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Cook Islands & The Jurassic Park soundtrack

We powered up the North Island of New Zealand and stayed with our friend Alisha who we had traveled with in China and after a pleasant stay in Auckland we jetted off to the Cook Islands and as we flew onto the island we got a chance to view its beauty by air, from the sprawling emerald-green lagoons to the dramatic mountainous centre of the island (cue Paul singing the Jurassic Park theme tune every half hour)

Our hostel was right on the beach with an amazing view of the lagoon and nearby smaller islands. After a few quiet days relaxing on the beach and exploring the small town where we were staying, we decided on going for a meal in the main town on the island, which featured local delicacies and some things that we just daren't ask what they were, which was followed by a show featuring traditional song and dance routines as well as audience participation with Suze getting up and dancing along, much to her embarrassment and Paul's amusement (he took a lot of photos...)

Hogging round the island

The following day we hired a motorbike

Enjoying the sun in the main town

for the week and visited the markets which were interesting and full of people and again had local bands playing. With our bike and Paul's brand new Cook Islands drivers license (valid until 2011) sorted we continued to explore the island and get off the main road into the heart of the island. We stumbled upon a rugby match that had attracted a huge amount of support and also saw a wonderful sunset & found some great snorkeling spots with clear waters and plenty of fish.

Sunday arrived and so we set off for church {as usual...} and watched the interesting sermon and were afterwards invited to a huge banquet that was being held by the deputy Prime Minister's wife which had some fairly interesting foods, including octopus amongst other things.

While the weather was hit & miss for the final week, we spent a lot of time playing bat & ball, yahtzee and eventually a lot of beach cricket when the sun was out and also explored the islands close by where we successfully managed to break into a coconut, annoy some German tourists by asking them to take a photo of us all jumping at the same time (turned out to be more difficult than you could imagine) and also painfully swim back to the mainland over some sharp coral. We finished our time with a great night out where after sampling all four of the islands bars, we eventually made it back to the hostel in the wee hours to finish off the jelly and chocolate mousse that we had decided to make earlier that day. The following morning pretty much everyone staying at our hostel groggily got up and waited around for our same plane at midnight heading to America and the final part of our trip.

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