Best idea ever, paying for the extra leg room seats for our flight across the Pacific! It was a much more relaxing flight and considering it was 11 hours, it seemed to pass quite quickly, with a few instances of napping along the way. 
We crossed the equator for the first time in both of our lives and also crossed the dateline, meaning that Wednesday 16th December did not exist in our lives. 

So we took off, flew 11 hours and landed 2 days later, all very confusing stuff, but on arrival we were greeted by Fijian singers, a very warm welcome to go with the very warm weather. 
We went straight from the airport, after arriving at 6am, to Port Denerau, where we would pick up the ‘Yasawa Flyer’ our catamaran transport to paradise!!! 

It was all very rushed checking in with only a few minutes before we sailed but very soon we were out on the seas passing some beautiful islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. 
Evie bought us both a beer, but I had to remind her that it was still only 8:30am. She couldn’t work out what day of the week it was let alone what time of day, so I let her off and we enjoyed our beer on the top deck in the sunshine. 

We were dropped off, mid-ocean offshore from our island resort, a very impressive looking forested island, with a huge peak (more on that later)

Our resort was ‘Naqalia Lodge’ a beautiful small beach with a few ‘bure’ (bungalows) overlooking the ocean. 

The welcome was amazing, we were greeted by the ‘Bula’ song on the beach by our hosts, Bula meaning hello. 
We had some coffee on arrival and were welcomed by Aku #1 (number 1 because he is the eldest of 5 Aku’s in the village and they all work at the resort!!!)
The resort is run by 1 big family from Naqalia village next door and you are treated as one of he family whilst staying with them! Honestly some of the best hospitality we’ve ever experienced, it will be hard to beat at our onward destinations! 

 

  

 

Lunch was soon after and you are fed very very well! Constantly being asked ‘more food?’ More than you could eat. Accompanied by a cold Fiji beer a few metres from a spectacular reef, this is a homely paradise. 

After lunch, it was time to explore the reef. Evie stayed in the shallows and slept/read in a hammock whilst I wasted away time staring at all the lovely fish, even spotting a reef shark in the depths and promptly getting burnt on my back as a result of my many hours staring into the sea. Well you wouldn’t be British if you didn’t get burnt on day 1 in the sun would you!? 

We spent the afternoon in the shallows playing around with the Fijian kids and met some fellow travellers who are all great fun and very nice people. 

  

At 17:30 we started our ascent to the summit of the island. We didn’t know we were going all the way to the tippy top, just that we were going on a sunset walk. It was steep from the start and pretty soon we were all dripping wet with sweat. 

   

 

We reached a peak after half hour and thought that was it, it looked good to us, but our barefooted guide Max pointed out the rocky summit we had seen on our way in and told us that ‘that’ was where we were going! We should’ve packed more water!!!!!

I prioritised though and substituted extra water for a beer each. 

    
 

 

It was another 45 minutes of sweaty, steep walking before we scrambled onto the rock at the highest point and saw the incredible view of the whole island and the islands around it!  

   

All of that effort was definitely worth it and so were the beers! It turned out that we had motored up the mountain and were 50 minutes ahead of the sunset, so we just sat and chatted with new friends taking in the views and enjoying the breeze.

In the mean time their were plenty of fruit bats to keep us entertained and slowly the sun disappeared behind the ocean. 

As they say, what goes up, must come down and this was almost more difficult than the ascent. It was pretty slippery, steep and also dark now so with a bit of skiing and a few bum slides, we reached the bottom in just as much of a sweaty mess as the way up. 

Water is in short supply here and we’d missed our opportunity for a cold shower, but they had filled up a big bucket of water for us, so it was a welcomed bucket shower to cool us off ready for dinner. 

Dinner was in the form of a Lovo, an underground pit in which they wrap chicken, yams and potatoes to roast slowly in leaves. The result was delicious! And again more food than you could possibly eat! 
We were serenaded by all the men again with the Bula song and some more traditional Fijian songs and then hugged by the whole family who thanked us for choosing to stay with them. 

  

By this point we were all and truly pooped, but there was still more to come. We went inside for some dancing! We learnt the ‘Bula’ dance, the Fijian version of the ‘Macarena’ which was a lot of fun. His was followed by the snake dance. In which you form a conga line, the front is the head and the rear, the tail. The head has to lead the dance and everybody follows, this resulted in having to come up with some creative dance moves on the spot and also returning back to be the sweaty messes that we were before dinner. 

Now we really were knackered, so it was off to bed for an amazing nights sleep under our mozzy net! 

Fiji Day 2-
We were too tired (like a bicycle) to get up for the sunrise, so we woke up at 7 for breakfast, again just smiling ear to ear at this amazing place we are so lucky to be in! 
Breakfast over and it was straight out to sea to swim with the Sharks!!! We went 15 minutes south to a reef in the middle of the ocean. Two of the Fijians had jumped in on the way and speared a few fish to feed the Sharks with. They make spear fishing look so easy.

