So after a long flight from LA and the most turbulant flight ever actually got a bit scared at a few points along the journey(Air New Zealand has nothing on Virgin Atlantic i should be a sales person cos i love Virgin) we arrive in the Cook Islands and its really hot! We got a flower in our hair and got sung to by a little local band at the airport and off we went to Varas Beach House, The location was perfect and stunning right on Muri lagoon which is just paradise white sands and clear blue seas. We have our own mini apartment with sea views!! oh yes! We went out in the sea on our first day and waded over to one of the four nearby deserted islands was amazing we saw rainbow coloured fish on our way over and saw coconuts just lying on the sands tried smashing some against some rocks to open but the buggars were not opening for no-one!!! For lunch we ate at the shore and was beautiful. Next we hired a scooter for the day and rode round the whole island...took less than an hour its only 32km the whole way round and we went up a side road and found a lovely waterfall had a mini dip and drove back to our apartment. We also booked our PADI course today and have arranged to do this on Tuesday and will take 3-4 days am quite scared cos they gave us a manual to learn for the theory tests and there is so much physics inside all about air pressure and density and i hated physics at school always switched off so am gonna find that hard and also you need to be able to show that you are strong swimmer and swim 300m and tread water for 10 mins which is so not going to happen!!!! In GCSE PE i swam 25m of the big pool at Folkestone Sports Centre got so tired i had to fake a cramp so i could get out so god knows how i will manage!!! I will keep you updated unless i am so rubbish they dont even let me out to sea!!!! Tonight we are going to the award winning Flame Tree Restaurant but having the cheap skates meal 3 courses for about 10 quid but still looks amazing and faces out onto Muri lagoon so should be lovely. Went to the local market this morning to see if i get buy the famous black pearl but they are really expensive so will have to have a think about that one! Going to the church service tomorrow morning which apparantly is the event of the week so will go along to that to see what their culture is like.

Well since the last update we have hired scooters and rode the 32 km around the island - didnt take long the island is so small. We found a waterfall in the rainforest which was really nice and we had a dip. We then went to set off to find where we wanted to to our scuba diving course, we chose a nice place to go called pacific divers a nice small family run dive centre, we spent mornings doing all the theory and then we set off for the pool where i tried on all the gear for the first time is so heavy i nearly keeled over So i got in the pool and tried some of the skills is so strange being able to breathe underwater i got used to that and we had to take out our regulator - the thing that helps us breathe and swap it with Jonos to show that we can use an alternative air source then we had to fill our masks with water and clear them - this is where my problems began i have never been able to dive in water or swim without holding my nose so it was horrible feeling having water go up it so this took me ages to master eventually i got it but then started freaking out about it all just didnt come that natural to me whereas Jono is a fish he took to it really well and was really good at it. The next day we went into the lagoon for another dive and i hated it the salt water kept on going up my nose and started having panic attacks cos it feels really strange my chest kept going tight felt really claustrophobic, saw a few fish which was cool but kept panicking so i was all set to quit the course i thought if i cant do it in a lagoon or pool how the hell am i going to do it out in the big blue sea i got talked round by my instructor and off we went out to the sea, my god i have never felt so sick in all my life forgot about my sea sickness!!!! What was i thinking i even get sea sick on the seacat or the p&o so off i went feeling very sick and by the time i threw myself off backwards James Bond style i felt so sick i panicked all over again and couldnt do the dive so i had to cling on to the edge of the boat whilst everyone else did their dive feeling like any moment i was going to die, i didnt but i had to go to shore so they could carry on was worst experience of my life so far hated it, Jono on the other hand is doing really well he is even doing the advanced course so he can dive wherever he wants to in the world now without an instructor, i on the other hand am never going near the sea again am staying on dry land god knows how i am going to get on in New Zealand the adventure capital of the world maybe im to much of a weakling but i shall keep you all updated with my adventure sports progress so far Nature 1 Kristina 0.

Am desperately turning into a waif and am craving my junk food as soon as i find a pizza hut in new zealand i am there!

well the second week weather is pretty pants flaming tropical islands keeps raining!!!! I jinxed it last week when i wasted most of the week trying to dive i said oh well at least whilst jono keeps diving this week i can tan but oh no isnt happening im just becoming a very good reader!!!! So havnt been up to much really this week, we went to the local church service on Sunday which was interesting.... and we are going to a traditional island night tomorrow but the local food looks well interesting but we heard rumours that you can opt out and chose from steak chicken or fish instead so gonna go for that i hope! Then off to NZ on the weekend we leave on sat morning but arrive on sun morn even though the flight is only 5 hours as we cross the date line we lose a day argh!!! nevermind ah!

So on our second to last night we were supposed to go to the traditional island night but instead we got inviyed to a bbq that the dive shop was holding so we decided to go to that instead, was really good, we met a nice norweigan couple called Eric and Kristine(who by the way was my norweigan twin, same name, same spelling, almost same birthday and age bit freaky) and Carly who worked at the dive shop who is a kiwi and her 2 mates who came over to surprise her Emma and Paul so we had a good night with them and then went into town after and was a good night, next day we just enjoyed the sun and had a few drinks with our kiwi mates and are going to stay with them later in our trip which should be fun. Were both quite sad when our cook islands adventure was finished cos its such a beautiful place but we had a good time and looking forward to new zealand xx i also forgot to say that we also tried to walk over to one of the motus which is one of the 4 islands opposite muri lagoon, now there is a fish called a trigger fish that swim in the lagoon and they are territorial and 2 of the b******s bit me! i was so scared i was screaming i thought i had been attacked by a shark or something, jono was very helpful he just stood there laughing! so i had to run out of the water with my flip flops coming off and all sorts another reason for me to keep out of the sea i think!!!!