Well today is our last day in the cook islands and in 6 days time we will be home!! A whole year gone just carn't belive its gone so fast!

The cook islands are beutiful although the weather has not been perfect we have had a bit of rain and as it is so hilly in Rarotonga there has been quite a lot of clouds although we are both Very tanned. We have spent most of our time snorkling and laying on the beach. The first night we arrived in Rarotonga we were invited to the hosts of the guesthouse home for a traditional familly dinner. They cooked Fish, Chicken and pork wrapped in cocnut leaves and cooked in a hole in the ground. Served with crabs, baked sweet potato, seaweed, arroroot and arroroot leaves with coconut cream as a sauce. The food was very nice and it was great to try some tradditional food as none of the restarants serve tradditional food it is all european food.

After 5 days in Roratonga we went to Aitutaki for 16 days Aitutaki is a small island surronded by reef and small uninhabited islands so it is in a huge lagoon which is so beautiful. Just like a postcard. We were in a beach hut on the beach about 5 meters from the sea there was fantastic snorkling just off the beach there with so many different coloured fish and eals we even saw a turtle one day.

While we were there we went on a boat trip out in the lagoon, We stoped on an island called honnymoon island were there were some white birds that are only found on two of the islands the birds don't servive on the others as they have chickens and rats which are prediters to them. After that we went to a snorkling spot near honnymoon island the water was deeper than it was of our beach but so clear you could see all the way to the bottom and there was a lot of different fish. From there we went to One Foot island and had a great lunch and had our passport stamped (very touristy but its got to be done) and then went for our last snorkling of the day as the boat stopped hundreads of fish swarmed the boat as they feed them here they were mainly butterfly fish, pencil fish and convict surgen fish but there were just so many of them it looked amazing.

The following day the guy who owned the beach hut was taking everyone out on a boat trip so we went out again. This trip we went out side the reef to see turtles and sting rays which we did manage to see. This was fantastic and a real highlight from the whole year Dan managed to get some pictuers of them but carn't put them on the internet untill we arrive home. We spent the rest of the day going to other islands and we did to more snorkling one of them inside the reef and the last one at a ship wreck.

That night we went to see some island dancing at a hotel near by it was intresting to see them dance and they were very good although the lads were very young and seemed to find it a bit embarrasing the girls seamed to take it more seriously.

On one of our last days in Aitutaki we took a kayak and traveled round the lagoon this was a lot of fun although hard work we visited 3 different islands that day and to our suprise one of them had a camp set up there compleat with toilet and beds but no one was there. We were told that it is probably locals who use it when they go fishing was a wired thing to find on a suposadly uninhabited island.

We have been back on rarotonga and haven't done a lot other than be on the beach and snorkling. The evenings have been spent at the guesthouse drinking and playing cards with a couple we have made friends with from the UK .

Tonight we leave for LA and have planned a road trip from there to Las vegas for two nights. The last night of our trip we have booked into a nice hotel and we got a deal with dinner and breakfast included a bit of luxury on our last night after months of camping and the last few weeks with outside loos and sola showers!!