Fiji Part 1 - The Mamanuca Islands

Welcome back! In this one we are heading to Fiji AKA paradise! I talk you through the mainland, South Sea Island, Beachcomber Island and Tadrai Island Resort - the best resort we have ever stayed at!

The Yasawa Islands podcast will follow shortly. To see footage of these amazing destinations follow us on youtube - Shire Travels or instagram - Shire.Travels. 

Transcript

Welcome back to shire travels, a little bit later than anticipated as we've been away traveling. in this one we are heading to Fiji. Fiji is a tropical paradise in the South Pacific, made up of 333 islands. We're in the midst of planning our trip back there next year, and I thought it would be the perfect time to talk you through all the places that we've been to in the past. In this one I'll talk you through a few places we've been into on the mainland, as well as the Mamanuca islands and the Yau Islands. Now Fiji is pretty close to Australia from Melbourne. It's around about a 4 a half hour flight. New Zealand it's only a couple of hours you can fly direct from Los Angeles and I think you can also fly direct from Japan now too. We've been to Fiji a couple of times we've been in September and we've also been in May. The great thing about Fiji is it really is an all year round destination in terms of weather. They do have a slightly rainy season which is round about December to April, but outside of that you are looking at beautiful warm weather, blue skies, not too windy, even if it is overcast, the sea is always warm enough to go swimming. It really is the type of place that you can go to all year round. Now when you get to feed you, you are most likely flying into the town of Nandy. This is the capital of the island of Viti Loo sorry I'm properly saying that wrong. This is one of the biggest islands in Fiji and is what I'm going to refer to as the mainland. When we've been to Fiji, we haven't stayed in Nandyown itself. We usually stayed on the coast fairly near by, or we've headed down to Portennerao to head out to the islands. flights between Melbourne and Nandy never seem to be at the best time that either early in the morning or late at night, therefore we've always booked ourselves a night of accommodation just to make sure that we aren't missing a transfer. In terms of accommodation on the mainland, we've only ever stayed in budget accommodation. Yes, there are some beautiful resorts there, but to be honest, the islands are far nicer than the mainland the beaches, the coral, the marine life, the authentic Fiji feeling you just can't beat those smaller islands compared to the mainland. Now there are some really beautiful resorts on the mainland and saying that particularly round the coral coast, which is to the south around Portennero there's autars and very big resorts, your likes of Sheraton, Hilton and continental. They've all got big resorts around there too. For us we've always found that budget accommodation is absolutely fine. It's safe, clean, affordable. They usually got a bar or restaurant there and a pool, and the location is usually good too. In terms of getting to and from accommodation safe from the airport or to the port, taxis and Fiji are pretty good. It's not like some countries where you're going to get ripped off or literally taken for a ride. We found all the times we've used them they've been great. We did have quite a experience in one we were driving along a road and then all of a sudden turned down a track and we were just driving along the beach in the taxi. He said off't worrying, this is a shortcut. Needless to say, we still made it to our destination no worse for wear. Now, if you are staying on the mainland, there are a couple of good tours that I can recommend to areas around the Mamanuca islands. The first one is a trip to cloud nine, which is a floating pizza bar. It's located I want to say around about an hour from the mainland you leave from Port Dinerell. There's heaps of different tour operators that can take you out there. Cloudine itself actually has a few boats that they take out too. You can pay a little bit extra to get on a smaller boat, which will get you out there first. You can kind of bag as best daybed there. It's located on I think it's called the Rowow reef and it's said you' quite close to the cloud break, which is a surf break. Despite that, the water there, really calm, nice, it's like a lagoon that is located and it's absolutely perfect. The venue itself, imagine like a big square floating bar basically, made of wood as you come up to it on the boat, you're thinking, hey, you know, is this going to sink or float away, but no, it's dirty. It's a really, really nice place to spend the day. The lower level where you get off the boat has got heaps of day beds and a bar, places where you can order woodfied pizzas, toilets there as well. There are marine toilets, and it also has a few tables and chairs there. You can then head upstairs and they ought to have sun lounges, deck chairs and a few more places to kind of spread out and enjoy the sun. It isn't the biggest venue and they hold about 100 people there maximum, so it can get a little bit squishy. The dayars that they have, which kind of are on the circumference of the lower level and they almost hang over the water. They're pretty big and I think from memory we shared ours with a couple of other girls that were there. It didn't really bother us. We were going around getting pictures, going for a swim, et cetera. It's not as if you were kind of stuck as people all day. Now isn't the cheapest place to head out to from memory it's around about 250 Fi dollars. However, I think60 to eight of that you can use as a voucher and you can use that for pretty much anything so get drinks to get food or to buy merchandise, like a T-shirt or a hat. And then