Our 4 am wake up call summoned us to the airport for our 3 hour flight to Nadi. We had booked ourselves into Bethams on Nananu-I-Ra, a small island with 60 inhabitants, 3kms off the North East corner of the mainland. After to-ing and fro-ing for a month, staying put for a week in 1 place would be gratefully received. Our taxi ride took about 3 hours to connect with our boat from Ellington Wharf. This ride included shopping stops where we both deliberated over identifying the fruit and vegetables. We arrived at our comfortable self-catered dorm and became acquainted with our French roommate. We then started to feel rather anxious that we would get bored over the coming days but all feelings of doubt subsided the following morning as we were greeted by sunshine and palm tree fringed beaches, it was truly a tropical paradise- the smell of fruit (no kidding!) and the lush green vegetation was competing for space as far as the eye could see. Our home for the next 7 nights was lined by 2 beaches, one facing the highlands of Viti-Levu- the mainland, and the other to the back of the resort facing the vast expanse of the pacific, with onshore winds making it popular with windsurfers.
The first day we enjoyed both beaches and absorbed ourselves in our books. Jess' peace was soon disturbed, however. She was sitting in the water cooling off, watching the pretty fish swimming around her, admiring them, and in her ignorance thinking how tame they were... Little did she know that they were Pirhanas in disguise! Suddenly she felt something like pins going into her ankle, as one of them decided to take a bite at her! The cheek! It was only after talking to our diving roommate that she was reliably informed that they were tigerfish and probably guarding eggs. The little blighter was only 10cm long! They did have balck and white stripes though... 
Towards the end of the afternoon we walked behind the mangroves in search of a resting place to watch the sunset. 
Armelle was fascinated by the mangroves having written many a paper on them. 
The second day, Jess had a windsurfing lesson, with some snorkeling thrown in for free, but there was some debate over who was teaching who, as the young Dutch girl instructing was unfamiliar with the English terms. So it was more an information swap than anything! Armelle swaying in a hammock engrossed in Shantaram, a book that she insists everyone should read before they die.
Day 3 we rented snorkels which became our main activity aside from lying, sunbathing and reading and Jess felt like she was inside an aquarium at the end of the jetty where the fish were displaying their colors in abundance. Armelle became very excited when she saw an eel as well as her favorite rainbow fish. That evening we watched the sunset once more but quickly marched back when a menacing dog appeared from nowhere. We ate our Thai curry dinner in the restaurant-with Stephanie, our new roommate-one of two dinners that we were allowing ourselves to pay for as we majorly overspent in NZ.
On the fourth day, the weather decided to take a cloudy occasionally rainy turn but at least getting sun burnt was ruled out of the equation! That evening we were invited to drink kava- a traditional narcotic drink which turns your tongue furry and can best be described as a clay tasting muddy medicine. We weren’t sure why it was a traditional drink as the locals didn’t seem to enjoy it either! Several rounds, a couple of glasses of wine and bottles of Fijian beer later we retired for dinner.
On our second to last day the clouds decided to part and we read, lay and swam the day away. On our last day after a pleasant morning we were treated to a heavy douse of rain which but Armelles snorkeling antics to a swift end- sniff, sniff….
Our journey to Australia the following day was a rather lengthy one as when we turned up at the airport it was announced that the flight was 3 hours late which was quite annoying as we arrived an hour earlier than we needed to as well. The hours were spent browsing the shops and eagerly anticipating Melbourne- Australia, here we come!
Towards the end of the afternoon we walked behind the mangroves in search of a resting place to watch the sunset. Armelle was fascinated by the mangroves having written many a paper on them. The second day, Jess had a windsurfing lesson, with some snorkeling thrown in for free, but there was some debate over who was teaching who, as the young Dutch girl instructing was unfamiliar with the English terms. So it was more an information swap than anything! Armelle swaying in a hammock engrossed in Shantaram, a book that she insists everyone should read before they die.
Day 3 we rented snorkels which became our main activity aside from lying, sunbathing and reading and Jess felt like she was inside an aquarium at the end of the jetty where the fish were displaying their colors in abundance. Armelle became very excited when she saw an eel as well as her favorite rainbow fish. That evening we watched the sunset once more but quickly marched back when a menacing dog appeared from nowhere. We ate our Thai curry dinner in the restaurant-with Stephanie, our new roommate-one of two dinners that we were allowing ourselves to pay for as we majorly overspent in NZ.
On the fourth day, the weather decided to take a cloudy occasionally rainy turn but at least getting sun burnt was ruled out of the equation! That evening we were invited to drink kava- a traditional narcotic drink which turns your tongue furry and can best be described as a clay tasting muddy medicine. We weren’t sure why it was a traditional drink as the locals didn’t seem to enjoy it either! Several rounds, a couple of glasses of wine and bottles of Fijian beer later we retired for dinner.
On our second to last day the clouds decided to part and we read, lay and swam the day away. On our last day after a pleasant morning we were treated to a heavy douse of rain which but Armelles snorkeling antics to a swift end- sniff, sniff….
Our journey to Australia the following day was a rather lengthy one as when we turned up at the airport it was announced that the flight was 3 hours late which was quite annoying as we arrived an hour earlier than we needed to as well. The hours were spent browsing the shops and eagerly anticipating Melbourne- Australia, here we come! 
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