 

 
We jumped straight in, after a little hesitation from Evie and were greeted by the sight of an amazing reef. Within minutes, the Sharks had come to investigate us and get their breakfast. Not us of course, the fish that had been speared en route. And I should further add that these are white tip reef Sharks, very friendly Sharks, no bigger than a couple metres who are more like friendly lap dogs than the vicious Jaws like Sharks you may be imagining. 

Words can’t describe how incredible it was, they hung out in a pool in the centre of he reef, about 6 metres deep, coming up to have a nosy every now and then at these white skinned foreigners staring down at them from the surface.

They seemed to know the Fijians well and knew that they were the ones with the food. They would swim straight to them and shy more away from us whiteys. 

Evie had completely lost any fears she had within seconds and even managed to stroke one as it swam past her. I spent most of my time swimming to the bottom to get a better look at them all and get some decent photographs with the GoPro. 

Over an hour flew by in the water as we played with our new Sharky friends when we were called back to the boat. Everybody was very pleased with this mornings activity, and a must do trip if you are ever lucky enough to make it to the amazing Naqalia lodge. 

The rest of the morning, into afternoon, we spent meeting new people, very easy in a small place like this, where everyone is encouraged to meet one another and eat together. This proves very helpful too, as we met a great Kiwi family who helped us plan our upcoming 6 week tour of their country. 

  

When the family left, we joined in on the beach to sing them farewell, clapping along as we don’t speak the local lingo. Every time we see people leave, they seem so sad to go, which says a lot!
We relaxed on the beach in the afternoon, reading, napping, staring at the view. We had a fresh coconut from the tree (much better than Vita Coca by the way) and a cup of tea (good tea in Fiji) then I had a great massage and we basically lazed around until we went out on our fishing trip.  

 

5 of us Brits went out with Aku #2 and Aku #3. We stopped on the way to get some bait from a night fisherman out on the water and then we dropped anchor at a good fishing spot. 

  

 

For the next 2 hours we bobbed around with our hand lines, girls v boys, trying to catch the most fish. 

Some of the girls caught fish straight away, small grouper fish. It took the boys a bit longer, but we got there in the end. Everybody catching at least one, with a final haul of 16 yummy fishes. 

  

  

I had the biggest catch of the day though, reeling in something big, everyone was very excited to see what I had. It looked and felt massive as it came into view from the deep. Once it surfaced, however, it turned out to be a big piece of coral, much to everyone’s amusement and my disappointment.

  

 

After the sun had set on the horizon, we sped back home in time for dinner. Also getting back in time for a shower whilst the water was on. 

Another big delicious meal with more singing and hugging, but no dancing tonight. Instead we had a ‘Kava’ ceremony. Kava is a root which is crushed up and mixed with water in a huge bowl. The root has an interesting, bitter taste, which slightly numbs your tongue and is supposed to relax you and help you sleep.
Everyone sits around in a big circle and takes a cup in turn, ‘low tide’ being a mouthful ‘high tide’ being a full half coconut shell and ‘tsunami’ being a very large coconut shell.  

 
The circle grew bigger and bigger as more of the family joined in. There was lots of clapping and laughing going on and more singing. All of us embarrassing ourselves with animal noises in time to the music.  

 
The Kava was not to Evie’s taste, but she had a few low tides before throwing in the towel. Being a man, I of course had to prove myself and a few Tsunamis later decided it was time for bed. Leaving the Fijian guys to carry on into the early hours.  

I don’t know if it did have any effect, but we both did sleep very well after spending a while staring up at the amazing stars from the beach, undisturbed by light pollution and of course, constellations in different positions than back home. Orion seems to be lying on his side, slightly upside down, he must have drank too much ‘Kava’! 
The morning of our last day in Naqalia came too quicly,  I tried to rouse Evie into coming to see the sunrise. She wasn’t having any of it though, so I went on my own. 
Aku #1 was already busy working at 5:45 and promptly gave one of the younger boys a light kick as his alarm call, so he could take me up the hill to a great viewpoint. 
Young Phillip was slightly jaded to start with, wiping the sleep from his eyes, he was wide awake by the time we got to the top. This was only a 10 minute walk to a hill on the east side. 
It was just myself, Phillip who’s birthday it turned out to be (I feel a bit bad making him get up so early now) and a nice American student up at this time.  

We watched the sun come up and welcome in the new day and then headed back down in time for breakfast. I woke Evie from her deep slumber and managed to get her to the dining area. 
Chef had cooked us up a couple of the fish we had caught the night before. Delicious little things they were! 

 

 
It was our time to leave this morning and now it was our turn to be the ones looking sad as the boat pulled away to the family singing on the beach along with some of the new friends we had met, who we will definitely try to see again. 
Our time with the family at ‘Naqalia lodge’ was one of the best experiences of our lives, we could easily have spent so much more time there, the whole family is so happy and helpful. Aku (all of them) is great, nothing is too much trouble and you quickly feel part of the family. 
Thank you to them all and we will be back one day for sure! 

R & E