So the last full day in New Zealand we were at the YHA hostel in Opoutere. It is a town in the Coromandel Peninsula. We woke up ridiculous early to drive to Hot Water Beach.
It is a beach with magma warmed rocks under the surface that heats the sand up. You dig a hole at low tide, let it fill with water and viola! Hot tub on the beach. And I mean hot. The sand burns the bum that's for sure. You have to go within an hour or so of low tide (thus the getting up early). We were pretty tired so we drove back to the hostel and napped for a couple hours. The fast pace of the month was catching up with us. In the afternoon we did a bit of kayaking and then hiked to Opoutere Beach. It was deserted. Jess took off to explore the other side of the beach so I was by my lonesome with the exception of one guy who was taking some pictures. We ended up chatting for about an hour. It was such an insightful conversation. All these things that I'd been thinking about and wondering, that Jess had got me trying to sort out, it was like it all became clear while I was talking to this person who was completely removed from my life. It was kinda cool. Anyway, I met up with Jess a little while later and we wandered until supper. She decided on one last adventure and tried to walk through the little cove near the hostel since it was low tide. I wanted to see the forest again so we went our seperate ways. When I saw her again, she was covered in mud. Guess that cove was practically like quicksand. But she made it through in the end. I made our last supper of the trip. It was our usual - tuna, pasta and boiled carrots. Another traveller gave us a few peppers and zucchini to add to our "feast". It wasn't much, but it wasn't bad. I have to tell you, since I've been back I've already had tuna and pasta twice. Voluntarily. It really is quite good. I spent the rest of the evening packing for our flight to Fiji. The next morning we drove to Auckland with a quick stop in Thames to pick up some souvenirs since we pretty much had not bought any yet. I mostly bought a New Zealand made brand of plastic food storage containers. Weird choice for souvenirs but it was honestly my favourite thing I'd seen while there and a heck of a lot better than spending $8 on fridge magnets that weren't that cute. So yes, I went to New Zealand for a month and all my mom got was essentially a New Zealand version of tupperware.
When we got to Fiji we were taken to the First Landing Resort. With the cyclone season being in effect, the beach was looking a little rough, but we had a super cute beachfront bure (bure = hut). This was our view
Since it pretty much nothing but poured for the first 3 days we were glad we'd gotten a nice room. Now, Jess was the sleeper of our little duo. She went to bed earlier than me at night and slept later than me in the morning. She even caught the occasional nap during the day. I think she almost thought it was unhealthy how much less I slept than her. But once we got to Fiji, I slept. I'd sleep for 12 hours at night and nap during the day. She was a little shocked. I tried to explain that the reason was while in New Zealand there was something to do every morning that I did not want to miss. But in Fiji, all we had on the schedule was sleeping, eating and relaxing. So I did. A lot. And it was wonderful. The food was pretty incredible at the resort. Not that tuna and pasta doesn't do it for me, but this was better. 
Note that Jess's meal came in a coconut! During the meal there was usually a few of the workers playing and singing for us. We even caught a couple of shows with dancing and fire tricks. So neat. As great as it was, I was going a bit stir crazy by the 4th day. So it was extremely timely that we finally got some sun for a couple of hours in the afternoon! We layed by the pool and attended a kava ceremony. Now the cool thing about kava is that in university I did a paper on it for a drug plants class but of course had never tried it since I'm pretty sure it's illegal in Canada. If you check out the effects in the Wikipedia page, we got to the numb tongue and throat stage. We only drank 2 coconut shells of a fairly dilute brew. It was sure an interesting taste though. The Fijians LOVE their kava and to turn it down is quite rude. So I didn't. The next day our flight home was not until 10 in the evening so I booked myself on a sailing trip to a deserted island with an Austrailian/Canadian family in our resort.
Jess decided to spend the day at the resort. I had such a good time. I visited with my new friends and listened to music on the sailing yacht.
Once we got to the island I went snorkelling and participated in another kava ceremony (I told you, it's rude to say no), got a massage and just lay on the beach. I even hiked to a part where I couldn't see or hear anyone else. Quite the experience.
It was so sad to have to come home. I could have stayed for another 5 months easy. And I definately plan to go back.
