Last day in paradise

It was so nice to awake this morning to silence, and the storm had passed and it was a pretty nice day even though there were alot of clouds. We headed down for breaky and decided we would stay down around the pool area for the day. Still no internet so no blog posting yet. We went kayaking for about 40 mins which was fun and at 11am it was time for the coconut fetching, husking & scrapping demo. Albert is a very interesting man who is from what he calls....the bush part of Fiji. He learned to climb coconut trees as a child and he said it is very good training for him as he plays hockey. He shot up the tree like a monkey and threw down half a dozen young green coconuts. They hit the ground with an almighty thud and he said that if you get hit on the head...you won’t wake up....lol. He used his machete, which I’m sure would take your hand off if you slipped, to cut the husk and reveal beautiful coconut water which Alvo liked better than the first one she tried a few days ago. He then cut them open and the flesh inside was like jelly, it was soooo nice. He then took Alvo and I to show us how to husk the brown coconuts. I was willing to have a go and with Alberts help was successful, he then let me scrape the flesh out with a special tool. He told me to squeeze the flesh in my hand and the most delicious coconut milk flowed out. It was so sweet and smooth.....much better than the canned stuff. He told me that he likes to make coconut fudge and urged me to take it to the kitchen when I was finished all the scraping. The lovely Indian chef in the kitchen knew exactly what to do and about an hour later we were eating the most delicious Indian/Fijian sweet which was a bit like coconut ice but better. She also made one of the nicest curries I have ever tasted by the way, Alvo had that for lunch and she surprised me with a Bloody Mary (which is like a meal) so that was my lunch today. I decided to read some of my book but only got through a few pages before sleep called me so I laid down and drifted off into blissful rest. The sun was just starting to move onto me when I woke up so I moved over near Alvo in the shade before we decided to have a cocktail at the swim up bar. The water was beautiful as usual and we got chatting to some of the other guests. Before you know it dinner arrives and we were again joined by Gina, who received her letter today to be able to remain in Australia. She was very relieved and it is her last night here too. We will all be at the airport at the same time tomorrow so she won’t feel so on her own if we meet up with her there. Off to bed we toddled after a few hugs from the staff we have come so used to seeing each day, we got their names so we can look them up on Facebook (I know....they have facebook too) and we will miss them. They have done such a lovely job of looking after us and although it has only been a week we feel like we have known them forever. Fiji does that to you I guess. We thought it easier to settle our bill tonight so Meli at reception took care of all that and we came in well under budget so that is good. We have organised our lift to the airport in the morning so will be checking out at 11am after enjoying one final breakfast. We are hoping that we can connect to the outside world via the internet in the morning as it has been down again all day. Posting the blog has been a no go.

Tanya