Click here to be taken to the latest batch of images fresh from the white shores of Fiji. There are quite a lot starting at W65 as we’ve been in radio silence for a bit.

http://www.lazyblueskies.com/wp/wpg2-2?g2_itemId=9542&g2_page=7

‘Okay now I don’t want you to worry babe but quite possibly I might need to go to hospital as I think I’m having a heart attack’  were my exact words as I lay across the bonnet of our Toyota 4×4 clutching my chest, struggling to breathe and desperately trying not to collapse in a cardiac related pile of agony on the floor! Let me tell you this, that kind of puts the old life into perspective as you drive to A&E, oh yeah you drive yourself to A&E in NZ because they charge you for the privilege.

Okay, so briefly all is good now but I got admitted to A&E for 2 days with ?MI (Myocardial Infarction aka heart attack) and had a million tests done. I had 12 leads hanging off my chest and various other bits, drips and tubes stuck in my arm, an inflatable armband thing that puffed away like a asthmatic budgerigar every 5 minutes and  a bucket load of blood taken all by the cheery Kiwi nurses, including one particularly large black dude with dreadlocks (not from NZ I guessed) who found it bemusing why I was not wearing underpants underneath my boardshorts. This point he found really difficult to understand and even brought over other nurses to see my nakedness! It was quite funny through all the pain and worry to have a conversation about ‘hanging free’. I think I calmed his worries about chaffing as we parted with a good giggle over the size of his elephants trunk swimming pants and architecturally designed ‘ball room’, for obvious reasons.

The good news is that it was not a heart attack. I don’t feel silly or daft that I wasted anyone’s time as it felt, well, just like a heart attack. The other good news is that it was not Pericarditis (Inflammation of the Heart). They even put me on a treadmill, when I really thought that I was going to die. The bad news is that they do not know what it was, so I now have a spray to carry with me at all times (GTN) just in case it may be Angina, and also I now have a Ventolin puffy thing incase I can’t breathe again and some Morphine tablet smarties for the pain. I feel like right geek now and should probably be called ‘Sicknote’ from now on.

Throughout all of this, as you would expect and imagine, laying next to my bed was Blondie in a Lazyboy chair looking after me and making sure I was alright and not too scared. It is a bit tough to admit that I was so scared that I started crying like an 8 year old girl who had just seen her pet rabbit executed by her neighbours Rottweiller. Ooh, yeah, I was calm alright and my pulse during the entire 2 days never once got above 70, but I was pretty sure I was about to Kark It. (Apparently I have a long history of heart disease in the family and 45 is a target rather than an aim so it was all quite serious), still, Nil Desperandum, could be run over by a bus tomorrow, which in itself would be a bit of a bummer as there are no buses on these islands, not even any goats to point and laugh at.

On a serious note, thank you so much to all those that sent such wonderful and heartfelt messages of Get Well, Stop Faking It, and Anything We Can Do?.

Moving on to less dramatic stuff, New Zealand is now a distant and wonderfully fond memory as we are now 2200kms North in the incredible Fijian Islands. Before we close the NZ chapter we want to say hello to all the cool people we met there along the way. Different people from all walks of life but all cool none the less. People who made me realise that there is a certain fun and simplicity in simplicity itself (I thought of that all by myself). Here is a rough route map of how we covered a stunning 14,000kms.

So Fiji, or F1-J1 as it is known by travellers is everything that you would think a pacific island paradise should be. If you close your eyes and imagine what Fiji is or must be like, then it is. Coconut trees, palms trees gently leaning over the crystal clear bluey green waters that are as warm as a bath and lap quietly against the shore lines whilst nothing happens for hours and hours except the passing of time, Fiji-time (a bizarre expression for ‘I’m bloody lazy and I’ll do it……at some point’ and the deepening of your suntan. As I write this I have been sitting and watching nothing happen for an hour, just wasting the day away busy doing absolutely nothing. Today I watched a Hermit crab busy doing ’stuff’ so I lay on the sand and watched it for a while, then it stopped and watched me, 40 minutes later I lost interest in the portable habitation crustation and got back to doing nothing more important again. The only part that they fail to mention before you get here is, IT IS F********G EXPENSIVE. VERY VERY OH MY GOD F*********G EXPENSIVE!! I don’t mean, not cheap, or even a bit expensive, I mean you get bottom rogered at every step of the money spinning process.

