer to stay where she can have her own room and a bit of privacy rather than us all being under each others feet 24/7, though we have made good use of the resort hotels, Uprising and The Pearl, both of which are excellent and in keeping with all Fijians we have met, staffed by very friendly people.

You do not need to hire a car in Fiji, both public transport and taxis are very cheap, we decided to however and have spent the past fortnight driving around in a 4WD flat bed truck, that has been different, but at least the size of the wheels has meant we could traverse the pot holes whilst only actually falling in the 'really' big ones.

So what have we done whilst we have been here, well one thing is rest and recuperate, we have been travelling on this trip since January and had decided long ago that when we got to Fiji we would enjoy a bit of pool time, though that has not entirely stopped us getting out and about:

Navua Market - we went here for a look at how the locals buy their produce and to get our own vegetables, it was just so cheap we bought about three large carriers of all manner of fruit and vegetables for less than £5.

Zip Fiji - A trip through the tree tops of a tropical rain forest suspended from a strand of steel, well maybe a bit more, great fun, would recommend to anyone.

Sagatoka Sand Dunes - A walk through the dunes and down to the beach, one of Fiji's national parks and a heritage site. A really nice walk though the beach could have done with a bit of a clean up when we were there.

Kula Eco Park - A chance to see some of Fiji's native flora and fauna, a nice park, clean and well presented, and the animals seem well cared for also. When we were there we got to hold a couple of Lizards and a snake, well the wife did I passed on the snake, and our daughter got to feed Green Sea Turtles. Also well worth a visit.

Pacific Harbour Arts Village Cultural Show - If you want a look at how Fiji was before the white man, when human flesh was the delicacy at the dinner table this offers a good 'sheep dip' experience. For $80, a little over £20 at the time of writing, you can spend the day there taking a boat tour around a display of traditional crafts, visit a reconstructed temple and a Chief's house, including partaking in a Kava ceremony, enjoy a lovo lunch, traditional fayre cooked in the ground, and watch a display of fire walking and traditional dancing. Unfortunately when we went we were the only three people in the audience, but that did not seem to matter to the cast who put on as good a display as they would have to a packed house. A really enjoyable day, and a good insight into Fijian tradition for our daughter.

Kava Ceremony - You cannot visit Fiji without participating in one of these, we managed a couple during our stay. Kava is the National Drink of Fiji, it is a muddy brown substance made from the root of the Kava plant by crushing it and mixing it with water. The taste is not dissimilar to aniseed. Traditionally you drink it from half a coconut shell and have to knock it back in one. After the first drink you get a numbing sensation in the lips and tongue, after about 5 you start to lose control of your limbs. Apparently as your body numbs your mind clears and you get increasing clarity of thought to help you put the world to rights. Guess you could start with Fijian politics, most Fijians seem to! We have not managed to get as far as the clarity of thought stage as I was driving each time we participated, so we picked up a bag of kava in the market and will clear our thoughts later on in our trip.

To sum Fiji up, we love it here, though it would be good if you could remove the mosquitos and possibly ask the birds to refrain from their early morning chorus until a slightly more civilised hour.

Finally what of the beer?

It is OK, I enjoyed Fiji Bitter, but it is still a lager, not as gassy as those in Australia, therefore I found it more pleasant, but a lager after all. the other two beers I tried, Fiji Gold and Fiji Premium were similar though not as nice. On the flight out of Fiji I did have a can of Fiji bitter export, a crisper taste and a stronger beer, shame I could not get it in export from the supermarket in Fiji.

Sunday May 24th - The day we live twice

Today is the day we get to live twice, first in Fiji and then getting to the airport, then in Hawaii. Tonight sometime after we leave Fiji and before we arrive in Hawaii we will cross the international date line and reverse by 23 hours, effectively making this the longest day of our lives at 46 hours in total.

This morning is spent mostly getting ready to go, we do not have a lot to do as we had done most of it yesterday. Lisa also spends a lot of it out by the pool and I manage a couple of trips into the village to the supermarket and pick up a couple of last minute gifts. Rain has been threatening all morning, by late morning it is here, at first just a trickle but soon it is a torrent and that is to stay with us all the way to the airport.

We are planning to stay in the house at Pacific Harbour until about 4pm as our flight is not until 10:40 tonight and we do not want to spend too much time sitting around at the airport, with the rain the way it is however we realise we will have a slow run across to Nadi so in the end bring our departure forward. When we leave the rain is really pounding off the car roof and driving is not good. Our suitcases are in the rear of the flatbed, luckily they are hard shell cases so all we can do is hope they are waterproof (unfortunately we later find out that one was not quite, it leaked in through one corner, the corner where our tapa paintings were, these now display a nice brown stain, still I guess they are now unique!).

On the way to Nadi we break the journey just before Sagatoko at the handicraft store we stopped at the other day and buy a few more goodies, including a Fijian shirt for me, that will not look at all out of place down the pub at home, still at least any cars passing me as I stagger home after the pub will see where I am!

It takes us just over 3 hours to get to the airport, in a couple of places a lower car would likely have aquaplaned. Not far into the journey we pass the scene of a recently happened and pretty nasty accident, one car is in the the ditch with its front smashed in and on the road is a small lorry on its side, guess one of them was not where they should have been on the road, likely not helped by the amount of rain. By the time we got there plenty of people had already stopped and were dealing with the aftermath, so we picked our way around the scene and continued on our journey.

