So on Saturday,still nursing sunburnt legs, we left Aitutaki and came back for our last couple of nights in Raro. Went to Te Vara Nui village cultural tour and over water night show extravaganza complete with fire dancers. Suffice to say that Tony got fed up learning about the 6 stages in the life cycle of a coconut, didn't pay much attention to how to carve your own log drum, and only memorised selected parts of the polynesian legends. We had a fabulous 'Island ...

Kia Orana from Aitutaki, we've had a bit of trouble trying to upload photos and also updating the map, so sorry about that. We had a lovely flight from Raro to Aitutaki on a very small plane (about 16 seats) to quote one passenger - "Air Rarotonga, where every seat's a window seat"! After about 45 minutes we had an amazing view of the atoll as we came in to land. The lagoon was an unbelievable shade of turquoise. Our accommodation is fabulous, right on the beach....

So our first night in Rarotonga was quite noisy - first thunder and lightening, and torrential tropical rain, then the cockerels started - at 2.15 in the morning! There are hens and cockerels everywhere here and Minah birds which are also very noisy, and lots of cats and dogs too, all very friendly. A local man told us that the dogs like to adopt a tourist for the week and then follow them everywhere! We hired a very basic convertible car (ie wires hanging out of...

Just spent our first day in Rarotonga. Arrived at 7:00am this morning after 31 hours travelling - pretty tired now. It is very hot and humid here and just had a steak and egg burger (Marie had squid rings but they tasted like fish fingers). Lovely beach with hardly anyone around - will try to post some pictures tomorrow. The sunset is nearly as good as in Galway Bay but cloud formations are better. We are going to hire a car tomorrow to explore the island. ...