Fiji a holiday paradise, but it is also a money making machine. Scratch away the smiley venire and you get a very real push to make money out of you at every opportunity, snorkel hire $12, kayaking $25, taking a photo of a fish $50, icecream on the beach $10, 2 beers $10 et al. In the greater scheme of things it’s not going to break the bank but it soon adds up to over £2000 for 2 weeks (not inc flights).The bit that we found the most upsetting is that the islanders are broke and live almost close to, well a happy sort of poverty I guess on $80 a month (£35) and yet will all the money pouring into the islands they still remain in, happy poverty.

I would say to anyone that if you are thinking of going to Fiji, really think about it before you do. Again, it is without doubt beautiful but it’s full of young single kids in dorm bunk beds or the super rich in all inclusive resort islands. Personally you could simply stay at home, go to the kitchen, put the oven on 250c/Gas Mark 5, open the door and bend over in front of it wearing a bikini top and bottoms around your knees whilst tearing up £50 notes and shoving them up your left nostril at a rate of 6 every minute whilst someone buggers you senseless with a large rolling pin and a rolled up copy of the How To Lose Money Monthly.

Seriously, it is great but we are absolutely haemoraging money at a rate that I just cannot believe, so much so that in less than 4 days my wallet now wouldn’t shut because of so many receipts. Throughout all of our trip so far the biggest expense has been $100 for a night’s bed (about £40) but suddenly to live in a tin hut on a mosquito ridden beach is costing over £100 a night, and you get cake for breakfast with custard. Oh don’t get me wrong it’s beautiful and all that, but the Maldives are 100 times better and cost the same. Okay, I’ll get off my soap box now before they charge me for speaking to you. The stunning beauty of the photos are enough to speak for themselves but more often than not, I AM THE OLDEST DUDE ON THE BOAT.

ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, now that’s a funny one, let’s go play on our bikes.

Oh before we left NZ we went to The Top Gear event with good old Jeremy Clarkson and Richard ‘I-Nearly-Died’ Hammond and my god was it funny. Clarkson said this, ‘Britain; We were once an Empire Empire run by an Emperess. Then we became a Kingdom, run by a King.bNow we are a Country run by a C……….’ ha ha ha, now that made us laugh. To cut the story short, screeching tyres of Ferraris doing wheel spins, Football with cars and a metal ball with not 1,2 or even 3 but 4 motorcycles riding around inside it, all very impressive and well worth the visit, we even saw THE STIG (who was sh*t by the way….time for a new one). Enjoy the images.

Let me touch briefly on ‘bathroom etiquette’ as this subject seems to keep cropping up all the time we are travelling. Ladies, there are very few simple rules that guys must adhere to so listen up as this is insider knowledge. 1) If faced with a dry metal urinal the participant must attempt to spray write his own name on the surface 2) Bonus points are awarded for full stops and underlines. 3) If faced with 3 urinals but 2 are occupied the newcomer must seek a stand up wee in the cubicle. 4) Under no circumstances is the newcomer to nestle in between the number 1 and number 3 placed standers. 5) Stage Fright does happen, men both know and accept this but the participant has a 20 second window of ‘non activity’ before you become a potential nob-holding freak. 6) MDP (multi directional pees) are a harsh fact of life but if you wee on another mans foot your are likely to receive a harsh and substantial beating. 7) It is never, I repeat never acceptable to ‘check out another mans package’. Polite conversation is to strictly limited to the weather, the football, your boss being a c*ck and finally how drunk you are. (If there are mirrors in the urinals - LEAVE IMMEDIATELY)  9) A passing of gas is acceptable but must be limited to a good guff and nothing with bubbles. 10) Eye contact is acceptable with deliverer to pass on a ‘Guy-Nod’. I trust that this now clears matters up

