Fiji: Bounty Island

'Bounty Island in the sun'

Bounty Island is the island where 'Celebrity Love Island' with Callum Best and Rebecca Loos was filmed. It was very different to Mana; it was a lot smaller and there were no Fijians living in villages on the island – it was just a resort. When we first go there we were surprised and happy to be reunited with our friend James off Mana island and the two Swedish girls. We went on a walk around the island and it only took 15 minutes. It was a really relaxing place. The beach seemed cleaner than the main beach in Mana and the hostel was a big step up. The meals were serve yourself all you can eat buffet style and the food was excellent! I had beans, eggs and toast, cereal, juice and pancakes for breakfast, salad, chips and chicken for lunch and Indian curry with popadoms and naan bread for dinner! You could also have afternoon tea with cookies if you could squish it in. On our first night there, after dinner, because it was a Sunday, the staff sang some Fijian hymns for us and then sang a goodbye song to the leavers (the same as the song they sang at Ratikinis, which I later found out is a popular song in Fiji). It was a shame about the weather because it was very overcast and rained a lot. However, we didn't let this stop us and spent most of the day in the pool in the rain. At one point we tried to go snorkelling but the staff wouldn't let us because they said it would be too dangerous in case the cyclone came.  

Our pool (celeb love island pool)

On the second afternoon, one of the hostel staff came up to the pool and announced that anyone from Britain had to come and read a notice that had just been faxed through from the British Embassy. We went to read it and it was a letter from the British Embassy warning all British nationals that a cyclone was about to hit Fiji and we should adjust our plans accordingly. Later that night at dinner, after Bula hour (which they seem to have on every island, although the one on Bounty wasn't a patch on the Mana Bula hour), the head guy made an announcement that everyone would be evacuated off the island the next day and taken to the mainland because it was unsafe for people to stay out on the islands. This meant that we had to cancel our plans to visit the Yasawa islands, which we were a bit gutted about but knew that we were definitely better off sitting out the cyclone on the mainland rather than on an island. We were a little worried we would lose our deposits but we didn't have any choice other than to return to Nadi. That night we played monopoly with two very pleasant Aussie girls who by the end of the game became just as aggressive and competitive as us. In summary, we basically spent our short time on Bounty (2 nights) in the pool in the rain, playing board games and eating. Bounty was a lovely cosy little island and it was very relaxing. The most unrelaxing part was on the last night when we found a massive crab in our room and couldn't get it out. In the end, the security guard had to come and pick it up and throw it out, but not before he had made me stroke it :s . Also that night, I thought I found bedbugs in my bed and couldn't sleep then for the rest of the night and had to get in Jemma's cramped bunk with her. The next day, we had breakfast and then everybody was herded onto a little boat on the rough sea and we were taxied across to a bigger boat that would take us back to the mainland. On the bigger boat, which was packed to the brim (mainly with Japanese tourists), it was so rough that loads of people were throwing up everywhere and the journey that should have taken 20 minutes took 2 hours! It wasn't so bad though as we sat together with the people we had met on Bounty and they all played cards whilst I listened to my mp3 to stop myself from feeling sea sick.