Hi all,

It’s our second day on the island of Ovalau today. We got up and were served a hearty breakfast by the lady who owns the Mavida Lodge (Papaya, banana and cereal, and then egg and sausages and toast!) before heading out to the Ovalau Watersports (Tourist info etc) to see if we could book a tour of some kind.

It turned out there weren’t any running, so one of the ladies there gave us a good description of where we could walk ourselves.

We headed down to the site where the cession of England’s claim over Fiji was signed, when it started to rain! It rained on and off quite heavily all day, but we decided to just go out wandering anyway!

We walked through the village of Levuka and met some interesting locals who told us about their people and one guy told us about how much they all love the royal family! we saw the old town hall and schools and a river which was nice, and then climbed up the ‘199 steps’ in the village to get a good view of the sea and harbour.

After that, we wandered down to a local restaurant (where we ate yesterday) to buy some Kava (dried root of a plant which is mixed with water and drunk in ceremonies) which we had been told to do by the lady in the tourist place as she suggested that we try to visit a local village. You need to take Kava almost like an offering to the chief of the village, and you have to ask his permission before you go wandering about his village.

So, kava in hand, we wandered three miles north up the coast to the village of Waitovu, with a german girl who had come in on the bus with us from Suva. You have to be relatively covered up when you visit villages so as not to offend anyone, their dress code is very moral!

We went into the village and were taken to the chiefs house where we sat down in his living room and asked permission to look around. After a lot of talking in Fijian that we didn’t understand, some clapping, and a presentation of the kava, we were told we were allowed to go where we wanted.

Some of the local kids took us up to this beautiful waterfall just uphill from their village. It was amazing, they all jumped in, so we did too! The water was really mild and wonderful to swim in to cool down from the short hike to the top in the humidity! We spent a good couple of hours there (not least because Pete jumped in with his glasses on and lost them at the bottom of the pool! He did find them again in the end though!) swimming in the freshwater pools and chatting to the local kids. It was fantastic and I’m sure will be one of the most memorable moments from our trip!

We came back and freshened up and have just had a very tasty and filling dinner cooked by the lady that runs the lodge - chicken curry!