I regret to say, I’m back…
Posted on Sep 27, 2010 05:29:11 PM
from Fiji. Sigh.
Disclaimer 1: This post is entirely personal, there is nothing in it relating to body art, facepainting or any other of my interests, except for my interest in being warm and sunbaked on a tropical island. 
Disclaimer 2: I have no idea why my son chose to hide under his hat for this photo.
Malolo Lai Lai Island in September is hot and sunny and just nine kinds of awesome. We ate, drank, swam, took boats out for gorgeous snorkelling and even took nighttime dips in the pool because it’s just that warm, even in “winter”. Fijians think it’s cold in September, you know, a mere 30-32C. My children, on the other hand, turned into amphibious creatures more at home in the water than on land.
We stayed at Musket Cove in a timeshare bure. It’s beautiful. Palm trees, white sand, lovely big bures (houses) with a super king bed, a single bed and a pull out sofa and best of all for a family with two fussy eaters, a fully equipped kitchen. Thank heaven for not having to eat in restaurants all the time.
It wasn’t entirely perfect, of course. No holiday is. Miss Pink on the left there came down with Chicken Pox the day we arrived. >.< She had to stay away from all the other kids at the resort, which was a bit sad, and she didn’t have the energy she normally would, so we cancelled all plans for adventures of an ‘all-day’ kind and just hung around the resort doing the little expeditions. It was just as much fun. Pamol and Ibuprofen and Calamine lotion kept her comfy and the three salt water pools kept her cool and waterlogged. As you can see, we both got our hair braided too, after ascertaining that the ladies at the Spa had had chicken pox already.
Also, while “fiji-time” has improved to the point where boat trips leave pretty well on time, it is still painfully in force when it comes to food service at Musket Cove. Do NOT wait until you are actually hungry to order a meal, you’ll expire before it arrives. I’m not sure why it’s so bad there. We theorized that it might be because they think you’ll order more drinks if your food takes ages to arrive. If so, it’s a bad idea. Bad service doesn’t make me want to order more alcohol, it makes me want to eat elsewhere next time.
Small frustrations aside, we had a brilliant time and 7 days wasn’t any where near long enough.
Now to get my head out of the cloudless skies and back onto prepping for the NZBAA which is this weekend!!! Eek! Wish me luck.