So we arrived in Rarotonga with the beautiful music of an old man playing an eucalaly (don't know how you spell it but a small guitar) resounding in our ears. The guy has an OBE because he has greeted every flight into the Cook Islands for the past 20 yrs and most of them arrive at 3 in the morning like ours. The security guy let us through customs with bags of food (which we declared) despite big signs everywhere saying "Keep out pests no food allowed to be brought on the island" our first experience of island hospitality. Next we experienced the infamous "Island Time" as we waited for our ride to the hostel to arrive.

The next couple of days we spent on the island were wonderfully relaxing after our hectic New Zealand schedule. But the weather was rubbish overcast and raining.

Laura went and got a Cook Island driving liscence so we could hire a moped which involved her taking a driving test. Once round the block with a police escort assessing you. Despite taking no time to practice not being able to turn her indicators off and travelling very slowly she passed and so we spent the rest of the time on Rarotonga travelling by Scooter. Kate tried once to ride the moped but found her legs too short, so when she stopped her legs wouldn't touch the ground so she just toppeled over. When she was picking the bike up she tried to raise it using the handle bar that is the accelerator and got dragged along with the bike for a few metres. Kate was fine the bike was scratched up (luckily the hire company knew it was Laura's first time on a moped and so gave her a rubbish one and didn't mind the scratches), but it was the end of her moped career.

We met some really cool people at the hostel, and spent one afternoon with them playing volleyball on the beach. One of the guys was Brazilian and he scampered up a coconut tree got down some coconuts used a machetee to open them up so we each had our own refreshing drink of coconut water. We also spent lots of the evenings with them playing a card game called "a*******" which Laura rocked at and watching dogdy DVDs. Rarotongan people love DVDs.

Other days we went to the supermarket to stock up on food, enough to last our stint in Atiu. We also went to Muri Beach the most picturesque beach on Rarotonga, we found that if we drove across a rugby field (local stylee) we could drive right up to the beach without having to walk anywhere. Laura waded over to a near by island off the coast trying to avoid stepping on the vast quantities of sea slugs on the sea floor. Kate sunbathed. Laura can back after exploring the island and then Kate decided to go and explore the island and Laura sunbathed (sunbathed when the sun came out from behind the clouds!). Then we both had fun swinging off a stick tied to a tree with some rope.

On Saturday the locals hold a market which was very enjoyable but quite touristy. We watched a show put on by some Australian teenagers who were rapping about Jesus (The JC) and Christianity and also trying to brake dance in celebration of the Lord. Now Cook Island people are very religious and you should have seen the faces of all the old women and men watching children rap about God! The market was great in allowing us to buy cheap fruit and veg and we stuffed ourselves with toasted paninis and waffles and icecrean even though it was 10 in the morning!

That pretty much sums up our first visit to Rarotonga, except on the last day Laura dropped the moped off at the town and was walking really fast to meet Kate at the airport for our flight to Atiu, when an old Lady picked her up and drove her too the airport. Another example of island hospitality!