Notes from our travels

New Zealand, at last! We are staying with Jill and John (Charlotte’s family) who have been amazingly helpful. They have taken us sightseeing in the Waitakeries, to the west of Auckland to see waterfalls and beaches and helped us get our van (called Molly) sorted!

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We flew into Nadi on Viti Levu, the biggest island out of the hundreds that collectively make up Fiji. Unfortunately, we had to stay in Nadi for the night due to our flight landing at such a time that we missed our boat out to our island resort – the Octopus Resort on Waya Island, in the Yasawa Group. Nadi is, unfortunatley, a bit of a dump, and threw us off a bit at first. The ‘public transport’ was a bit confusing (rattling old buses that always seemed to be going in the wrong direction, and would stop anywhere, supposedly) and the town itself seemed to be full of people trying to rip you off (most tourists will have to travel through Nadi at some point). Other than the people trying to rip you off, though, the Fijians are really friendly people and will stop and talk to you in the street. We stayed at Dee’s Homestay (literally a house belonging to a Fijian lady and her sons), and they were lovely and welcoming.

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The first thing that hits you in Hong Kong is the heat. Within five minutes of leaving the airport, you’ll be itching to have a shower. The next things you’ll notice will be the pollution and the crowds. We had decided to stay in Kowloon, the main shopping district of Hong Kong where all the locals flock in the evening, and where many of the budget hostels are (budget hostels which have some pretty interesting pasts, such as unaccounted for bodies being found under beds and other wonderful things like that). Our room in our hostel was 14 floors up, had no window, and the most cramped shower/toilet that I’ve ever seen. But there were no dead bodies, and the hostel owners were lovely and friendly, and we had air conditioning – it could have been much worse!

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