Paradise

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We landed at 6am in Rarotonga (the principle island) to be met with lush flora and forna, intense humidity and a lovely man playing the polynesian guitar, we both immediately felt better after the grey chicken incident in LA.

We stayed in town for the first night as we had early morning flights to an outer island, Aitutaki, the next day. We wandered around the shops and lined No's tummy with nutrious milkshakes and chips - I've never seen him so happy.

We flew with Air Raro to Aitutaki in a tiny Saab 340 plane with propellers instead of jet engines. The ride was comfortable with more room than a commerical plane. We knew we were getting close as we could see the Aitutaki islands and outer reef from the windows. Our host, Queen Tutai met us at the airport and placed garlands of Frangipani (polynesian flowers) around our necks and welcomed us to Aitutaki.

Queen took us around the local shops and market to pick up food for our 2 night island stay on Akaiami, a smaller island within the Aitutaki island group. We met Des her husband at the wharf and we were loaded onto the boat and whisked across the lagoon. On the way Des asked us if we had heard of a British TV series called Shipwrecked. He explained that they were filming the fourth series on some of the islands surrounding Aitutaki and that this year there was a third island right next door to Akaiami. How cool is that, we didn't realise we would be so close to see what was going on. It took about an hour to boat across, Des took a detour around Tiger and Shark islands so we could have a nosy at what was going on.

As we neared Akaiami we were faced with our home for the next few days - a picture perfect deserted island. I never knew sea could be so many shades of blue from pale translucent turquoise to deep navy. As I jumped off the boat to wade through ankle deep water to get to the shore a showl of pink fish came to tickle my feet. Gleaming white sand, swaying palm trees and the gorgeous turquoise lagoon - this had to be paradise!

As with all things good there has to be down side and unfortunately our first encounter with the local wildlife came pretty soon after we arrived. As we started to walk our belongings and food supplies into the beach house we were beset upon by mozzi's keen for new blood. Fortunately we had our jungle juice so that kept the mozzi's at bay but they were persistent, little blighters.

We passed our days with swimming and snokelling in the lagoon and when we had enough of lazing on the beach we went for walks around the island. At night the island became very dark which was perfect for star gazing. Our time on Akaiami was very relaxing and was a perfect way to really kick off the trip.

I will attach the photo's in about a week!

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