Wow! Who knew holidaying with such a large family group could be so much fun. Dad, Judy (step mum), Lee-Anne (sister) and Jade (her partner), Katrina (step sister) and Mitchel (her son 13), Wendy (step sister) and Ashley (her daughter 10 months) and I, all went on a great holiday to fiji at the begining of August. We had a fantastic time in the sun, hot hot sun. When we flew into fiji it was like walking into a wall of heat.We spent the first two nights at the Novetel in Nadi. The serious holidaying started with a fiji bitter (one of many) by the pool. At night the amount of gecko's on the ceilings and on the walls is amazing, but it is comforting to have lots of them around because the eat the mosquitos! Yah! But lucky for me my blood is sour and they don't like me much anyway. It rained the first night but that was a bit of fun because it brought all the toads out. 
We then caught a wonderful large catamaran out to plantation island, this is where all the fun started. The weather was alot hotter and more settled on the island. When we arrived at the island we discovered we had been upgraded to far nicer and far more expensive rooms, score! On the island alot of time was spent in the sea and drinking cocktails by the pool. We took a boat trip out to the reef and it was fantastic snorkeling experience. Saw alot of nemo's even the larger ones with two white stripes living in their anenamies.
It was both Katrina's and Mitchel's birthdays while we were over there and on those nights the fijians came to our dinner table and sang happy birthday, which is an experience as the fijians are so musical and wonderful singers. For Mitchel's birthday Wendy had organised a list of activities for him to complete throughout the day in exchange for money. This was a great idea because it made the day special for him.
Every night at the resort they had some sort of entertainment. The night of the 11th the entertainment was a Mr Plantation competition, which Jade won. The comentator gathered all the men out of the crowd and they then had to take their shirts off and do a dance and stike some poses. It was a load of laughs. The following night Jade the tin bum won the auction for a crab that came third place and won him $26.
After five nights on the island we caught the cat back to the mainland for one more night and a bit of wind down before the flight home. Upon arrival at the Novotel we discovered we had another free room upgrade, well done Judy for all the hard work organising!
Could definately get used to a mid winter holiday, even came back a slightly off white colour, and it was a pleasure to find out it had rained back home the whole time we were away. All and all a wonderful holiday and a great break before the new job started.