you can buy yourself additional food and drink if you want to as well, as well as relaxing, drinking cocktails, eating pizza, just soaking it all in, you can also go swimming there as well and do a bit of snorkeling. We actually found that after a couple of hours, the tide dropped down really low. You could cop down into the water, swim, and then you got to a point where you could actually stand up and walk around in the water. It was really cool, very safe, relaxed. You just walk around, take some pictures of the floating bar. For memory there wasn't really much of a reef exactly where you could walk. It was quite a sandy bottom, but still a cool experience. Another popular thing to do there which Tom had to do is jump off or backflip off the top level of cloud nine. Personally, it didn't really interest me, but a lot of people were doing it if you're into that sort of thing, it's a great spot to do it. Now, as well as taking a tour here from the mainland, a lot of resorts nearby also offer this as well. You can come out there by bow or maybe buy jet ski. check with your resort if you're in the Mamanukas, if they head out there for the day it really is worth checking out. Another good day trip which goes from Port dinnero is the sea spray schooner sailing tour. The first stop on the trip is Sey Island, which is actually where I joined the tour, and then we had out across the Mamanukas and were heading to Monaree Island. This is a very small but famous island as is where the film castaway was filmed, the one was Tom Hanks. Once we arrived here we had the opportunity to jump off the boat and then snarkle around the island, and then we could head on to the island have a walk around and maybe find Wilson. The island and the waters around it were absolutely beautiful, very quintessentially Fijian, beautiful turquoise water, lovely white sandy beach. I definitely wouldn't mind it to be extranded there for a few years. Once we had spent a bit of time at the island, it was back on the boat for some morning tea. Now the tour is all inclusive, so it includes lunch, morning tea, afternoon tea. It also included drinks, including beer, wine as well. Back on the water, it was time to sail to our next destination, which was a Fijian village where we were going to be having kava with the chief. On the way there though we did have a really cool experience and dolphins swam alongside the bow and were jumping out the water. It was amazing. This was my very first time seeing wild dolphins and it was a very, very special moment. We weighed anchor a couple ofend off shore from the island where the village was, and then we took a small tender across to get to the island. The village was beautiful, very authentic Fijian with the wooden houses with the thatched style roof. The first thing we did when we got to the island was a carver ceremony with the chief of the village. It's also worth noting quickly that if you are going to a Fijian village, they do ask that men wear shirts, T shirts, and that women also have their shoulders covered. Now if you're not sure what carver ceremony is, is like a greeting, welcoming a ceremony, it involves getting the carver tree root, putting that root in a bag, and they're bit massaging it round in the water so that the properties of the root get into the water. And this is done in a very large wooden bowl. It's quite a traditional one. I believe they are hand carved, and then once the carver is ready, it's put into a hollowed out coconut shell, which like a cup basically, and handed round to people in a certain way, so the bold is passed in a certain direction, you pass it in a certain way, you have to clap before you drink. I think if you're heading to Fiji, definitely try and get involved in the traditional activities, a carver ceremony, dancing, basket weaving, etc. It's such a rich culture, and the Fijians are very willing to share it with people, show tourists their traditions. if your resort offers something like this some sort of cultural experience, do try to get involved. It will be fun, you will learn something, and it will definitely give you a better appreciation of being in Fiji. When theav ceremony was over, we got to explore some of the village, take a walk around. They also had some market stores there as well where we could buy souvenirs, that sort of thing. I purchased a couple of bracelets, just as a bit of a keepsake, but it was really fun to get to go and see a real authentic village. back on the boat we had afternoon tea and then slowly made our way back to the mainland, having a few drinks on the way. and I'm going to talk you through a few of the islands that we've been to in the Mamanukas. Getting up to the Mamanukas is easy enough. The m main tool operator or transfer operator out there is South cruises. They have a very easy to navigate website which has all the different timetables on there showing exactly what islands they go to, what time they get there. I entirely recommend hopping on the website before you head over to Fiji and booking any transfers that you need to book. The Mamanuka islands compared to the Yau Am much closer together and the closer to the mainland too, so don't anticipate spending too much time on the boat. The islands are so close to the mainland, a lot of the match you offer a helicopter transfer is well, to spare in mind, it will be much more expensive than the boat. Once you get to the port, the check in process, etc., is very easy. You go up to the desk. They will check you in. They also take your bags for you and they tag them to say exactly which resort that you're going to. You don't have to worry about taking your bags on and off the boat and onto a tender the staff on the boat will organize all of that for you and take all your bags so don't do worry too much if you have a lot of