So guys what's Raratonga like?

It is the most relaxed place on earth. The malibu adverts (TOTAL GRIDLOCK) could be about this place. There's something called 'Island Time' which involves putting ish on the end of any time.

There are two buses on the island..... Clockwise and anti-clockwise!!!!! They run every hour ish you can hail them whereever and get off wherever you want.

The taxi we get into town involves a people carrier and a twin cab pick up and just cram as many people in there as possible! When it was raining we had to downsize to a saloon car and still managed two in the front plus Lily the driver and four in the back!

Dave's ped-license was once round the block with a policeman driving behind, and there's stories that if its raining the policeman can't be arsed to go out so he'll giveit to you anyway!

So as you can begin to see the pace is slow.

Vara's the hostel we're in as AMACE! It's relatively clean, really tidy and the 'shack' thats attached is a hire shop for snorkels and does fishing trips and stuff. The guys that work there are lovely and orgainse nights out and stuff and you can always find someone to play chess with or poker. The guy Matt that runs it is so full of enthusiam and it rubs off on everyone else. Everyone introduces themselves and tries to get to know one another. It seems to be the place to be, a lot of backpackers transfered there from other hostels around the island.

The food is great. We haven't sampled loads, but we went for a meal on the other side of the island to watch the sunset and the food was lush, mostly fish. Then we went on THE BIG DAY OUT on wednesday, which was a load of us fishing on a boat with beers and snorkeling. The guys spear fishing caught loads a fish. When we got back we had a BBQ. It was cool, coz we saw the fish being caught, prepared and cooked. That was really yum yums. Apart from that we tend to cook for ourselveas to keep costs down. There's a couple shops near us that sell pretty much everything you need. If not its 20 mins in town by bus or ped.

And so there is a little insight into the world off Raratonga. Days are filled with chilling, drinking, eating, few different games and a lot of laughs. We've met some awesome people who we will keep in contact with, some are doing almost the same route as us!

Our stay on the island is coming to an end now, the group of us that have become friends are pretty much all leaving on the same weekend which is quite sad. But this place has definately left an impression on me, time is a long time, just chill out and make the most off it.

Oh and the great one LILY gave me some pearls of wisdom this morning that i wish to share with you.....

If cockroaches are flying aroung restless... its about to rain

and

If you see a centipede just sitting down.... it means bad things are to come for your family. SO WATCH OUT FOT THOSE SITTING CENTIPEDES!!!

LOVE YOU ALL xxxxxx