The car hire return seemed unnecessarily painful, as did the check-in, both taking more than an hour and a half in total, but we got there in the end and headed through to the departure lounge for something to eat.

The area around Nandi airport is developed, but in as poor a state as the rest of Fiji, the roads if anything are worse, much worse than those around Pacific Harbour, the airport on the other hand just seems so out of place. It is modern, comfortable, brimming with well presented shopping and offering a variety of eating and watering holes, someone likely wanted to demonstrate that Fiji is an up and coming nation and decided to use the airport as a showcase. If you arrive at the airport and are all inclusive at the Sheraton or somewhere similar after all you likely never get a glimpse of the real Fiji.

With about half an hour to go before departure time we get an announcement that our plane is going to be delayed, then in five minutes we are boarding, there is a bit of a hold up when we are on the plane but it is not too bad. Again Air Pacific makes the flight a pleasure. It may not be the newest fleet, the entertainment system is drop down TVs, but at least they have one, but the staff are friendly and make you feel comfortable from the first to the last. This has been the way with all Fijians we have met. We all manage to get a little sleep on the plane, but none of us get anything like enough.

And so starts 24th May the Re-run!

We land in Hawaii at 7:30 in the morning. We may still be on a Pacific island, but from the outset it feels more like Florida than Fiji. When we arrive it is already warm, but not as humid as the country we have left behind. US immigration is, well US immigration, but we are in now and do not have another immigration control to go through until we arrive back in Gatwick in August. We collect our car, which again is unnecessarily drawn out, in addition they do not have the Dodge Charger we had rented so upgrade us to a whale of a Lincoln Town car. Very nice, leather interior, lots of electric toys, but I hate it from the moment I pull away from the rental place, it literally wallows down the road, rolling as you try to turn it around a corner with the mobility of an oil tanker. In it’s favour it is probably the quietest car I have ever driven, next to no road noise and you cannot hear the engine at all.

We get to the house we are renting for the next two weeks a little after 9am. It is a nice house, we have the upper storey and the owners live downstairs, Nancy and Bob, a very friendly couple, we will be fine here. The house is only a 5 minute walk from Lanikai beach, one of the best beaches on Oahu, and only 5 minutes from Kailua where we can get all our shopping, but at the same time only a 30 minute drive from Honolulu, though nowhere is very far from anywhere else, we are on a relatively small island after all.

After we have got sorted out I head out for basic provisions, there is a Safeway nearby so I go there. By the time I get back with the shopping Lisa is fast asleep, Baggage is on MSN, she has sorted out her laptop and got it connected to the Internet here, not a surprise.

By the time I get back with the shopping I have had enough of my whale, the fact that the drive here is quite tight and that I had to jiggle it around at the top to get it out did not help, so I head back to the airport. The road we came in on was the southern route through the mountains, I head back in Highway 3, unlike the road we came in on which only had a short spell where it was nit built up, this route seems to take you right up into the mountains and then cuts through them with a much longer tunnel than the other route, a spectacular drive. Back at the airport I get the Lincoln changed for a Charger, they have one available now, and immediately I leave the airport I am much happier with it. It has nothing like the level of driver aids, and you can clearly hear the engine and the wheels on the road, but it goes where I put it, I feel I am in control.

Lisa is awake by the time I get back, she and Charlotte have already had lunch so I just grab myself a banana. We sort out our suitcases and then take a walk out to see what the beaches are like. They are fantastic,the sand is the softest I have ever known and the water is so warm, it is more like paddling in a cool bath. There is a constant stream of people on kayaks, outriggers and paddle boards heading across the bay to an island out by where the breakers are against the lagoon, you can see a very active beach. This is Memorial day weekend and the beaches are very busy. Whilst we are down at the beach it rains a bit, we sort of expected this, we are in a tropical climate and this is the wet side of Oahu, we could well see rain most afternoons, but even in the rain it remains particularly hot so this is not going to be an issue, in fact whilst we are out walking it is very refreshing.

By the time we get back from our walk it is almost time for dinner, we just pop out into Kailua today and grab a McDonalds, Baggage is very keen for one and both Lisa and I are far too tired to object.

After dinner we let Baggage stay up for a bit, but not too long, when she goes to bed she is asleep within a couple of minutes. We struggle on, not wanting to go to bed too early and call it a day just after 10pm, neither of us remember much after we checked in for the night.

This is the last house we are renting on our trip, when we leave here it is all hotels until we arrive back in Florida where we are at our own place. All in all the house rentals have worked very well, though we would change a few things about them if we could, but not enough to feel we have had any problems. The only bad house was the last minute rental that we did not pay for and never stayed in at Hastings near Napier, New Zealand, of all the others I would happily book into them again if the opportunity arose.

When out at the store today I bought my first Hawaiian beer, what did you expect? I opted for Mehana, Volcano Red, very Hawaiian sounding and actually pretty good. The shelf was stocked with Hawaiian brew beers, I will have fun working my way through a few of these.

So after a very long day - Good night!

May 23rd - Last full day in Fiji

Today is our last full day in Fiji, tomorrow does not really count as though we are not flying until after 9pm tomorrow night the day will be spent getting ready to travel, travelling to the airport etc. We might manage to fit in a swim somewhere though.