luggage. The first island I amm going to talk to you about is South Sea Island. This is the closest island to the mainland and is a very, very small island so small I reckon you could circumnavigate it on foot in about 30 minutes. Now when I first arrived on the island, it was jam pet with day trippers. It's a very popular spot to day trip from the mainland because it's so close. I couldn't quite believe how many people were there. I'd left my bag and the dorm and was thinking, oh my gosh, it's going to be crazy here. But actually once the day drivers all left, there were four of us left on the island. A funny story I ended up marrying one of those four people, but more on that later when we get to these hours. It's definitely an island that is geared towards backpackers, given they have the large dorm accommodation, the dining, the bar, etc., is all kind of geared towards batackers. The evening accommodation there was crab racing. This is my first experience of crab racing basically you get a bucket, go out onto the beach, catch yourself a load of hermit crabs, write numbers on them and I threw nail polish or something and then put them in a circle. First one to get out the circle is the winner. Now I thought this was maybe a bit of a novelty, a one off, but after island hopping, I must have been into about seven different islands on this trip. By the end of it, I was like a crab racing expert. I'd be looking at the form, look at the sides of the crab, how fast I thought it could go, etc. It became very competitive. As I mentioned before, South Sea Island is very popular with day trippers. There's lots of different things you can do there, like kayaking king. I think they always have a glass bottom and boat to you can do. plenty of places to just sit and enjoy the sun and the water. They have lots of sun lounges and a thatched sleeve, umbrella sorts of things. I'm really not describing it very well. Just imagine a tropical paradise. That's pretty much it. Now, I see it on South Sea as part of the island hopping package I was doing. This was book through aut adventures Fiji and it stopped off atelsey Island, then went straight up to the Yassau and then back to Beachcombe Island, which is in the Mamanukas are talking about that one in a second, but for a lot of people who are doing that sort of trip, South Sea Island is the first place that they'll stay back when I did this trip with awesome adventures Fiji, which gosh was a bit about 15 years ago now. The only option that they had was for also adventures to choose the resorts that you stayed there and how long you stayed at them, etc. now you can actually choose your own resorts, how long you want to stay there, the type of trip that you want to do, and it offers a bit more flexibility. I stay on sail sea for two nights mainly because I got there in the afternoon and then stayed the night. the next day I did a full day trip with sea spray, which I mentioned it earlier. When or two nights on South Island would be plenty. Yes, it is very beautiful, but there really isn't that much to do there. I talk about the Osawas separately, but basically we hopped on the boat, headed up to theau and then the way back down, they stopped at Beachcomber Island. I don't believe they stopped there any more. When I looked on their website a few weeks ago, I couldn't see Beachcomer listed as a resort that they stopped at. I do wonder if it's because Beechcomber was a little bit of a party island. Maybe its repretation got the better of it and they didn't want to send people there more as part of their trip, not too sure. Beechcom will be the next island I'll talk you through. as I said, a bit of a party island it just had a huge dorm on there. I want to say that it slept about 100 people all in one kind of giant room, I guess you call it on bunk beds. and then away from that they had a really big area where you had your food, your bar, et cetera. in the evening, they had lots of activities. Not just crab racing. There was all sorts of games, dancing, singing, all those sorts of things. It was definitely a backcker party the island in't saying that it wasn't anything too crazy, and during the day it had a really nice relaxed atmosphere, the beaches they were beautiful, the water was beautiful, and as a backpack of resort I'd recommend it. and with the island hopping tour I had booked, the transfers and the accommodation were the only things that were included in the price, food and drink were additional at every place that I stayed, one thing to know is that that's true of almost everywhere that you'll stay in Fiji. You'll see the price of somewhere and think okay that's not too bad, but actually food and drink is additional. I have heard of people being caught out, and when they go to check out and leave they' given a bill for all their food and drink, whereas they were under the impression that was all included in the price, double check this when you are going to Fiji make sure you know exactly what it is you're paying for so that you don't get a nasty prize when you go to check out. Now the low cost resorts or backack of resorts as are referred to them. the food that was offered at meal times it was like a group setting, everyone ate together at the same time, breakfast, lunch and dinner. some places it was a buffet style or allicarte style. usually a traditional Fijian mixed with a bit of Indian Indian culture over there is also fairly strong in terms of food. There lots of different things on offer. and while drinks weren't included, because we loved places that we stayared at what kind of backpack of places, they did have happy hours, cheap spirits, there was nothing which was too expensive. Now, to wrap up our time in the Mamanukas I'm going to tell you aboutad dry Island resort, this is without a doubt, the best resort that