We had breakfast with some birds this morning! The dining room at the hotel is just a roof, held up by poles,
and the birds fly in to have a look and see if anything nice has been left for them. They stand on the backs of empty chairs studying the plates of people who have gone, to see if there are any tempting titbits. The staff, if they see them, tut loudly and wave them away. Everything on the buffet table has to be kept covered, because they are very bold, and would probably make off with a slice of bread or a pastry, given half a chance. Of course, the food was all covered in Samoa too, but that was because of the flies, not the birds. I haven't so far seen any flies here, but there are plenty of other insects, and I am covered in insect bites. My right eye is partly closed by a big one.
Actually, we also had dinner with a large frog last night. It was just about the biggest frog I have ever seen, it must have been at least 6 inches tall. At first I though it might have been a toad, but then it hopped. It was extremely handsome, with very large black eyes. It had come in from the garden, and I think it was confused by the strip of green carpet which it kept hopping along. I wasn't all that anxious to pick it up, as I hadn't eaten and would have had to go back to the room to wash my hands, so I herded it back into the garden, but it kept coming back. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, either for the frog or the birds, so there are no photos.
After breakfast, a beautiful air-conditioned bus collected us to take us to Denarau Marina to catch the boat. Fiji is like Samoa in having some very expensive houses, with very poor ones right next to them. Once again, wasn't easy to photograph things out of the bus window, so my photos are mostly just streaks - the speed limit here is higher than in Samoa, so the bus went much faster. I did get some good views of the Denarau Resort area, which is very expensive.
At the Marina, we checked our baggage and then we checked ourselves, and waited until the big catamaran, called Tiger IV, arrived. We had two glimpses of the little open air thatch-roofed Bula Bus which shuttles round all of the resort, but we weren't quick enough to take its picture. I'll have another go when we get back there.
The Marina is visited by a number of inter-island catamarans, as well as being home to a number of gin palaces, and this rather glamourous sailing yacht.
Tiger IV took us to Manu Island in about 75 minutes, stopping off at various other islands on the way. This is South Sea Island, which is just one resort.
When I saw the way people were going ashore, I was a bit worried that I would have to do the same.
I became more worried with every stop, because most were like this. You had to go ashore in a small tender, which they run up the beach and you wade ashore. I was rather worried about our enormous luggage getting wet, not to mention our huge backpacks. We both have laptops in our backpacks, and my pack weighs far too much, as it's also full of books. I had visions of falling between the tender and the catamaran and being drowned by my backpack, and even if it didn't succeed in killing me, my computer wouldn't survive. Fortunately, I needn't have worried, Mana Island is bigger than the other little ones we visited first, and has a jetty.
We were collected from the jetty, and escorted across the resort to a lounge area where we were reunited with our luggage and taken to our bure. The bures are set out in the garden. This is ours.
Each bure has that strange high semi-circular high wall beside the patio; this is the outdoor shower.
It's a bit strange at first to be standing outside naked, but it's very refreshing and the wall is well above head-height so nobody knows you are in there. We've used it twice already - once as soon as we arrived, and once after a visit to the beach.
Talking of the beach, this is the south beach, which has lovely shallow clear water in which you can see fish. There is also a north beach, the island is quite narrow at the bit where the resort is situated, so you can walk right across in 5 minutes
My phone connection, though it exists, is painfully slow and I can only post one photo at a time. Things have got a lot slower since it got dark too, so it may be time to stop posting photos tonight.
When we went out to dinner, it wasn't quite dark, and the flying foxes were swooping over the trees and high above the swimming pool. I tried really hard to photograph them, but they are very fast. This is one from a different night, not a very good one, but you can see it's a bat - well, 2 bats actually, but the one on the left could be anything.
At 9 pm there is to be some sort of entertainment, so we may go and see what it is. We had religious popular Xmas songs during the meal, so goodness knows what the entertainment will be.
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