Kia Orana! Well, to start with it should be 'Kia Ora' again as we touched down in New Zealand for 6 hrs first. Fortunately we complained to Air New Zealand for causing this delay and they granted the 4 of us access to the first class lounge while in Auckland. We had unlimited food & drink of all kinds, internet, t.v., sofas and showers, all free! The 6 hours flew by! We departed NZ at 4:30pm on 20th April. The flight to Rarotonga was fine and we landed around 10:30pm local time.... on the 19th April!

Our first impression of the hostel was disappointing compared to the hotel in Fiji and New Zealand hostels. The lounge furniture and kitchen both seem dirty and aged and our room in particular is hot and cramped. At least we have our own room for under 10 pppn.

It doesn't take us long to forget about the negatives when we realise where we are. The hostel is on the beach with a fresh and free supply of coconuts, the weather is beautiful and we're just about as far away from home as we could possibly be!

Food here is very expensive as most of it is imported from New Zealand but the money we save by lounging on the beach will be put towards food! There's a bus that circles the island (it takes just 1 hour!) in both directions but is also quite expensive so the four of us decide to rent 2 mopeds for the week for just 40 per bike.

Riding around Rarotonga on the mopeds with the wind in our hair bought back fond memories of Langkawi in Malaysia only this time we had no helmets because they aren't yet legally required and also the maximum speed of the whole island is only 50km/h. For the whole week we abused the transport we had and saw as much as we could!

Rarotonga Backpackers has a really good atmosphere about it and within a couple of days you're on first name terms with everyone! Another bonus is the location on the west side of the island which meant that every night we had a fantastic sunset to admire. By the end of the first week i'd had a coconut just about every day - prepared from scratch using very limited tools!

We spent lots of time at the various beautiful beaches sunning (shading!) and snorkelling. The water is warm and the snorkelling is fantastic. Rarotonga is surrounded by a reef up to 200metres off shore which creates a lagoon around almost the entire island. This means that inside the reef the water is very rarely rough, predominantly shallow, full of sea life and the water is crystal clear. Therefore it's one of the best snorkelling locations. We saw so many different kinds of fish including an octopus. It doesn't beat the stingray we saw in Fiji though (which somehow I forgot to mention!).

We went out to an 'island night' which, in a similar manner to the Fijians, gave an insight into the traditional songs and dance of the Cook Islands.

It has been recommended on numerous occasions whilst on our travels to attend a sunday church service in the Cook Islands so we made sure squeezed that in to our busy schedule! We were not disappointed. The service is carried out partly in Cook Island Maori and partly in English but the main draw is the singing. They sing traditional songs with perfect harmonies which are so fantastic that they almost move you emotionally. Then, if that wasn't enough, they put on a full spread of lunch for the visitors including local fruits, sandwiches, cakes, pancakes, drinks and much more! A true show of hospitality.

We part ways with Becks n Jason as we are bound for Aitutaki and won't see them until we get to L.A. It's about the 3rd time we've gone separate ways temporarily but we shall be travelling the States with them for 6 weeks soon.