we have ever stayared at, and if you want to see some footage of this place and I recommend you do because it is just stunning, head to our YouTube page, shire travels, and you can see all the amazing footage. Now this resort is the polar opposite of South Sea Island and Beach coma. This is a five star, all inclusive adults only resort. We went here on our second trip to Fiji, so we met on our first trip, and then when we came back the second time we got married, we got married up in the. I talk about that more shortly and then for our mini moon, we went for a couple of nights at Tadro resort. Tadro resort is actually based on Manor Island, which also has Manor Island resort on it as well on the other side of the island, because there are no boat transfers that directly link the usawas and the Mamadukas we actually flew from the usawas to Tadra resort in a seaplane. We organized this ourselves online. It was very expensive, but it saved us an entire day of traveling. Now the people at Manor Island resort were not very happy that we arrived by seaplane because they were actually filming American survivor there and it kind of ruins the castaway middle of nowhere tropical vibe when you see a couple of people flying in on a plane. It made no difference to worse. It just meant that we had to land slightly further away from the island than get picked up by a boat and sailed round, not too bad at allave to say it was the quickest landing and take off ever they just wanted us to get that plane out of there. We made our way round to the other side of the island and were greeted with the beautiful tadro Isle resort. As I mentioned before, this place is five star or inclclusive, and it is truly all inclusive, and what I mean by that is that alcoholic drinks are also included in the price. When we were looking at places to stay, there were lots of places which said they were all inclusive, and then in little a strix said, alcoholic beverages noncluded. Now, some people will not care about that at all, but I think when it says all inclusive, it should be in everything. You should be able to walk out of there, not even bring your wallet, just be able to go, especially for the amount of money that you spend on these places. Tell dry resort $2000 a night. We only say two nights and we were only able to afford it because several months before we left on our trip, Tom had actually won a jets our holidays vouchers through an Instagram competition. It was worth about $225,000. Had he not won that there is no way we would be able to afford to stay there. Tadre resort is just fabulous. They have five beach bears there. that's the little house accommodation that you have on the beach or a burr or might be called a Bure not quite sure. Anyway, there's only five, so the maximum number of people they can have staying in the resort at one time is ten. It is really intimate, exclusive, amazing. We got off the boat and we head up to the main area where the main pool is and the dining area and the pool there is insane is an absolutely gigantic infinity pool, overlooking the beach, just stunning, surrounded by lots of bean bags and day beds. We sit down on a lounge area. They bring us over a welcome cocktail and then they tell us all about the resort. They say that Tadra is Fijian for dream, and it is their role as our host to make our dreams come true whatever it is that we want, they will do it for us. Then they hand us a pillow menu and they say, can you please tell us what type of pillow you would like next they hand us our mini bar menu. They say choose whatever you want for your mini bar and we will go and get it for you. They also talk us through the included activities as well and when we would like to do them. This includes an island hike, a little sunset cruise and also a trip out to a sand bar too, so we talked to them about all of that and got them booked in for the next couple of days. We were then taken to our beach bur and it was insanely good. We walk in, got a beautiful big bed towels shaped like swans, there's flowers everywhere. Then there's a small su deck with a day bed and they had champagne on ice, a huge fruit platter, and then your own infinity pool as well. Only a small one think more of a plunge infinity pool style, but still amazing absolute beach front. There's a couple of sun lounges directly in front of the accommodation under the swaying palm trees, just amazing. It also had an outdoor bathroom as well with a huge shower and a bathtub as well which you could open up the doors to the bathroom and it led directly into the pool, which was really handy you didn't have to go through the bedroom area if you were soaking wet. The first thing we did was pop the cork on the champagne and get into our plunge pool and just enjoy the view. When we were looking for a place to spend our minmoon/h honeymoon for a couple of nights, there were heaps of different resorts we saw. All of them were a little bit same same, but some of them were absolutely gigantic with hundreds of people staying there which just wasn't our vibe. And when I first saw tadroy, it was because we had the Jetstar holiday vouchers that we were quite limited in terms of the accommodation that we could book. I remember looking at it and thinking, okay, I'll have a look on that Instagram, see what they'd like. Have a look at their website. There really wasn't that much to see. Hardly any pictures on Instagram, almost no tagged pictures, nothing on YouTube. And I thought, oh, for this type of money we are taking a huge gamble. But one thing I did manage to find was a bridal shoe that was done there. I'm pretty sure it was one of the people from home and away. She did a photo shoot with a bridal magazine and it was absolutely beautiful, but I remember thinking, well, is it just good photography and good