After 4 months of running around the world at what seems like an unmaintainable pace, our next stop on The Cook Islands offered the chance for a well earned rest and the unimaginable thought of not having to board any form of long distance transport for eight days! This leg of the tour also offers me the chance to write a relatively brief blog, particularly when compared to the recent barrage of prose that we have spouted since our time in Australia and New Zealand. I can basically sum up our eight days with one word: beach. Although there are some minor details to add along the way, and the couple of days we spent in Los Angeles when connecting to South America, this really shouldn´t be a strenuous one - so here goes!

Rarotonga - the largest of the islands - is a stunning place; white sandy beaches surrounded by the bluest of lagoons teeming with coral and accompanying marine wildlife that are well protected from the harsh South Pacific waves by a coral breaker a couple of hundred metres offshore. The only downside as far as we were concerned is that the beaches weren't quite as wide as we expected, and for the most part only left three or so metres to relax in. Inland there is a single 32km road that encircles the island, and within that a hill covered in luscious forest. Oh, and as expected it is hot and humid - ridiculously so.

The guesthouse we stayed in was extremely comfortable and so we spent most of our time on the island either relaxing at the beach or in the hostel and garden - that was abound with tropical fruits that we were told to help ourselves to - either reading, playing scrabble or watching films when the tropical rain was falling. On the first day we experienced how dramatic that rain could be as we got the bus around to the local market in the main town and spent the following hour getting absolutely soaked as most of the stalls closed up and our adventure was brought to an abrupt end. It was at that point that we decided not to venture too far from 'home' again. We did, however, manage to take care of some housekeeping by buying some essential food items to see us through the next few days. To our utter outrage we had unknowingly wondered back into a land where food costs more than your average mortgage in the UK, and just to give you a feel for how outrageous the price of food is on an idyllic island, a run-of-the-mill cabbage sets you back around £7.50. Jeepers!

In the following few days we donned the free snorkelling gear and I spent many an hour exploring the corals, which truly are amazing. Kate, although previously very excited to see some creatures of the sea, spent the first five minutes in the water jumping out of her skin when unidentified marine life came whizzing past, so much so that she kept losing her breath and dipping the top of her snorkel under the surface line and inhaling salty water. It made me chuckle and it didn´t take her long to realise that her preferred environment was land bound on the bright white sands. To even up the humiliation, once back on dry land, in an attempt to become the Cook Islands very own Bear Grylls, I decided that it would be great to drink from one of the hundreds of coconuts dangling tantalisingly from the palm trees. Unfortunately whilst wrestling the fruit from the tree I managed to pull it down directly onto my head which hurt like hell. In my defence, once it was down and cracked open, it was delicious! That coconut was the first of many in what became almost an all you can pick and eat buffet of coconut, star fruit, slightly-unripe-but-delicious-none-the-less-passion fruits, papaya and banana that accompanied the numerous games of scrabble played in the garden.

When we finally ventured out to the main town again we decided to take in one of the famed Island Nights; an evening of traditional island food, music and dancing. We went with Sandra and John, another couple from the guesthouse, and were all very relieved not to be picked for public humiliation, I mean audience participation - the dancers' hip movement was both terrifying and impressive!

The only other real event of note on the island was when we hired a sea kayak and explored a few kilometres either side of our preferred zone. It was great to look back at the island from the sea and recognise the tiny scale on which this tropical paradise existed amongst the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. We paddled around an even smaller island offshore and over to yet another one where we explored the warm shallow waters and fine golden sands. And that was that. On the seventh day, when God was busy taking a nap (lazy), we boarded a plane to LA and enjoyed all the comforts that Air New Zealand has to offer for the last time.

On arrival in LA, well Santa Monica to be more precise, my love for the States was again reignited as we strolled around lovely pedestrian streets in glorious February sunshine, did some shopping for a few items of clothing - the size of which were just not well catered for in Asia - and enjoyed masses of food. Having only a day and a half to explore we tried to cram in as much as possible and took a bus ride up to Hollywood through Beverly Hills 90210. After playing a bit of "I wonder which famous person lives in that giant house" we strolled along the Avenue of the Stars before trying to find who's hands were as big as ours at Mann's Chinese Theatre. I was very pleased to find that Nicholas Cage has a fine pair of mitts but Kate was rather disappointed to find that they had removed Marilyn Monroe's slab. Back in Santa Monica we did the classics such as grabbing a slice, checking out the beach and pier and making use of free internet in the Mac store before we again had to hit the road after a single relaxing night. It was time to move on to a totally different kettle of fish - South America and its vastness.

Ciao for now,

Alan and Kate xxx