This morning the three of us got on with sorting out our stuff and getting it stuffed into bags, well Lisa and I did, Baggage spent most of the time on her laptop leaving us to the work. Mid morning Lisa and Baggage went for a kayak up the river with a guide form the Pearl. We were all booked onto the kayak, though this morning my arm was hurting quite a bit, it has hurt on and off all week, it feel muscular, most probably a result of zipping through the trees, I therefore give the Kayak a miss and do a bit of shopping plus sort out some paperwork (riveting) that needs to be done whilst they are on the water.

They Kayak around the pacific harbour river system, which includes coming around the house. Lisa took the waterproof video camera with her to capture some footage, she got a great 20 minute clip of the bottom of the red kayak!

After their kayak I join them at the Pearl where Baggage is having a swim, so we have a plate of chips for lunch and stay there until mid afternoon as this is likely to be her last swim there. The pearl is particularly busy today, there was a triathlon starting in Pacific harbour today and there were a lot of people in the area to see it, there was a reception going on at the Pearl as a result of it and there were a number of Children around the pool area. Baggage sort of played with a couple of boys, well they all gave attention to each other as they played by themselves which was enough for her.

After we left the Pearl we went back to the house and did a bit more packing, then headed over to Uprising for dinner. Uprising was also busy tonight. Dinner at Uprising has been good every time we went there, Baggage has had spaghetti bolognese every time, tonight Lisa and I both had a local fish, served with jacket potato and local vegetables, it was nice, a bit like a swordfish steak. After dinner we stayed there for a bit, both Lisa and I played Baggage at pool, she lost both games, but her game is getting good, she has become a reasonable opponent, if we get some practice in when back in Florida she might start winning a few. Guess what, tonight I was drinking Fiji Bitter on draught again.

Back at the house Baggage went to bed and Lisa and I chilled for a bit, I had a drink, last bottle of Fiji Bitter, Lisa did not, she had finished the wine yesterday evening and I did not realise. We did not go to bed too late as we will have a long day tomorrow.

May 22nd - Whoops!

Today the plan is to stay in this morning and for Baggage to do a bit of maths, then for us to go out this afternoon, over to the Pearl for a swim.

When Lisa gets up Baggage is chatting to her sister on MSN, they have not had a good chat for a while so Lisa lets her off he school work, I bet she wishes teachers in class were so lenient!

I drove over to Navua this morning, there are a couple of things we need that we cannot get in Pacific Harbour and I fancy taking a few more photographs there. Between Pacific Harbour and Navua is another village where the speed limit drops from 80Kph to 60Kph, just as you are about to come out of it, opposite what can only be described as a graveyard for busses I get pulled over by the local police with a radar gun doing 71Kph. A swift apology, bit of pleading about being an innocent tourist who did not realise the speed limit and thought it had gone back up to 8o and more apology and they decide to let me off, not sure what the fine would have been, but it would undoubtedly have involved an amount of red tape I really did not want to have to deal with. On the way back past the same spot I pulled over to take a few photos of the dead busses, the police were still there and pulled another car whilst I was there so I got a photo of them also so I could post it on here. I wonder if the driver of the car in the photo was as fortunate. One thing you can guarantee is that I was very careful with my speed for the rest of the journey both to and back from Navua.

Since we have been here we have commented on the number of police speed traps on the road, the Fijians obviously have a problem with people going too fast for the condition of the roads. We have noticed people being too impatient to overtake and doing it in dangerous places, also people struggling to stay on their own side of the road as they round a corner. We have not made a single journey of more than about 10 minutes without seeing at least one speed trap, on the way here from Nadi we passed about 3. Guess I should have been more aware as I had already noticed this.

When I got back to the house we had a quick lunch and then went over the pearl for a swim, Baggage likes the pool there as it is quite big and she can swim in and out of the cave area.

We stayed there for a couple of hours and then returned to our house, via the supermarket in time to collect the cameras and go out again as I want to have another go at photographing the sunset and Lisa and Baggage are coming along. The sky is pretty clear tonight, very little cloud and a nice bright blue, as the sun goes down the water in the bay reflects with a golden hue. Whilst we are on the beach Baggage writes a few messages in the sand and we video a quick hello, I will use these to do a bonus Baggage episode tonight. The sunset is good, though nothing like as spectacular as we have seen this trip, the sky goes red, but not really red, though I do still manage to get some good photos.

We do have to leave the beach in a bit of a hurry as Baggage starts to get serious stomach cramps, we just about get her back to the house and onto the toilet before she explodes out of her rear, it was only lunchtime today that I was thinking that being here in this heat I was surprised none of us had got stomach upsets, guess I thought it just a little too early.

Tonight we have corned beef hash for supper, Baggage may have has stomach problems only an hour before, but she certainly had not lost her appetite and made short work of her supper.

After supper I put together an episode of Baggage for the web site using the footage from the beach and then settle down in the chair with a bottle of Fijian Gold, the last bottle of beer I had in the fridge, and watch the final Pirates of the Caribbean film, it would have been nice to have been able to sit outside here after Baggage had gone to bed, but we would have been eaten alive by the mosquitos.

May 21st - A cultural experience

Today we are off to the Cultural show at the Arts Village just down the road. An insight into how Fijian’s used to live, back in the days of grass skirts, warriors and cannibalism.

Sushila is here today also, to give the place a good tidy, once more it will be good to go out and come back to a nice and tidy house.

When we turn up at the Arts Village we find out that we are the only people booked in for today’s event, we had feared this, there will be a bigger cast performing for us than audience. The tour we have signed up for includes a boat trip around the island in the centre of the village where we get to see traditional handicrafts being carried out, a temple tour and visit to a chief’s house where we can partake in a kava ceremony, a traditionally cooked lovo lunch and a meke and fire walking show to conclude with. It is all constructed for the tourist, but actually turns out to be a great way to get a sheep dip in Fijian traditions.

