Mystery Island Day Trip
Travel Location: Mystery-Island,Fiji
Today we finally got to go on our “Captain Cook” Island day trip. We had originally booked this trip from the Sheraton from Tuesday onwards. Each day we had to post pone the trip until finally we canceled it. Good for us that we did. The trip was quoted on the brochure as $97FJD per adult and half price for kids. Sheraton were charging me $102 per adult and $51 per child. Do the maths and I nearly paid $153 FJD for our day trip.. WELLLLLLLLL Tubakula advised us that there was a special being quoted for our trip that children 10 or under would be free with any paying adult fare. So my $153 trip ended up only costing me $97.00,,,,,, Sheraton you cheeky buggers!!!!
We had to make our way back to Denarau Marina for our 10.00 am departure. Taking our time we headed off early. We soon noticed that it was considered rude to have a car with spare seats and not stop and pick up locals who needed lifts to the next village. After a brief discussion Gab and I decided to be considerate and pick up a local. We stopped and picked up this lovely older lady, she signaled to her son and they were in the back seat of the car and we were on our way in a flash… OMG,,, I immediately became aware that she was carrying smoked dried fish and the stink hit me like a tonne of bricks. I didn’t know what to do because we had the air conditioning on and if we opened the windows for fresh air it would be seriously obvious that we thought she STANK,,, my goddness that fish did smell!!!! luckily for us she was only in the car for 5 mins and then signaled to me that her stop was just ahead. She jumped out but the guy (early twenties) stayed in the car. I then realised just how silly I had been because here I was driving a car with a complete stranger sitting directly behind me. But the story isn’t so scary because he was a lovely friendly guy who kept asking me if I loved his country. He chatted as best as he could and then eventually he showed me where he wanted to get out. All ended up ok, but I made a decision that we would not pick up any more locals,,, Rude or not we would just keep driving.
Our day trip was the most fun to date in Fiji. At 10.00 we were escorted onto our sailing boat. The sailing boat was the original that carried the first Governor to Fiji. Unfortunately due to time restraints the sails could not be used and the diesel engines chugged us along to our paradise destination. 1.5 hours later and we arrived. The island only took 15 minutes to walk around but it really was paradise. The turquoises blue waters surrounded the white sandy beach’s. The coral was plentiful and stunningly beautiful.
We were picked up and transported ashore with a glass bottom boat, giving us loads to look at. Once onshore we had the choice of snorkeling, kayaking, swimming, massages, lazing in hammocks or just simply walking around taking in the view.
We couldn’t resist the water and jumped in straight away for a swim. We decided to go to the other side of the island where no one els was swimming so we felt like we had the whole world to ourselves and it was just the most peaceful place.
Time passed quickly and before long we heard the drumming of the Lali drums calling us to our BBQ lunch. There was loads of food, bbq fish, chicken and sausages, salads and fresh fruit. I might also add that included in the price was soft drinks, beer and wine. The bar didn’t close till we were ready to head home.
Gab and I had fun Kayaking around the Island, sun baking and watching the guys husking coconuts.
When we went looking for snorkeling gear for Gab, they told us that they dont keep many sets for children so she missed. 
Lucky for us one of the guys managed to get her a set of gear, he personally took her right out to the coral reef close the boat and showed her all of the secret spots to view coral and fish etc. She absolutely loved it and spent a good hour with her head down and bum up just floating around with this guy. She came back with all sorts of thing to tell me of what she had seen. It was her highlight of our holiday.
Around 3.30 we had to pack up and leave the Island. Our trip back was fun as the staff got the guitars out and sang songs. They found out there was a lot of Aussies on the boat so they sang Waltz Sing Matilda but Fijian style… It was really cool.
We didn’t get back to our bungalows till 6.30 that night. We had such a fun day but of course I was burnt and hurting, so we had dinner and spent the night sitting on our front porch watching the moon smile down on the sea.
