The plan for our 10 days here was to be..... first night in Nadi (pronounced Nandi, the islands main hub for arriving tourists) to chill out, get some supplies and sort out bookings for the islands over the next 9 days. We'd decided to visit 2 islands; Beachcomber - Fiji's party island and Caqelai (pronounced Thangelai) a more remote island on the West coast of the mainland, ending up back in Nadi on the 20th in time for our flights out of tropical paradise.So, we headed to a hostel in New Town; the Tropic of Capricorn, for the first night and given the early flight we were there by midday and chilling out by the pool not long after that. The rest of the day was spent doing just that, with a little trip to the shop thrown in for good measure. We were leaving at 8am the following morning for Beachcomber and as we were all shattered from the early start we had dinner, watched the sunset (see pic above), wasted a few good dollars on the worlds slowest internet connection and got our heads down. We could've picked a nicer hostel for our first night but in fairness it did the job, was clean and a bed for the night so it could've (and has been) a whole lot worse.
The sun was shining for us the following morning and after a brief bus journey and boat trip we arrived at our first tropical island desitination.... Beachcomber (shown in the pic here) is well known for where all the backpackers go and we were expecting a mass of people, Ibiza syle... espically given the 84 bed dorm we were booked into!! In fact, it wasn't anything like that. The island is tiny, you can walk round it in about 15 minutes and although the dorm was massive it was actually pretty decent, well organised and even people snoring wasn't really a problem. There were only about 70 odd people on the island while we were there and the vibe was great, really chilled out with little else to do but sunbathe, play volleyball, read, swim, eat, drink, take advantage of the free snorkelling trips, play cards, mini-golf and generally have fun. So, with 3 nights on the island, that's pretty much what we did. All the food was included in the price and it was provided in abundance (something which Graham was grateful for) and it was lush... I developed an obsession with the yum banana muffins they had at breakfast.
Wednesday was our first day there and the day we added another bod to our little group... introducing Andy, a Kent lad who we met at lunch and who ended up travelling with us for the rest of our time in Fiji. BTW - Lotty and Graham shown in pic on right and Andy with me (obviously) in other pic here. After lunch that day, Lotty, Graham and I foolishly played crazy golf without any mozzie spray on and Lotty and I got devoured.... my right leg alone had 18 bites on!!!! Nice!! We won't mention the final scores 
for the golf though eh!?!That evening started with happy hour in the islands only bar before sneaking off to polish off some of the duty free wine then heading back to partake in the Bula Dance - a dance disturbingly like the Macarena!!!! - and sample my first and last taste of the Fijian traditional drink Cava - it basically is like drinking dirt!! hmm!
The next day we awoke to overcast skies and the threat of rain so after brekkie it was back to the dorm to chill out.... there's not much to say about today except that we all got through a fair bit of our books, started the card playing (Girls are clearly better at Hearts and Sevens Graham... there's no escaping it!! ;0) got fleeced on the ridiculously expensive internet there and managed to catch the few rays of sun that did come out. The boys went snorkelling but Lotty and I decided to save that for a nicer day... or rather tomorrow, the only other day we had left there! The evening was comical... Crab Racing was on in the bar, with an auction held for the crabs you wanted... we ended up with Pakistan and China - I can't remember the names so Team Fiji, if you can post it on a comment pls! We'd added another 
stray to our gang by now too... Simon, someone I recognised from New Zealand and who'd been told to 'look out for me' (err!!) by Dan and Jamie, the boys I'd stayed in Rotarua with. Needless to say, some more of the duty free goods were sampled and our crabs lost but hey it was fun. Much of the evening, infact much of the whole trip, was spent playing various games to amuse us..... favourites being, 20 questions, the name game and numerous variations sometimes made into drinking games, sometimes just to pass the time. We liked it anyway!! (pic on left is me with Andy, Simon and John).
Luckily, our last day on Beachcomber dawned bright and sunny so the day was naturally spent on the beach, soaking up the sun and working on our tans... we headed out to the sand bank for some snorkelling too, which was utterly amazing. It really is like something you see in a holiday brochure here, the waters are so blue it's amazing and the reefs are gorgeous, I wish i had pictures from the snorkelling but i don't so you'll just have to trust me when I tell you that it was probably the best snorkelling i've done, including the Great Barrier Reef, the colours were stunning and the sea was so clear. After a tough day on the beach we'd managed to add a few more peeps to the equation and along with them (Stuart, an Aussie who's actually been around the whole time I just forgot to mention him, oops! John, a Scottish lad from Dundee, and Ed and Patrick; 2 young english lads, one of which looked like he belonged in McFly) we managed to tuck into a fair bit of the duty free stash as well as the makeshift black russians that Graham had got going on.... there were many drinking games, for which the Black Russian was the losers 'prize' and alot of amusement involving such peeps as St Francis of Assiss (is that spelt right Andy?) Ansell Adams, Metal Mickey and Caravaggio (prob not spelt right at all!) I'll not bother explaining as it's prob not funny to anyone but the Fiji gang but if anyone knows what St Francis did.. you know where the comments button is..!
The only other thing to mention from today, or rather that night, is the moon - i didn't get a decenet picture but it was amazing, a really deep orange, sitting almost on the horizon... it was stunning!It was a shame but our time on Beachcomber was nearly over, Andy had decided to come with us to Caqelai and so Friday night was our last night there, and in true NZ Flee style, I'd managed to get drunk the night before I had a journey to embark on... this time by boat instead of bus but as you can tell, i still haven't learnt my lesson!! oops!
All in all though, Beachcomber was wicked and I'd recommend anyone to go there, especially if you're travelling alone, it's really easy to meet people and is loads of fun. For us though, it was bye bye Beachcomber... next stop Suva... xx
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