The first thing we have to do is watch the preparation of the lovo and get to place our food in the hot stone oven for it to cook. We see the pit being prepared and the hot stones arranged, then we get to place the food parcels in the oven after which the whole thing is covered with leaves and soil in order for the heat to stay in and cook the food. The contents of our lovo is chicken and dalo root and leaves. The dalo root forms a good base vegetable a cross between bread and potato in substance and it’s leaves resemble spinach and are cooked wrapping coconut milk and onion, when we get home I will have to try this recipe with spinach leaves as it is delicious.

The boat tour lasts just under an hour and we get to see weaving, pot making, coconut preparation and canoe building, we are also supposed to see traditional fire starting, but despite considerable effort the guys cannot get it to light, be thankful for gas lighters.

The temple tour is a walking tour, you get to visit a traditional style temple where the village spiritual man would have spoken to the gods for direction, then you get to visit the Chief’s house and after being welcomed in are invited to a kava ceremony. This time all three of us manage to drink our bowls of kava down in one, the traditional way to drink it.

By now our lovo lunch was cooked, it was delicious, the chicken was perfectly cooked and the dalo was really nice, both it’s leaf and it’s root.

The fire walking and traditional dancing tour this afternoon was also very good, I had feared it would be a bit flat with only us in the audience, but the Fijians still gave it their all and put on a great show. The rocks the fire walkers walked over were seriously hot, having been at the base of a large fire for about three hours before being arranged for the walking ceremony. One advantage of being the only members of the audience was that I was able to pick a really good spot for photos during the firewalking. The dancing was similar to that we saw performed at the Pearl earlier in the week, but then it was the same dancers, though it was nice to see them performing outside on a grass bank.

After the show we picked up a bit of shopping and then returned to the house where I got Baggage to record the next instalment for me to sort out and put on the web site. Sometimes she is very happy to record them and others they are a real chore, tonight was one of the latter.

I decided not to go out to try and get sunset shots tonight, and on cue the sun set the sky ablaze as it want down, better luck tomorrow. And then this evening I edited the next instalment in the Fiji Baggage story, though I will not be able to post it tonight as the Internet is very slow tonight, I am hoping it will be a bit livelier in the morning. Time now for a glass of Fiji bitter before I head to bed.

May 20th - A pretty lazy day!

When we came to Fiji we had decided it would be a place of rest where I would get started on my book, Baggage would catch up on Schooling and we would recharge our batteries ready for the last leg of the trip. So far we have not done too badly, compared to all the running about we have been doing elsewhere we are managing to stay pretty chilled here, though we have been quite active for the past few days so today we decide to stay in, rest, and then enjoy dinner out somewhere this evening, most probably uprising.

The first thing I want to post is an update regarding the AU$500 bond we have still yet to receive back from our Australian rental in Perth, now over 3 months ago. Since the brief contact I had in Auckland and the promises of repayment I have heard nothing, today my emails started coming back and when I contacted the service provider was told the chap I am chasing has closed his email account. I have checked and he is still advertising properties on the web though so I assume he must have a backup plan. I am not sure what else I can do about this, I have enquired as to the legal status and been advised this is a civil matter and the police are not interested, I reckon all I can now do is take the issue to my credit card provider, after all he did in fact take the bond against my card without my approval and I can demonstrate this with email. I have packaged up all the details and send them to my mum to see if she can get anywhere by taking them into my local bank, all the bank offer for contact on their website are phone numbers and these can be a little difficult from this far afield. If I cannot resolve this by the time I return to Florida than I can pick it up directly over the phone more easily.

This morning I caught up with yesterday’s journal entry then went to the post office to mail out all the cards and a present that we have to send back to the UK. Postage as with other things is pretty cheap here, £6 was all it cost for 11 post cards, 1 letter and a small parcel.

When I got back it was time for a bit of writing, time to start on Chapter 2.

After lunch I decided to husk and open one of the coconuts we had collected, all I had to do it with was a sharp knife and it was a bit of a mission, but I was determined to get into it and see if a fresh Fijian coconut tasted any different from the dried out ones we get from a fairground at home. Eventually I had it husked, to get the milk out I drilled it with a cork screw then to gain access to the flesh I smacked it against a stone in the garden a number of times. Success, none of us really enjoyed the milk, Baggage did not like the flesh, but Lisa and I both found it OK, definitely better than anything we have had back in the UK, the flesh was far more moist, you got refreshing juice out of it as you sucked it before biting into it. It took a while and a reasonable amount of effort, but we could not watch coconuts falling off the trees around us without trying one, could we?

I spend the afternoon reading and doing a bit of writing, and suddenly the afternoon has gone! I go out again to try to get a sunset shot, but again the sunset is not that spectacular, not like the first couple of evenings we are here, also I get into a position where I can photograph it a bit too late.

By the time I get back it is time to go out for dinner, we head for Uprising, Lisa has Lamb, Charlotte spag-bol and I am the only one of us who has something remotely Fijian, I have a chicken curry, and very good it is too. We stay out for a while, Baggage gets her laptop on the Internet and watches a few videos on You-tube whilst we enjoy a drink.. I go for the draught Fiji Bitter again, just to be consistent, not quite a glass of Speights though.