Slopping shoulders, is the next topic of conversation. You can always tell when you are travelling who the new UK travellers are based upon a couple of observations. Firstly, the milk  bottle white skin that requires sunglasses just to look at them, and then there’s the Leprosy Look which is essentially the inability to understand that a mosquitos sole purpose in life is to bite, bite, bite. The remedy is to apply bug spray before going out and not wearing perfume and quaffing sweet drinks and falling asleep in a hammock. (some of the sights we have seen have been quite incredible and have even resulted in being chased by a fatty who really didn’t see the funny side) and finally, slopping shoulders. What I mean by this is when you sit around a table with fellow travellers everyone has sloping shoulders. Stop reading this now and look around you, where ever you are, what ever you are doing, (apart from Simon who is a pilot and Dr Jo who is, well a, Doctor and should be doing important Doctor stuff). Seriously, look around and see that most people from the UK are so tense that their shoulders almost touch their ears. I mean you could balance an apple on their shoulders without any worries. Hacuna Matata. So, chill and let the apple roll off.

Oh I forgot to mention, whilst I was busy trying not to die in hospital I heard the funniest conversation between a 5 foot 3 inch Indian Doctor and a 6 foot 5 Kiwi farmer the other side of the curtains. The Doctor was explaining that he was going to have a look up the mans bottom with a small telescope. ‘A SMALL WHAT?’ the Kiwi yelled. The Indian Doctor chappie was like, ‘Oh do not worry sir and try to relax as it will go up a lot easier, I just want to have a quick look around’. The Kiwi then boomed, ‘IT’S NOT A BLOODY QUICKIE MART BRO’. The Doctor then continued unabated and informed the Kiwi that he was going to use some KY jelly to ‘assist the entry’. The Kiwi once again boomed, ‘YOU’RE GOING TO DO WHAT MATE?’. There was then a metal clanging sound followed by a sort of squelchy farty noise and a yell that made me jump out of my skin that sounded like, ‘SSSTTTREEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWTTTTTTHHHHHH’ and the Indian Doctor yelling, ‘Please do keep still Sir it is very difficult to see anything’. The Kiwi then yells, ‘OH MY ARSE’. Five minutes later the Hubble Telescope is removed from the Kiwi’s tradesman’s entrance and the miniscule Doctor wanders off to have his choccy pudding lunch whilst the Kiwi dude is left sitting bolt upright in bed with eyes like dinner plates and a surprised expression on his face similar to that you would expect if Britney Spears just offered him a quick ten minutes in the broom closet. Priceless.

It all kind of reminded me of when Matt J went into the Doctors because he thought the new Doc was cute but made the mistake of saying that he thought he had tummy pain. The new Doctor was a bit keen and she diagnosed ?Appendicitis, promptly whipped out a pair of rubber gloves and poor Matt became known as ‘Sooty The Glove Puppet’ after that. He didn’t quite feel able to going back to being able to stare lovingly into her eyes after being brutally fisted before even their first date. Well, would you, could you, still at least she took off her watch?

Great to hear the feedback from both men and women alike re the 75mph Swiss birds knockers, keep up the good work,

Speaking of being violated, a couple of bits of news that sadly aren’t quite so good. I thought long and hard about whether to put this in, but I guess travel is all about up’s and no quite so up’s and my website is my way of recording what I experience as we travel around the world. We found out a few weeks ago that my mum’s longer partner John had actually died last May after what is believed was a drinking binge that resulted in him collapsing and subsequently carking it. The little fat man left instructions that ‘no one’ was to be told in the event of his death and that he ‘did not want his money left to anyone’ so the Solicitor chose the RNLI (Lifeboat) and buried him next to Mum without our knowledge or permission. Shattering news. It feels like a fresh fire has erupted under the whole emotional wheelie bin all over again just as I was starting to come to terms with it all. It is terrible to deal. Everyone throws advice, opinions or suggestions at you and then gets upset when you don’t take it, but surely that is the whole point of advice, it is an opinion, a thought. But what do I know. Annnnyway, moving on.

