Trayle

Landed in Nadi Airport, Fiji  at some unearthly hour of the morning after another 11 hour flight and it was already hot and we were shattered. Reached our hostel and headed straight for the town centre to try to get our bearings. I say hostel, it was actually more of a resort with a great pool, palm trees, cocktails and a boutique! We were determined to find a local beach to crash out on for the day and ended up driving an hour away with a slightly manic taxi driver to reach the most amazing white sandy beach I have ever seen. Pity about the wind, which was so strong it was whipping the sand up in a whirlwind around our heads. Not exactly sunbathing weather!

We had booked on a day trip to an Island the next day, but it was unfortunately cancelled due to high winds (it is approaching the rainy season after all!). We managed to get on another trip though and spent an amazing day on a tiny island about 30minutes from the mainland. White sandy beaches, beautiful clear blue seas, baking sunshine, cloudless skies, palm trees swaying gently in the breeze... pretty idyllic eh? We went snorkelling and saw hundreds of fishies on the reefs, and countless different corals - absolutely fantastic!

From San Fran, we hired a car and cruised the Pacific Coast Highway down to Huntington Beach, LA.  We stayed with Kati's relatives in a huge house a couple of blocks from the beach, having spent the whole day shopping in one of the Malls near Newport (you remember the OC Merissa shop-lifting incident? yes? Thats the one). We are being spoilt rotten by the people we are staying with (Kati's Mum's cousin and his wife), who are driving us around in their jeep, taking us to surf competitions and generally feeding and plying us with much alcohol.

Next stop Fiji!

So much for it being a hard life being a traveller eh?!