Back to the house and I catch up with this Journal, I am just about to go and pour a beer, I have a bottle of Fiji Bitter in the fridge and we are going to watch Shaun of the Dead, we have seen it before, but it is a great fun film!

May 19th - Weaving etc.

Not such a busy day is planned for today...

After we first got here I said the place was OK but I doubted I would want to come back, it is amazing how this place grows on you though. Unlike other places we have visited this is not an affluent country, the roads and condition of some peoples homes demonstrate that, however the people here are the friendliest we have met. The people in New Zealand were friendly when you got to talk to them, here everyone is friendly saying Bula as you pass them on the street, waving to you as you drive past them. They are just simply friendly, and they are all smiling, it makes all the difference. To think we considered not coming here because of the current political unrest, well we have seen no unrest, have heard a couple of murmurings due to the damage the political climate has done to the tourist trade, but we have seen nothing, no sign of the army, nobody breaking up groups of Fijians on the street, nothing like what was being reported in the New Zealand media. Maybe it would have been different if we had gone into Suva, the capital, but somehow I doubt it.

Saying how friendly everyone is, today I met the first really obnoxious person since getting here, of course he was not Fijian, by his accent I would say he was Greek, definitely European. I was buying Lisa a bottle of wine and had settled on a specific Merlot, there were about 9 bottles on the shelf, before I got to pick one up this chap moved in front of me and took two bottles and put them in his basket, he then took two more and so on until there was only one on the shelf, at this point I reached forward and took the last one, he turned on me and announced that was hos bottle, he had already taken it he just could not lift three off the shelf at the same time as he might have dropped one, he was quite sharp! Everything here is just too laid back for an argument so I gave him his precious bottle of wine and picked up a Cabinet Sauvignon for Lisa, though as I gave him his bottle I did think, “ass-ole”, by the look on his face maybe I more than thought it!

The girls went out this morning to a weaving class at the Pearl hotel and whilst they were there I drove down the coast a bit and took some photos. They both wove baskets from coconut palm leaves in the traditional Fijian way. They had lunch at the hotel and then I joined them for a swim. Whilst they were out I bought myself an ice cream and whilst eating it, and it was not hard, a rather large filling came out one of my back teeth, there was no pain involved and it seems to be a clean break, the filling being the back corner of the tooth, I will have to see how it goes, as long as no food can get under the rest of the filling and nothing else breaks off it might see me back to the UK, but that is three months away!

The Pool at the pearl is great, there is a little cave you can swim through to get out of the sun, and it was hot today, barely a cloud in the sky, the kind of day you would imagine when you think about a pacific island.

After swimming we head back to the house, we are roasting some chicken portions and eating in tonight. Whilst dinner is cooking I go out for a drive to see if I can photograph the sunset, only there is nothing to photograph, there is a lot of low lying cloud in the distance and the sun simply drops behind that with no spectacular effects.

After dinner we play another game of Scattrgories before getting Charlotte off to bed at a reasonable time. Lisa and I then sit down and watch some chic-flic we find on TV whilst drinking our wine and beer respectively, about all we feel up to tonight, must have been all the sun we lapped up today.

May 18th - Sigotoka and a Fijian Dinner

Today we are off to Sigatoka to visit the Sand Dunes and the Wildlife Park.

Both Lisa and I are up before 7am, something, most likely a bird, decided to make a right racket on the roof and when we were both wide awake there was no hope of getting back to sleep.

Sushila is here today to clean the place, could get used to having a maid!

The drive to Sigotoka takes about an hour and a half, it is only 80km, but the roads in that direction leave an awful lot to be desired and we have to go back through all the speed bump controlled villages. When we leave Pacific Harbour, by the time we are coming into Sigatoka it is starting to rain and the sky is very black. The plan had been to visit the wildlife park first, but we could not find it, we were looking on the wrong side of Sigotoka, however we knew where the sand dunes were so went there and asked there about the wildlife park, simply switching the order of our visit. By the time we reached the sand dunes it was pouring down, the rain was bouncing off the ground. We ate our lunch in the car and by the time we had finished it was easing off so we all donned waterproof coats and set off. To get up into the dunes we had to climb a steep wooden ramp, it was wet and slippery and Baggage came crashing down, she was OK but we really had to push her to carry on. By the time we got out into the open at the top the rain had stopped, and all except for a quick shower whilst we were on the beach the rain stayed off for the rest of our visit.

The dunes are substantial, the walk we chose was only an hour in duration, you could easily lose yourself in there for a day. We walked up over the dunes, down through the gully where the beetles chirping were deafening, along the beach and then back up through the Mahogany wood. Baggage was particularly interested in the sculptures in the wood of the tree huggers and the tree of lost soles.

After the dunes we headed over to the Kula Eco Park, we spent just over an hour here looking at the animals, we all got to handle some lizards and Lisa also handled a Fiji Boa, Baggage and I both opted to give the latter a miss. Before we left the park Baggage got to feed the sea turtles which she loved.

On the way back to the house we stopped off at a handicraft store picked up a few more gifts and souvenirs, again we were amazed at the price of items, just over £30 buying us a fairly large bag full of stuff that we will have to squeeze into our suitcases.

When we got back to the house Sushila had done a great job and the place was spotless again, it was really nice getting back to a clean house and whilst a maid was not something we expected it is something we have enjoyed having.