But, as a girl we met in Bolivia had tattooed on her forearm (well she was from Bristol) it read, ‘AND THIS TOO SHALL PASS’ 

So, again, thanks for all the lovely messages of support from close friends, you know who you all are. It’s a tough time for me, very tough indeed but where better to deal with it than sitting on a beach surround by palm trees and coconuts with Blondie at my side. I debated putting this in the story as I said but this is a record of my life and my travels so it is justified in a way I guess as it has had a hard effect on me and will explain why I haven’t been very chatty for a while. (Sorry if I’ve been a bit short and a but grumpy)……anyhooo moving on as I said.

Speaking of which a girl sitting 30 foot or so from us a few days ago had a really lucky escape when a coconut dropped 10 metres from a tree and slammed into the sand right next to her head. It would have killed her without doubt if it had hit her. Strange really when you think about stuff like that and how fragile life is that you just take for granted.

Also whilst we have been in Fiji we have been doing some test shoots for Aquapac.net ( go and have a look in the gallery under additional photography for Fiji Aquapac) and have produced some quite stunning work. Last year our images adorned the front cover of the AQUAPAC International Trade Catalogue that went to, we believe in excess of 130 different counties and a distribution of somewhere in the region of several hundred thousand copies. Just in case you have not heard me banging on about AQUAPAC before or you have been living on Mars for a few years, they make waterproof cases for all types of things, like radios, phones, sunglasses, videos, cameras and even bags that are waterproof (we have all our clothes in one and vital documents in another). But the best bit is that they make cases that you can put digital SLR’s in, so that is the secret into how I get all my special watershots. The best thing is that if I were to get a Pro case it would cost me £3500 but the Aquapac case is £80!!! If anyone has any questions or wants to know more about the ranges/prices just let me know.

Thanks to Canon New Zealand for the loan of the Canon DSLR used in this shoot.

Right the final music bit. We had a bit of a gay scare. Seriously!! We stayed in Auckland with a couple of lovely guys called Jason and Eric (Kiwi and French) who are lovely and gay. We did the whole iPod music swap thing and we discovered a small problem, apparently I have a gay music chip inserted in my brain. Then I got to thinking so help me out here (not out in a Tom Cruise ‘feathers and bows’ in a closet kind of way). Tony Hughes and Darren Goldsby if you are reading this you will understand. Okay so at school I grew up listening to, in my formulative years the likes of; Divine - You think you’re a man / Bronski Beat / Depeche Mode / Mark Almond / David Sylvan / Prince / Kylie / Jason Donavon / George Michael / Michael Jackson / Barbara Streisand / Shirley Bassey / Spandau Ballet / ABC / Boy George / Elton John / AH Ha / Bananarama / Kagabloodygogo………..OH MY GOD!!! The music chip in my head is GAY! Gayer than the front row of the Mardi Gras parade in Gaytown. And I haven’t even mentioned Shirley Bassey. But in my defence I did just buy the new Metallica album but again Mr Manillow is next to it on my iPod.

So, we headed to Australia after 2 weeks in Fiji and 2300kms later landed at Sydney, then flew 3300kms the next day to Perth in WA where we are now in Perth. We both want to say thanks to the wonderful and ever friendly Jo Ciastula from Animal and Airush Kite Boarding who very kindly acted as a chauffeur for a week and was even kind enough to sell us his car! It was really important for us to meet Jo and primarily were it not for Jo and his parents (Hi Tad and Sue) we would still be in Spain and would not be in WA in the middle of a world tour.

Finally, I would like to welcome Helen, Jenny and Patsy Wheelbarrow (yup that is a real name) to the site, three wonderful and fun fellow travellers. As well as the Norwegian wakeboarders and the Mason’s for the Lonely Planet AUS

More stuff in the next few weeks or so.

Bye from us down here to you up there.

Love

Chris and Karen

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