Woke up early don't know if it's because we're on the east coast or because I'm still a bit confused about the time zones - we lost a day, but now there's an extra day n the month, so it should average out! Found it's easier if only one of us is trying to move around inside the camper van at one time, not much room and it seems to rock like a boat! But we slept well and after Tony had a run and a swim, we set off for the Bay of Islands further up the coast. Had...

Greetings from the Time Traveller's Wife here in New Zealand! We left Rarotonga on Monday 27th Feb, and after a 4 hour flight arrived in Aukland on Tuesday 28th, having crossed the international date line. There was a fair bit of turbulence on the way, and I did wonder if that was the moment we crossed the line, but Tony gave me one of his looks, so I guess it wasn't ! We picked up our Britz camper van, complete with lots of lizard logo stickers all over it , and...

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...