Back at the house the first thing I did was fumigate the car with insect killer, it had become infested with ants, most likely picked up whilst parked at the sand dunes, probably because we had eaten our lunch in it whilst it was raining, they were everywhere. I then had a quick swim and got changed for dinner, we are off to the Pearl hotel tonight for their Fiji evening, a Lovo meal and then some traditional Fijian entertainment.

The Lovo is a traditional Fijian way of cooking the meat, it is a fire pit lined with heat resistant stones, when the stones are hot meat wrapped in banana leaves is placed in the pit and covered with earth to cook. On arriving for our dinner we were given some Kava to sample, a traditional Fijian drink made from a root that is crushed and mixed with water. It tasted OK, a hint of aniseed, you do not need much, my lips and throat were numb after a few mouthfuls, apparently after a few glasses you loose control of your limbs!

The food was great, the meat so tender and full of flavour and the other Fijian dishes that were served up to accompany it were all very tasty. During the evening I tried a variety including a Fijian spinach soup, a raw fish salad, an avocado salad, different roast vegetables, both chicken and pork from the Lovo, and fish cooked in coconut milk. For desert I had Chocolate & Pistachio brownie, cassava cake and a plantain and coconut milk dish.

To drink I enjoyed a couple of bottles of Fiji gold with my dinner.

After dinner we were treated to a display of traditional Fijian dancing for about half an hour, then when we were invited to join in Baggage volunteered me and I got roped into a Fijian variant on the conga, I got my own back however by getting her roped into a game of musical chairs, which she won and subsequently stayed up to play musical statues which she also won. The Fiji Gold probably helped my efforts in the conga.

By the time we got back to the house it was after 9pm and we got Baggage straight off to bed as she was pretty tired, she was asleep almost instantly. We did not stay up much after as we too were pretty shattered after our early start and all the fresh air we had today.

17th May - Zip Fiji

I never did get to read any of my book last night, when I got downstairs Rain Man had just begun on the TV so I blobbed in front of that instead. Still drank my beer though. Must get more today as the fridge is now empty.

After breakfast I had a quick swim, again it did not seem as bad when first getting in as it did when we first arrived here, Then I got back on with my book. Lisa having read it yesterday had made a number of marks where she did not feel it either read well or was totally accurate, at least there were not as many marks as I had expected. I spent the morning addressing these.

Before lunch I popped out to the supermarket to get a few ingredients for tonight’s chilli and some beer and wine. Forgot the onion I wanted and on Sunday in Fiji supermarkets cannot sell alcohol, didn’t I do well.

After lunch we headed out to Zip Fiji for our experience flying

through the tree tops. The drive took about 20 minutes and when we got there we had to wait another half an our as there were some more people joining our party who were yet to arrive. Zip Fiji consists of 8 zip lines through the forest canopy, all apart from the first one take you from platform to platform, the first simply gets you across a river after which there is a short climb up to the second one. In total 4 other people joined us, so there were 10 in our Zipping party, 3 of us, a honeymoon couple from Brisbane, a couple from Canberra and two Fijian guides.

After a very brief introduction we were off, we were all a bit unsure of the first couple of flights, none of us had done it before, I moved my rear guiding hand in a bit too close a couple of times and ended up doing full 360s, but in the main we did OK. By the third flight we were all well into it. Baggage loved it screaming at the top of her voice almost all the way across every wire. The 8 zip wires were over far too quick and we could not believe it when at the end of the course the guides asked us if we would like to go around again, a complimentary set of flights as we were the only party they were taking around this afternoon, we all said yes without any hesitation. Back up to the first zip we went and off we went again, though this time they had increased the pace, were not waiting for a flyer to clear the line before the next one set off and were encouraging us to try a bit of freestyle whilst heading across the wire, it all added to the fun.

At the end of the 16 zips through the canopy I felt totally exhilarated, I would not consider this an extreme sport as it is actually pretty safe and does not require a vast amount of effort, but it is just simply great fun.

Our guides helped make it a truly enjoyable afternoon, they loved Baggage and made her feel quite special and they were just simply very friendly and open at all times, a truly Fijian experience, Bula!

Back at the house I had a quick swim to cool off before making tonight’s dinner, chilli and rice, we all had quite an appetite, must have been all the fresh air.

After I have finished writing this we have decided to pop out to one of the bars for a drink before we settle Baggage down for the night, might be something to do with the fact that we have no alcohol in the house!

We did go out to Uprising for a drink, Baggage took her laptop and logged on to their Internet connection which kept her happy, I also gave her a game of pool whilst we were there. I enjoyed a couple of pints of Fiji Draught after which Lisa drove back to the house, the first time she has driven our truck since we got to Fiji, the hand-brake caught her out just as it had done me!

Back at the house I edited the video footage from today so that I can get the baggage episode on-line, it is going up as I type this, and after this is posted I am off to bed.

May 16th - Just Chillin'

Nothing happening again today, so no excuse, I settle down this morning and start to write. Before I finish I have completed the first chapter, it’s a start anyway. I print it out and give it to Lisa to read, she knows how to be critical after all!

After I had finished writing it was time for a swim, the pool does not seem so bad now, it is still cold to get in, but you know if you push through the cold barrier it is worth it and the water will soon not feel too cold to be in. Once you are in the pool there is no desire to rush out because the water is too cold to be comfortable, I reckon it just feels cold when you first get in because the air temperature, which is in the region of 28 degrees, is what you are accustomed to.

After a swim I book us into Zip Fiji for tomorrow afternoon, flying through the rain forest canopy on a series of Zip wires. You will know how we get on when I get around to publishing my blog tomorrow.

