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For 16 incredible days, the Cardinal women warriors basked in the sun of the Southern Pacific, played touch on some of the most beautiful beaches anywhere, and took on three local teams - the Samoan National team, Manusina, the University of South Pacific, and the Under 23 Fiji development squad.

Stanford spent one day in Fiji before leaving for Samoa. We would return a week later. That day we went into town to buy some food and sulu's (colorful wraps that are customary to wear when going into the villages) before heading to the beach. One of our coaches, Franck Boivert, who lives most of the year in Fiji, came through for us, getting us cheap transportation - a huge, bright yellow truck, sometimes used for hauling pigs! Nevertheless, the trusty bright yellow pigtruck, took us to the most beautiful beach on the island. Hardly anyone else was there, mostly native Fijians. People body-surfed, baked themselves, went horseback riding, and of course, played touch...A great first day.

The next day we were off to Samoa. Here we caught up with Katimo (Kati Morrison) who was ahead of us, already getting lost and making friends with men with machetes. We tried to catch up on the fun with an incredible drive around the island. We found a beautiful waterfall and pool, with a perfect cliff to jumping off of into the water below. Later, we did some sun bathing and sweet juice intaking (coconut milk) at the second amazing beach of the trip.

We finally decided to get a practice in, considering we played the Samoan National Women's Team, Manusina, the next day. You can read the fijian rugby magazine, Teivovo, for coverage of the game to catch up on all ruck (more ).

Ok, so we had a little trouble tackling, but we all came out alive - so it was still a victory! Later, we did some partying with the Manusina women, before we split up into groups of four to go into homestays with the players. We were with the Samoan families for 3 days and 2 nights. We were also able to play with our host players' home teams in a tournament on the last day.

We were able to get our play going again when we defeated the University of South Pacific on September 12th, 2001...(more)

In our last game on tour, the match came down to the wire against the Under 23 Fijian National Team on the 15th...(more)