light? or does it really look that good and I can tell you it 100% does it was a type of resort where you can just really feel that the staff look after it, they take care of it. They want people to have a really amazing five star experience. We then decided to venture up to the main part of the resort later that afternoon, and there were only one other couple staying on the island and we hardly saw them, so most of the time we had this huge resort area to ourselves, like I said before, a massive infinity pool, all these day beds completely to ourselves. It was fantastic, especially because we well, I say we, I am a little bit extra and so I want to take lots of fabulous photos in this infinity pool and there's no one else to really sit around and cringe at us. Now when it came to dining there was a pretty much standard continental breakfast that you could choose from, but when it came to lunch and dinner, you just told them what you felt like eating and they would make it for you. Tom and I had never experienced anything like this before or since, and again it just added to that really five star field that the staff would really go above and beyond, I guess to feel happy and welcome and comfortable there. The food was gray on the second night there they said, Tom, would you like a lobster to eat? He said, well, if there's not too much trouble. Of course it wasn't going to be too much trouble. They said we'll set you up a table on the beach and other places that I've seen will charge you extra for this, but no tagra they just suggested it. Would we like to do it yet, of course no problems no hassle for them. honestly nothing was too much trouble. In terms of activities on the island, we were only there for a couple of days we didn't do too much, but on our first night we went up and watched the sunset at the top of the island. This was a spot that I had scaleed out through that bridle shoe and thought I really want to check out and see if it's just as beautiful as it was in the pictures and it really was. At the top of the island there's some long I guess it's kind of like wheat grass. It's like got a yellow golden bit on the end again, really not describing it that well. Imagine wheat glowing in the sun at sunset, overlooking the ocean, all the other islands around. It really was fabulous. took a heap of pictures up there, and then we actually walked down to the other side of the island where the village was. Natetra resort did send a staff member with us only because they had casta away being filmed there. They wanted to make sure they weren't going anywhere we weren't supposed to that we weren't going to be in the background of a shop taking a selfie when these people are meant to be stranded on a remote island. The village was gray. There were some rugby practice going on, we picked up someavava and then we headed back to the resort. It was getting dark by that point and our guide that was with us actually had a walkie-talkie so that they could talk to the people who were filming castaway. Tribal council was going on and we actually had to stand in the bushes, switch all our torches off and and basically be still in the darkness until they said it was okay for us to keep walking. It was very, very funny. Also very surreal because I was actually into Survivor then and so to think that that was going on and then watching it later, knowing that I was basically hiding in the bushes in the background was quite surreal. Back at the resort, we had a fire on the beach and we also did aver ceremony, much more relaxed and casual compared to the one that I did at the village with the chief. The next day we headed out to the sand bar. This was all included in our stay as I mentioned before. here on to quite a large tender tinny style boat and head out to the sand bar. We had a couple of sun lounges and umbrella. They also had an esky with ice and they said, bring whatever drinks you want. Tom bought a whole bottle of rum, some coke. I bought some wine. They set us up this beautiful spot on the island, so sundower, umbrella, table with a white napkin, lovely food, towels, snorkeling gear, and they said, right, let us know when you want to come back, see you later, and the s sandars was ours. It was an incredibly beautiful spot. The water there was insanely turquoise. Now in Fiji, a lot of beaches there the water is pretty blue, but this place was just next level. We spent some blissful hours there, just relaxing, soaking all in, enjoying our private little paradise, and then after a few hours we had it back to the resort. Back at the resort we hung out in various pools, and then we headed out on our sunset boat cruise, just the two of us nothing fancy it's the same tinny tender boat that took us out to the sampa. We had a couple of cold drinks with us, washed the sunset on the water and then headed back to our accommodation. The next day we just hung out at the resort, absorbing every last minute of being in that absolute paradise, and then it was time to head back to the mainland. This time we opted to get on south cruise's boat and head back to the mainland that way, much cheaperer than taking a plane. Back on the mainland we stayed in some budget accommodation and then it was time to head back to Melbourne. This Fiji podcast will end up being in two parts. next one is going to be the ass hours. I'll probably end up releasing it in the next couple of days rather than next week. In that one I'll talk you through all the accommodation we stay at in the Osawa Islands, how to get on the Yawa flyer, etc., and also I talk you through as a loping in Fiji in case that's any use to anyone out there. If you'd like to see any footage of our time in the Mamanukas head over to YouTube, Shire travels, or find us on Instagram, Shire dottravels and I'll see you in the next one.