Oli Reveals: V

Another installment of Oli’s round-the-world emails:

A bit late….I’ll reveal why later.

Yep, so from where I finished, we drove from the capital (Suva) south and
then along a pretty coast road that runs all the way to the west of the
island, including a stretch of road known as the “coral coast” for the
offshore coral that you can see from the road. We stopped at Pacific
harbour to take some pics and then Sigatoka national park, where there’s
huge natural sand dunes. Our “guide” got us lost, revealed that this was
his first long trail and also revealed that the walk we made him do was his
last for the day. He had been at the Park for two weeks, as a ranger, but
was knackard after the trek, but a funny guy. I was sand blasted constantly
on the dunes and got a mouth full of sand whenever I tried to shout
something, great views though

On 31st, we took a catamaran from the mainland out to the island group to
the west of the main island, with the intention of hopping a few islands.
Landed on “Bounty Island” by mid-morning, greeted by guitars, singing, white
sand beach, palm tree-clad interior and colbolt blue water- yep, looked
sweet to me. Jumpd in and snorkelled ASAP, blown away by the healthy coral
colonies and all the colourful fish that went with them- better than any
Caribbean island I’ve been too, and may rival the Maldives, it’s that
impressive. There wasnt a cloud in the sky and the water was around 27oC,
good visability. Snorkelled, Kayaked and walked around the whole island
during my first day, only being 40 hectares big, just like the postcard
tropical islands.

To cut a long story short, Ben and I had told ourselves that we would leave
Bounty island after 1 or 2 nights, but I fell in love with the island as
soon as I set foot on it and stayed for 7 nights!!(Ben left after 4
nights-skint). I did manage some island hopping to Treasure island,
Honeymoon island (great deep snorkelling), Castaway island, Plantation
island and another one I cant remember how to spell.

So yeah, my “island hopping” on prodominatly one island involved a dream
routine for me everyday: 1) 7am wake up to snorkel when the water’s dead
calm, breakfast (copious amounts of tea and pinnapple)
2) snorkel around the island after breakfast for a couple of hours and then
crash in a hammock to listen to my music and maybe read a bit about NZ.
3) BBQ lunch, followed by my afternoon snorkel on a favourite part of the
island/ Kayak.
4) 3pm “tea time” (get the impression it was a Brit colony?!!). Normally
steam through 8 cups of tea in the space of an hour, standard.
5) Snorkel again/ watch sunset from otherside of island.
6) Evening dinner/ drinks/ cards in evening.

The only things to add to the above was island hopping, drinking Kava
(narcotic drink), winning a bottle of plonk on my final night to drink under
a full moon and beating a German at a Kayak race around the island.

Sounds very simple, because it was, but it was absolute perfection for me, I
couldnt have had a better day than the ones I had. So much so, that even
now, I contemplate going back out to the islands for more fish gazing and
sun loving. The island only had around 60 people on it, max, so it was very
relaxed and you hardly saw anyone,except at meal times. Met a nice German
couple from Cologne who were great company throughout my stay. The staff
were so friendly towards me, I got to know most of them, and they knew my
love for the sea/island. It was a running joke that everyday a member of
staff would come up to me and ask “are you leaving today?”, me replying,
“no, just one more night”. Literally, they would ask me everyday and
everyday I would say no, lengthening my stay from a casual 1 night affair to
over a week of pure tropical island bliss.

I can safely say that this is the only country I’ve travelled to that I DO
NOT want to leave, and has Oli written all over it, my Valhalla.

Off to NZ tomorrow, write to you lot from there- still think of you lot when
I have quiet moments of peace

Oli