Roo and Emma's Adventure: December 2011

Fiji....hmmmmm.

Our stay on Fiji was short and sweet, our volunteer placement there just completely ignored our emails so, having to fly to Fiji, we paniced and booked a weeks island hopping adventure! (Don't ask us why?) This consisted of being ferried around beautiful golden sandy beached islands, stopping off for a few nights on each. We managed to explore 4 different Islands in the Yasawas, comparing the snorkeling and hammocks on each! We stayed in dorm rooms which were generally hot, dirty and bed bug ridden and on a number of occasions I had to tell groups of teenagers off for being too noisy after 10pm- what's happened to me?! Anyway, 6 days of reading, swimming, dozing and snorkeling later, we were ready for some action! We did manage to do some exciting things in Fiji though, I went scuba diving for the first time, we went snorkeling with sharks and on a trip to explore underwater caves, but in general we were bored out of our minds. Emma has come some way to getting over her fear of crabs and actually put her feet on the bottom of the sea a number of times. She didn't even have a panic attack when we went snorkeling with reef sharks! This was probably because they were SO SWEET! EB - We also encountered a sea snake, actually, two sea snakes, one of which was 8 ft long! There were a whole manner of terrifying things in the sea, which gradually I got used to, but perhaps the most terrifying thing of all was the man who burried himself in the sand under a turtle shell who jumped out at us in the pitch black! Ha ha! Mmmmm... Roo was about to call the RSPCA for disturbing nesting turtles until it became apparent it was to entertain the tourists.

Waya Lai Lai

Apparently, you haven't arrived in Fiji unless you've drunk cava, not the deliciously sweet wine that's 1.99 a bottle from Asda, no, the drink that looks like dish water, with hallunicagenic properties. Cautious about such mind altering substances and concerned about Roo's sensetive tummy we decided not to try this. However, peer pressure and the influence of Sebastian (who spent a lot of time chatting to himself, which I thought was because he was practising his English, but Roo said it was nothing of the kind!) we agreed to acoompany him to the 'staff' shed on the Island of Waya Lai Lai where we sat on the ground cross legged with 15 figian blokes in skirts and flowery shirts who were all drinking cava and smoking their heads off. Within 20 minutes and after polite refusals became embarrassing, we clapped once, said Bula and drank the awfulness down wothout breathing in, then clapped three times. Sebastian was on his 8th cocunut shell cups worth by now. Thankfully, it had no effect at all and we left having managed to offend no-one with our faculties in tact. Sebastian on the other hand, arrived back at the dorm at 1.30 am, having polished off 15 half cocunut shells of cava and a whole bottle of vodka, not the best idea for someone who's already talking to himself!

RS- After 10 days in Fiji our bank balance decided for us that it was time to move on so we put our flights to Australia forward and jumped on a plane to Sydney. Unfortunately out volunteer placement is in Brisbane..... so we had to jump on another plane for another 2 hours. We did manage to see a bit of Sydney during our 10 hour transfer window- we got on an extortionately priced train and headed into the centre. We had a wander around Sydney Opera house, as one does! We saw Sydney Harbour Bridge and sat in the botanical gardens. We got to Brisbane just after 11pm local time, and being as poor as church mice (an Emmaism) we grabbed a few hours kip under an escalator in the baggage collection hall of Brisbane airport. Who says travelling isn't glamorous!

We had to get up at 5.30am to catch another gold plated, diamond encrusted train to Brisbane city centre where we got on the number 520 bus to Beaudesert, the pronunciation of which foxed us and the bus driver for a while. By 9am we had arrived at Beautiful Desert and sat in the sweltering heat until Amber and her 3 year old son Connor, picked us up and took us to our next Volunteering placement. They seem like lovely people- Connor who walks around naked constantly, Alara, his 4 year old sister has hair like Annie and thinks she's 30, two puppies, two dogs, two cats, a horse and 3 french volunteers and poor Irish Brian the husband make up this madhouse! We should be helping build a straw bale house for Lisa, a family friend and her 12 year old son Sam who's an avid Bolton Wanderers fan, but so far we've just dug a lot of holes in the garden for posts!

Anyway, this volunteer placement I'm sure will be interesting. The family live near Mt Barney and a national park and Emma's already seen Koala bears and Kangaroos so hopefully we'll be able to do a bit of exploring on our days off. EB - We've also encountered cane toads, which are the size of small cars and huntsman spiders that look like they could eat you whole and have room for pudding - it's a delight! the first night it took me half an hour to make my way back to the caravan for fear of treading on something nasty.Thankfully we missed the python that had been knocking about near here the day before. Yet another test of nerves for me, but Roo, as always, takes things in her considerable stride.

Will write more soon,

Roo and M x