Fiji

Fiji was one of the few 'unplanned' parts of my trip, and it was only 'unplanned' as Trailfinders had only a single hotel/resort they could book for me, and it was a bit more expensive than I wanted.
I had good intentions of doing some online research about where to go and what to do in Fiji, but kept on putting off, mostly because I was too tired/lazy. By Peru I had decided to not bother trying to do it myself, and to just go to a travel agent in New Zealand and work it out then.

New Zealand does a fair amount of tourism to Fiji because it's one of the closest foreign destinations available, so the lovely Travel Agent at Hello World in Timaru had no problem offering me lots of options. I ended up moving around a bit and had a few days on Treasure Island, a few on Castaway island and a few at a mainland resort, Outrigger.

I almost didn't get into Fiji at all as, after some last minute repacking, I didn't have a pen in my carry-on bag. This meant I couldn't fill in the immigration form, and the airport didn't seem to supply any pens! Eventually a nice German lady lent me her pen and I was able to fill in the form. Needless to say I make double certain I've got a pen on me at all times when travelling now.

Treasure Island:

First stop was a small (you could walk slowly around it in half an hour) coral cay, Treasure Island. I did a moderate amount of lounging, some snorkeling and had a dive too.

Left hand side was mine.

View from the hut.

One of the beaches

Considering the small size of the island there was a fair amount of wildlife there, including fruit bats!

Red Shining Parrot (best photo I got)

Buff banded rail. These wee guys were all over the place like rats!

Bats!

Highlights of the underwater life there were definitely the cuttlefish.  We saw a whole shoal of them at the end of the dive, and I saw several snorkeling too. So curious and their colour changing was incredible to see up close.

Brief glimpse of a white tipped reef shark

Next up was Castaway Island. It's not the island where the Tom Hanks film was made, though I could see that one on the horizon. It was a bit posher than Treasure, which had more of a family feel to it.

My hut

The ceiling in my hut

Welcome drinks

Welcome drinks here included a big bowl of traditional kava. It is an infusion made of ground root and water. It has mild sedative properties and tastes a bit like mud. If you drink enough you end up in a bit of a stupor, which it why it's traditional!

As well as the kava, the staff sang us some traditional songs and dances in traditional dress, and it was very pleasant. One of the kids at the resort was participating, though he mostly looked a bit lost and bewildered!

Castaway actually had a bit of a hill to climb and a nature walk, so I did that! A couple of frogs, hermit crabs, goat tracks and bee/wasp nests of some sort.

I went for a dive here as well to a site called 'Supermarket' (because it has everything). My desire was to see sharks, and boy did we get sharks!

To start the dive we went down a chimney

At the bottom in a cave was a white tip! (I called him Ronald)

Ronald followed us for the rest of the dive

Quite a few of the sharks had attendant remoras (which I've seen before) and also some small yellow fish swimming just in front of them. The sharks were close enough that one of these little yellow blighters jumped over to me and swam with me for a while!

As well as the white tipped and black tipped reef sharks, we also saw some Bronze Whalers, which are a bit bigger than the reef sharks. Luckily they stayed further away.

Outrigger.

Next stop was the resort on the mainland - Outrigger. It was very posh, with champagne and canapes being brought to your room at around 4pm, but overall I was underwhelmed, this sort of posh just isn't me.

There wasn't even very much of a beach there, but what there was, which apparently I have no photos of, a reef about 100 meters out. This broke the waves making a sort of long thin calm lagoon all along the coast. Below is an image from the web so you at least have some clue what I'm talking about!

What I did do down there was a day trip to Robinson Crusoe Island. I had been recommended to do this by one of the staff back on Treasure Island who used to work there, and it was quite good.

The trip started with a visit to a local village, which was pretty much what you get when you visit local villages anywhere. Awkward tourists goggle at people living in their own homes, followed by uncomfortable participation in a 'traditional' local ritual, the authenticity of which you have your doubts about. Then it's time for a look at the local church, and the inevitable attempt to sell you generic tourist tat while you desperately want to leave as soon as possible. Maybe I'm getting cynical...

We did then go on to the island for lunch and a swim on the reef. The guide was very clear that you shouldn't go out to the reef unless you could swim, so of course there were 2 oriental gentlemen who absolutely could not swim but went anyway. I was so angry at them, maybe they didn't understand. Also the swimming was fairly poor due to awful visibility.

The evening show was good though. Lots of traditional dances and fire juggling!  I've tried embedding youtube videos below - do let me know if they work!

Little Ginger Kiwi Land!

OK, so maybe it's officially called New Zealand, but my 3 weeks there were dominated by a certain little ginger whom I adore.

