There is a gas spring that pushes up on the collective to assist the pilot and relieve the weight of it. There's a balance to be found between having too much assistance (the collective may risk creeping up or be difficult to dump in the event of an engine failure) or having too little assistance (which leads to a heavy collective, and fatigue / discomfort as you describe). I would report that to the operator / maintenance so that an engineer can adjust the gas spring pressure / force and rectify the issue. I assure you it's not supposed to feel constantly heavy, I've flown Cabris with the same feeling and given the feedback to the engineer to rectify the issue - the gas spring force can be sorted and adjusted for each machine.
The 'heavy cyclic' could be due to incorrectly set trim (adjustable on the coolie hat on the cyclic) - for pilots not used to flying with these, it can be a bit of an afterthought to constantly trim out control forces, but once you get the hang of it it is a great assistance and increases the comfort of flying. In comparison to a hydraulically assisted flight controls like the R44, the Cabri's cyclic is definitely 'heavier' but that is simply part of the design, not a fault or issue.
As Mutley says, to each their own - the Cabri is plenty good enough for many operators, just as the R22 is good for others. Best of luck with getting back into flying!