Attempt 1 to leave Fiji(foiled)

Well all fun here, read on to discover a quick way to lose £1200 and 1.5yrs of life due to stress. Stress, we're on holiday of course there's none in Fiji.
We were on our way to the airport yesterday in the back of a pick-up like livestock. Mrs Hendry had the preferred seat inside while the family were riding steerage under canvas out of the continual rain that day. We got stuck within 3mins due to the dirt road being flooded and then again another few minutes with the road completely out of sight under 20” of the brown wet stuff. The driver was a bit timid so Sailosi was out of the back and waded through to prove the point we weren't going to dive into an old mine shaft. . We then got as far as the airport boundary where you couldn't see the road for 100mtrs either way. The local bar had water through it as did the airport building which was more river than anything else. The bridge to the airport was under 18” as were the roads. Quite a few people along Nukubalavu had their houses full of water. Sailosi and I waded through to the airport where we were told that it was closed although the runway was clear. Our plane didn't land although another flight did and this now put us back 24hrs. Back to the house for 4 hrs of phoning trying to see what we could do to get our flights back in order as there wasn't another out of Fiji to LA for 3 days. At one point we were sea planing out in the am to get a 10.30 to Auckland and back to LA. We made it out the following day and had to buy new tickets for £1200 with another airline to keep our date with friends in USA. All good island experiences. The flood really was a flash flood and for the sake of 30mins either way our flight would have landed. Jack & Kate naturally loved the quicky flood and had the advantage over us that they didn't see the £1200 floating off in the floodwater.
All the above won't put off a return visit in the future as we have had a great time, met marvelous people who would share anything with you, swam with beautiful fish and ate handsomely. It's so good to be somewhere that everyone speaks as equals which, lots of you will appreciate is certainly not the UK.
ps. Flood pics to follow as they have escaped me om my laptop. Gary