Fiji Time: No Hurry No Worry

With Aubri living with us and being able to watch our girls we thought it was the perfect time to sneak away for a couple's vacation to Fiji.

The Wellington Harbour from the air. 

 Fiji is just over a 3 hour flight from NZ. 

Bula is Fijian for hello. We arrived after sunset and met a driver at the airport to take us to our resort, First Landing Resort. The resort was on the beach in a more rural area about 30 minutes outside the main city of Nadi. 

The sky was cloudy and overcast our whole trip. We saw very little blue sky. But thankfully it was always warm. 

We quickly learned that Fijians are very friendly but in no rush to get things done. It was good for us to just relax too and enjoy the national moto: No Hurry. No Worry.  

If you use your imagination you can see the profile of the "Sleeping Giant" laying on top the mountain. It was here that we went into the Canyon of the Sleeping Giant to go zip lining, hiking to a waterfall, swimming and then mud baths.  

Geared up and ready to zip down.

There were 9 different lines to go down. Some much steeper and longer than others. We were with a bunch of other tourist from American, Australia, and New Zealand. We had a great time zip lining.

After zip lining and lunch we then went on a 20 minute guided hike through the jungle to a waterfall and nature pool. 

The water was cold and brown, but that didn't stop us from taking a swim.

This huge boulder is known as Cannibal Rock. It is a historic site and known as a place where people were thrown to their deaths and then butchered and eaten by the village. 

Next our driving took us down a very bumpy road to the Tifajek Mud Pools. It was slimy, dirty and fun to slather silky mud all over our bodies. We let it dry then washed it off in natural hot spring pools. 

One of the many traditional Fijian Huts. 

After staying 3 nights at First Landing Resort we then checked out and traveled to another area of the island to Yatule Resort at Natadola Beach. We hired a driver to take us to the other hotel. It was a little over an hour away through very rural and remote villages. Some of the ride was on very bumpy steep dirt roads. 

The super luxury 5 star resort next to ours had a Fijian fire dance performance. 

We just spend 1 night at the Yatule Resort. But we made the most of our time. We did snorkelling surfing, and boogie boarding. We didn't see too many fish while snorkelling. But it was still fun to swim around seeing the coral. On our final day we had the whole day to relax at the resort before our late flight home. Stephen hired a surf board and I hired a boogie board. The waves were strong and perfect for riding. There was a long sandbank so we could walk pretty far out into the ocean and easily catch the waves. I was loving it. Stephen made friends with about five local 12-year-old boys who were happy to give him surfin tips. It was enjoyable to see Stephen surrounded by a bunch of boys all trying to help him surf. During our surfing session we meet a family from Utah. They live in Fiji now, but moved to Fiji from Utah at the beginning of the year. It was enjoyable to sit and chat with them and share our similar experiences living abroad.

Around 5pm we caught a ride back to the airport and flew home on a 9pm flight. We arrived home in Wellington a little after 1am and went to bed. It was a wonderful vacation but we were tired from all the fun.