We spent a wonderful, relaxing week in Fiji in the last week of April.  It is called the Land of Smiles because the Fijian people are so friendly and constantly smiling : )

We were lucky enough to be invited over for a friend’s 40th birthday party.  Tim had hired Cloud 9 which is floating pontoon about 45 minutes from Denerau by boat.  We went out there by jet boat which was fun. – there were about 60 of us in total.

Cloud 9 has a bar and a pizza oven on it.  The drinks were flowing and everyone had a great time.  You could jump off into the water which was lovely.  There was a bit of a current so they had some buoys and ropes for you to hang onto.  Not a bad idea given alcohol was involved!  After a few great hours in the sun it was back to Denerau by jet boat – we had such a good time no one really wanted to go back to the mainland.   

 



After grabbing some dinner at the Port it was an early night for us – I ws pretty close to “falling over” point!

On the Sunday afternoon we were invited to a friend of Tim’s private residence for drinks and nibbles.  What a place – it was absolutley beautiful and we felt very privileged to have been invited.

  
      Most of the party goers went home on the Monday but we had booked to stay on until the Friday.  Good choice as the weather was fabulous – blue skies and 30 degrees most days : )  We played some early morning tennis, walked and generally relaxed by the pool.  What a life!   

    It was then back to NZ on the Friday.  I had a free upgrade to business class on Air NZ so enjoyed sitting up the front of the plane while Steve slummed it in the back!

 Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles (2,000 km; 1,300 mi) northeast of New Zealand’s North Island. Its closest neighbours are Vanuatu to the west, New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand’s Kermadec Islands to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas and France’s Wallis and Futuna to the northeast, and Tuvalu to the north.

Fiji is an archipelago of more than 332 islands, of which 110 are permanently inhabited, and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of about 18,300 square kilometres (7,100 sq mi). The farthest island is Onu-i-Lau. The two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, account for 87% of the population of almost 860,000. The capital and largest city, Suva, is on Viti Levu. About three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levu’s coasts, either in Suva or in smaller urban centres like Nadi (tourism) or Lautoka (sugar cane industry). Viti Levu’s interior is sparsely inhabited due to its terrain.

Fiji has one of the most developed economies in the Pacific due to an abundance of forest, mineral, and fish resources. Today, the main sources of foreign exchange are its tourist industry and sugar exports.  The country’s currency is the Fijian dollar. Fiji’s local government, in the form of city and town councils, is supervised by the Ministry of Local Government and Urban Development.

The majority of Fiji’s islands were formed through volcanic activity starting around 150 million years ago. Today, some geothermal activity still occurs on the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni.  Fiji has been inhabited since the second millennium BC, and was settled first by Austronesians and later by Melanesians, with some Polynesian influences. Europeans visited Fiji from the 17th century, and, after a brief period as an independent kingdom, the British established the Colony of Fiji in 1874. Fiji was a Crown colony until 1970, when it gained independence as a Commonwealth realm. A republic was declared in 1987, following a series of coups d’état.

In a coup in 2006, Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power. When the High Court ruled in 2009 that the military leadership was unlawful, President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, whom the military had retained as the nominal Head of State, formally abrogated the Constitution and reappointed Bainimarama. Later in 2009, Iloilo was replaced as President by Ratu Epeli Nailatikau.  After years of delays, a democratic election was held on 17 September 2014. Bainimarama’s FijiFirst party won with 59.2% of the vote, and the election was deemed credible by international observers.