The Cook Islands. This was a 'first' for both of us and obviously a glaring oversight. All I can say is when I lived in New Zealand I was a very poor church mouse and when I moved to Australia, well it's damned awkward to get to when the airlines mantra appears to be 'screw the pax and lose the bags' - especially for connecting flights. Apparently direct flights from Sydney to Rarotonga will be starting later this year. James's excuse? Would have been very diff...

The last time we visited Tahiti was in December 2010 - our first foray in house-swapping and what a huge success it was too. We swapped apartments with a lovely Parisian Doctor and his wife - they left us an apartment on a small private marina, a BMW and a Citroen, we left them our apartment with views over the city of Sydney and our kitty cat Tasha. We all had an outstanding time. We spent the month in Tahiti diving, cruising around the island's main road (AKA t...

After the high of Easter Island, a place we never thought we'd visit, five days at sea seemed definitely (infinitely) too long. Too too and long long. I woke up with a sore throat on our first day in Easter Island and it was still raging 5 days later. Apparently not Covid (negative) and not viral as it should have been coming good after 5 days. It was keeping me awake and I felt unable to swallow, even water, without pain. Off my food. If that wasn't enough to ...

Getting to far distant, middle of nowhere Easter Island is half the battle at any given time. The other half ended up being getting on to Easter Island. We have come to realise that tendering 3000 people ashore is not an easy task. The Magnifican't manages to make it Herculean and also like the first time they've managed it - every single time. It took almost five hours to make the 10 minute boat trip to the island and the people we booked the private/small gro...

The amount of sea days were somewhat irrelevant when we did the sums comparing two business class flights from South America to Sydney vs, 36 days of being fed, watered and visiting destinations such as Easter Island, Tahiti and the Cook Islands. They seem more relevant now as they spread out before us like sand at the sea shore. The ship makes a big fuss over some things, Valentine's Day on 14 Feb was a big hoo-hah, but the show was lacklustre - nice enough bl...