Rarotonga

22°S and 159°W lie the Cook Islands of which Rarotonga is the largest. 32 km in diameter and with a population of 9,000 people and 100,000 visitors per year. What a wonderful five days we had! The weather was great - around 25°C per day made it very pleasant. On arrival we were each given these beautiful very sweet smelling leis.

We stayed at the Edgewater which was not elaborate but very pleasant nonetheless. The reef was fairly close in where we were so Adrian and Colin could snorkel quite easily. The first few days the visibility wasn't too good as it was a spring tide which churned up the water and created a bit of a current.

On the second day we saw two whales just beyond the reef. They spent at least an hour out there - it was a great sight!

Colin feeding the fish at the water's edge. You can see how close the reef was so the whales were not too far away

The mountains were just as beautiful to look at

Sunset was beautiful!

To get around the Island, you hire a scooter, a car or a bike ... or catch one of two busses: the anti-clockwise one or the clockwise one! Depending on where you want to go; the busses run every hour.

Even the Houses of Parliament are simple!

We all enjoy a cocktail when we are on holiday and on our last night, I said we could have a "fish bowl" - 1.8litres of cocktail! We looked forward to it and it was revolting!

One day we went out on a lagoon cruise and beach bbq which was such fun. The crew caught a turtle in the lagoon (most of the lagoon area is protected) which they put into the boat so that the marine wildlife department could come and tag it

We could go back to Rarotonga for a winter break any time and self catering is very easy there. it was a bit of a shock to get back to the miserable Wellington weather and it was raining so much I thought we'd skid off the end of the runway!

Oh, and we were seven hours late leaving Auckland airport (technical problems - as always!) so only got to Raro in the very early hours of the morning