The first week was fairly domestic. Alexis was still at daycare for the first few days to let me recover from jet lag. I did go and help pick her up and was treated to a demonstration of how good she is at jumping and climbing and dangling.

She absolutely loves going to daycare at "the rimu room" (there are different rooms for different age groups). She has a bunch of friends there and gets on well with all the staff too.

Alexis, Sheepie and I also spent some quality time watching Paw Patrol while lying on the living room floor, and playing hide and seek. Uncle Moo taught Alexis a few new places to hide when playing hide and seek, like under the cushions on the sofa, and under her bed. She did however take things to the next level as she wriggled behind some of the boxes under her bed and I would not have found her if she hadn't kept on shouting "I'm here". We have a little way to go on her hide and seek skills, but most of the basics are there (apart from being quiet).

There were also several trips to the outdoor swimming pool just down the road, Alexis loves the water, jumping in, splashing and being towed around on big floaty things. She also seems to quite like the Galapagos Turtle Rucksack I got for her, even if it's not the most ergonomically designed bit of hiking kit.

As a special treat, Uncle Moo took Alexis to Chipmunks play space while mum and dad went to the cinema to see Aquaman. Whether the treat was for mum and dad, Alexis, or Uncle Moo, I'm not entirely certain, but it seems to have been enjoyed by everyone.

Another memory from Facebook:

"After a nice dinner out with Simon, Stephanie and Alexis, Uncle Moo was taking Alexis home and put her to bed. It turns out that while Uncle Moo is ok to jump off the Sky Tower in Auckland, hike the Inca Trail, and kiss a llama, he is not comfortable walking along Gerldine high street with a 2 year old girl on his shoulders screaming "I want my mummy and daddy"."

For week 2 we all went off on a traditional Kiwi summer holiday to Wanaka. Wanaka is a lovely little town on a lake that is a 'Queenstown' type holiday destination for Kiwis (rather than foreigners).

We played in and around the lake, ate ice cream, and generally had a nice relaxed time.

 

Learning bad habits from her dad, this is Alexis 'hiding' behind a rugby ball while we played hide and seek in the park.  There were also new playparks for Alexis to explore, which she did with gusto!

Lavender farm visit

We had dinner out a few times there, but I think Alexis's favorite was NOODLES!!!!!

What a face!

As well as a nice relaxed time, we also did various more strenuous activities, several involving the lake. There was some jumping in (that water is not particularly warm and they were jumping from quite a height compared to at the swimming pool! Well done Alexis!).

We went out in kayaks. Alexis helped with the paddling too and was very good at it.

Simon and I also did some grown up play time and had a go at flyboarding. This is where you take the output of a jet ski and pipe it to the bottom of a snowboard, then balance on it and fly! It was awesome fun and far less difficult than I thought it would be.

On top of this we had a fun day trip down to Queenstown where we went up the hill in a gondola and had fantastic fun on the luge. The only thing Alexis would say while going down was "Faster Daddy, faster!".

"Strap yourself to a beautiful stranger" they said.  OK I replied. So I went off and did a skydive. When I was first in New Zealand 8 or so years ago I had planned to skydive, but the weather was not good enough. This time it was, and it was a thrilling experience. For the full album of the skydive, see here. It was not cheap, and getting the full photographic package (which included an extra cameraman skydiver to record the jump) almost doubled the cost, but hell, I was only really planning on doing this once! Totally worth it in the long run.

My instructor, the cameraman and I got on really well. I worked out that they most often are jumping with Chinese tourists who don't speak good english, so my joking around and making of rude comments (I do that even more than usual when I'm nervous, like before I'm about to jump out of a plane) went down well with them.

After we were back from Wanaka, it was another 'quiet' week at home where Simon and I dismantled his old garage.

I had a fantastic 3 weeks with Simon, Steph and Alexis, and going back through this has fantastically brought all the memories back to the surface again.


That said, it also reminded me of my saddest time there.  On our trip to Wanaka, for 2 of the days, Alexis would have absolutely nothing to do with me. I wasn't allowed to help her get her shoes on. I wasn't allowed to carry her on walks. She wouldn't go to the play park with me. I couldn't work out what I had done to upset her, and I was finding the constant rejection to be really quite heartbreaking and depressing.

I chatted about it with Simon and he explained that he and Steph get it too every now and then. For no apparent reason she will, for several days, only want Mummy to help with teeth brushing and getting dressed. Another time it will be only Daddy. Luckily it only lasted for 2 days and then we were back having fun again, but I suppose the persistence of the rejection for no reason I could fathom really upset me.  Blooming 2 year olds! :)