This afternoon I had to go out to get a few supplies for dinner tonight, I am doing a cheesy rice and tuna bake. Whilst at the Arts Village I meet a lady, Vera, a Fijian national who has been living in the UK since she was 18, she is now mid 50s, her husband was in the forces and she has seen a very large slice of the world, he passed away 6 years ago and now she is considering returning to Fiji. She is currently on a six month honeymoon with the country to see how she gets on. At the end she feels she has become far to accustomed to European ways to be able to move back here, but she is determined to give it a go. We must have talked for over half an hour, by the time I bought the shopping and got back to the house the girls wondered where on earth I had got to.

After I got back I decided to have a rest from all this exertion and put the air conditioning on in our bedroom to watch a film on my laptop, Lisa was ready and Baggage involved in her computer.

When I came to cook the dinner I found we had no cheese, I knew we had no cheese but had forgotten to buy it when I went out to the shop, the wonders of a shopping list. A quick trip out to the shop found it only just closed and as a departing customer had the door open I managed to blag my way in to get my block of cheese, only to encounter the first miserable Fijian I have met since we got here, she is behind the till in the shop which should have closed 20 minutes ago and is obviously wishing she was somewhere else right now.

After dinner we play a game of Scatergorise, a game that was in the house when we arrived, great fun and good to get Baggage off the computer.

The beer is now open and I am going to chill for the rest of the evening, TV here is pretty poor, but I have a book which I am enjoying so maybe I will pick that up to finish off the day in keeping with the rest of it?

15th May - Horse Riding on the beach

Another quiet day is planned for today, it is raining and it looks set to stay that way so probably not a bad thing, though the forecast is wet for the next few days so I guess we are just going to have to grin and get wet if we want to do everything we have in mind. The girls have planned to go horse riding this afternoon, Uprising offer an hours ride along the beach, we will have to see how they feel after lunch.

This morning I start to compile the next episode of Baggage, the first from Fiji, when it is complete I can find no further excuses so set myself about adding to my book for a couple of hours. By the time I finish the book has grown to nearly 5,000 words, a long way off where it needs to be and I know that even in this there is a lot of repetition, but it is a reasonable start.

After lunch the girls decide they may as well go for it, the rain has all but stopped so we head over to Uprising. When we get there they have no record of the riding having been booked, I thought it was all a bit casual when I booked it on Wednesday, but never mind, they soon get the horses down onto the beach and the girls are off. An excuse for me to shelter under the covered beach side bar and have a pint of Fiji Bitter on draught, a nice way to pass a Friday afternoon. When the girls get back from their ride they are both soaked through, we head back to the house and they both decide to go in the pool, why not they are already wet, though they do take the time to put costumes on first.

Tonight’s dinner is chicken noodles again by special request of Baggage, though I do add fresh vegetables bought from the market yesterday, bok choi, carrots and French beans. After dinner we all sit down to watch a family film which turns out not to be and Baggage gets bored with it and ends up playing on my computer.

More Fiji Bitter for tonight, cannot see myself bothering to but anything different whilst we remain here.

May 14th - A trip to Navua

Today Sushila came to clean and tidy for us, this is the first house we have rented that comes complete with a maid so it is a bit of a novelty.

This morning we are off out to Navua market, we have been told it is worth a visit, and that the selection of fresh fruit and veg. is extensive. Navua is about 15 minutes towards Suva from where we are staying and compared to some of the roads we travelled to get here the road is very good. Navua is on the bank of the river and many local excursions up the river start from there, the town is typical of the ramshackle groups of houses here. The market is set in a long hall with, more like an extended bus shelter, with some 30 tables inside lined with different kinds of produce, we buy three carriers full of a variety of fruit and veg. and the whole lot costs us about £5. Some of it we know what we are getting, some is experimental.

Whilst in Navua I take the opportunity to take some photographs, both within the market and of the town. Whilst there Lisa and Baggage each buy themselves a Sula, a Fijian sari. Whilst Lisa and Baggage are off getting their Sulas I enjoy a bit of people watching from our truck, again I am struck by the number of people who just seem to be hanging around, the next thing that I notice is the number of young men carrying machetes, there is no threat in this, they are simply the preferred tool of work, yet imagine the reaction in any UK town if someone were to walk through the highstreet carrying a machete.

On the way to Navua I scan for a local radio station to listen to whilst we are here, I find one called Legend that plays those well known 80 somethings songs that most people know and can usually sing most of the lyrics to yet few would own up to having any of them in their record collection. Now that shows my age doesn’t it, record collection, not CD or worse still MP3.

When we get back to the house Sushila is still here cleaning, she is very thorough, all bedding has been changed and washed, the floors have all been mopped and the bathrooms both cleaned, it is far cleaner than it would have been if we had been left to our own devices. This is not a bad thing with the level of wildlife we have found in the house, ants whenever you drop anything, anywhere, tiny fawn coloured insects, running about like ants, wherever it is damp, and a number of lizards running about on the inside walls. We are also being plagued by Mosquitos, all three of us have a number of bites, and despite liberal application of after-bite they itch like crazy.

Lisa and I sit outside to read and I light a mosquito deterrent coil near to where we are sitting, it will burn for eight hours and if it helps to keep them away will be much appreciated.

