Reading, 'Riting and tRavelling in Fiji, lucky me!

‘I love to go a’wandering along the mountain track

And as I go, I love to sing, my knapsack on my back.’ 

…so the song (Happy Wanderer, Scout Songs) goes. And so do I. It’s time for me to go a'wandering again – this time to Fiji.

I haven’t been to Fiji before, have you?  My wanderings usually take me far, far away into the Northern Hemisphere. I've been saving the Pacific Islands and Asia for when I can no longer stand 20 hours on a plane! 

But for this trip I decided to explore closer to home, one reason being I wanted to meet someone who lives there – someone who invited me to check out the Fiji islands some time ago. This time the planets aligned, and I emailed that special someone who said – yes, yes, yes, come on over, but you’re not just staying a week (as I’d planned) you have to stay 6 weeks as we’re going away and we need a house sitter! 

This caused some consternation as you can imagine – man, who wants to stay in a tropical paradise in a beautiful home with 330-ish islands in close proximity for 6 whole weeks? What will we do to fill the days? Huh? Oh, that’s right, great idea! So my mid-year jaunt turns out to be a surprise to me at least – all of July and half of August in Nadi, Fiji.

And who would be this mysterious someone who set this mid-winter tropical tryst in motion, you ask? I know, you want in on the action too! You want to peek into my address book! Well, this mysterious someone you probably know, that most generous blogger in the bloggerverse, Nas Dean.  Not only does she tirelessly promote romance writers on her RomanceBookParadise blog and collaboratively review romance titles on her Romance Reader blog, she tirelessly gives of her home and her resources to introduce writers to her hometown, Nadi, Fiji.

So, dear jealous followers, I leave for Nas’ on June 29^th (gulp, that's this coming Friday, friends, better get cracking!) and return to my sub-tropical Queensland paradise on August 19^th. Fiji – ah, a pretty good ‘summer place’ to spend winter and winter is being a bit nasty here on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland ATM - bleak, Scotland-type winter days with oppressive clouds. 

   

Nas assures me her home is wi-fi’ed to the max so there should be no break in my blogging and hosting of RomanticFridayWriters schedule. If you'd like to write flash fiction/poetry for RFW check out the 2 upcoming challenges in my right sidebar or go here to the RFW site. My RFWer stories will take on a romantic paradise setting I’m sure. I imagine grass skirts (and that’s just on the men!), palm trees dipping into the pristine blue waters and glorious sunsets over the Pacific – except for grass-skirted men, much the same as home, but with an exotic flavor.

My plans always go awry, but at this stage I hope to catch up on my Kindle reading list, do lots of writing and lots of island hopping, not necessarily in that order! I'll miss my Writing Group. We're collaborating on a high fantasy novel, but have our own Facebook page so I should be able to continue to add my bits and pieces.

I hope you’ll enjoy my little photo essays during my time in the wonderful Fijian islands.

Thanks Nas, blogger extraordinaire!

Found this recent photo of Nas and her daughter on the
Romance Reader blog.

And I’ll fill my incoming suitcase with books for your libraries and schools and do my bit for the retail economy on the return journey.

Until I have my own fab photos to post, I'm using one from google images which is supposed to be copyright free, fingers crossed. 

• So do you know Nas? Have you been to Fiji or any of the Pacific Islands?