After lunch I head back out to the arts village, first stop the wood carving shop to get a smaller face mask to take back with us, I have decided this is the safe option as if the other one does not arrive at least we will have something. There is a box on the floor of the shop addressed to my parents house, at least I know of carvings have got that far. I end up buying three masks and some other trinkets as souvenirs, the problem is I really do like the dark wood carvings here and it is all so cheap.

Back to the house, Lisa is still reading, she has already read one book cover to cover since we got here and is now well through the 2nd one. I join her and read for a bit before deciding to cool off in the pool, before long Baggage joins me, this is the first time since we have been here she has done much more than stick a toe in the water.

This evening we went out to Uprising resort for dinner, we chose today as at 7pm there is supposed to be a Kava ceremony and I guess you cannot really visit Fiji without trying a little Kava, however when we got there we found the ceremony was not being held tonight as they were opening their new beach bar and were having a special dinner for that, never mind just an excuse to eat here next Thursday evening. The food was really good, the beer was Fiji Bitter on draught, which tasted significantly better than from the bottle and it was pleasant sitting outside under the thatched shelter, even if it was raining out this evening. Whilst eating dinner there were two young kittens hanging around, they kept Baggage amused for most of the meal, she even got them to eat a little of her bread roll, no wonder they were hanging about.

back at the house I drank the last bottle of Fiji Premium beer, doubt I will bother with that again, in fact I will probably stick with Fiji bitter as of the three local beers available in the supermarket this is the best.

May 13th - Another chilling day

Today we are again staying around the house, Baggage will be doing some schooling and I get a couple of hours of writing in again.

Before I settle down to write however I have a swim in the pool and manage to get in a few lengths. The pool is not heated and it does make you gasp a bit as you get in, but the reality is that the water is not cold and after you have been in for a couple of minutes you quickly acclimatise, the best bet is just to get in quickly.

For lunch we have some ham that I had bought from the Supermarket, it says it is cooked, but we reckon that is a bit dubious, it is definitely not cooked as much as meat would be at home, if we are ill tomorrow I guess we just ate raw gammon!

After lunch I head back into the village, camera in hand. I start by visiting Uprising and taking some pictures of the beach and pool area, I then head across to the pearl and perform a similar exercise, here there was a professional photo shoot going on taking publicity stills for the hotel, I wonder how many I ruined by being visible in the background? I ended my Photo Excursion at the Arts Village, including a number of shots being taken of the type of wood carvings that we purchased yesterday.

For dinner tonight we have lamb chops. The meat here is not presented as well as we are used to in the UK, in fact as you buy if from the supermarket it looks a bit like something you might buy for your dog, but once you get past the look it is fine, the Lamb for instance was very tender and very tasty. No cooking tomorrow night, we are treating ourselves to dinner at Uprising.

Tonight for a drink I have had a bottle of Fiji Bitter, nice, but I am back in the same world as I was in whilst in Australia, all beer is really a European style lager under a different name.

May 12 - Fiji Day 2 and Mum's Birthday

When we decided to make this trip we tried to find books written by other families who had done something similar, but could find nothing, I therefore decided that at the end of the trip I would have a go at writing a book. I am not sure if I can, and if I do whether it will even be good enough to get published but I will have a go. When we were in the US at the end of last year I wrote a prologue for the book, some 1 and a half pages, only about a further 298.5 to go then! As we have been travelling I have decided that Fiji will be a good place to get started, we are having a more relaxing time here and also need to take Baggage’s school work a bit more serious, a great opportunity for me to sit down for a couple of hours every morning and put pen to paper, well finger to keypad anyway.

Today I will start, so after breakfast and when Lisa is up and dressed I set myself up in the little office area upstairs next to our bedroom, ideal for a bit of peace and quiet. It works to, in my two hours I manage to get a basic structure down and the first few pages written. After I have finished for the day I let Lisa have a read of what I have written so far to see if I am writing along the right lines, not sure if she was being polite or not, but she said it was OK. Reckon I will send the first couple of chapters to someone else for their comments when I have them penned.

After lunch we decide to go out, Lisa has not yet left the house since we got here so we head for Uprising resort and have a wander along the beach and then go to the Arts Village.

Whilst at the Arts Village we look up a friend of one of Lisa’s friends from home, we find her, she runs a shop there. We also spend some time in a wood carving shop and end up buying just about all our Fiji souvenirs in one go and pay to have them boxed up and mailed back to the UK. We spend a total of $250 (£70ish) on more than 10 individual pieces, including the cost of post and packing for their return to the UK. One piece is a carved mask, nearly 3 foot tall that is destined for our conservatory wall back in the UK. The items will be shipped by land/sea and will take about 3 months to get there, they might just about beat us. It did seem strange parting with cash and leaving the shop with nothing, knowing that if the items never turn up it will be very difficult for me to do anything about it, but the operation seemed genuine enough and sometimes you really do just have to trust people. Any way the mask we selected we could never have bought if we had to transport it back with us. If the items do not turn up in the UK it will be the fact that we do not have all our Fiji Souvenirs that will be most disappointing, not the loss of the cash.

When we get back to the house I compile the last Baggage we recorded in Auckland and publish it on the website.

For dinner tonight I cook a chilli, though I leave the powder out of Baggages portion as she does not like spicy food. After dinner we spend a bit of time on Skype with my Mum as it is her Birthday today, we even manage to say hello to Dad which was nice as he is usually absent whenever we talk to Mum.

Tonight I crack open a bottle of Fiji Gold, a lite lager, not as nice as the Fiji Premium I had to drink last night.