Hey guys,

Well here's the update. On Fri, we left LA, unfortunately after consuming copious amounts of alcohol to celebrate St Pats. We met up with an irish girl, Aislinn, that we'd met in SF and a couple of scottish lads, Dave and Mark. There was green dye in our beers and it flowed a bit too freely. When I get somewhere where the computer systems is more than just a man with a typewriter (pretty much) I'll upload the photos. We're not 100% sure of the check in procedure in LA cos its a little bit of a haze, but we managed it and raging hangovers followed shortly!

Having left LA on fri night, we arrived in Cook Islands early Sat morning, about 9ish local time. This place is literally like heaven. Thankfully no one has really discovered it so it remains a haven of peace. There is one road that circulates the entire island and two buses that go in different directions around it. The opening hours of the shops are 8 til 1 and no booze is sold on sunday, much to our dismay!!

On our first day we spent it on the beach, and then in the evening we went to a sandals resort for an absolutely gorgeous dinner that cost about a tenner! Yesterday the heavens opened but it was that really warm rain that actually makes the air easier to breath so we went for a swim again and then spent the evening playing cards.

The hostel/villa we are staying at is about a 3 minute walk from the beach, which is white sand and crystal clear water. All the buildings within view are owned by the same people and security is not an issue. The villa is left completely unlocked and apparently crime does not exist! We are sharing a room with a boy and girl, who are reasonably dull and keep themselves to themselves, apart from boring us with the statistics involved in playing cards!! Yesterday two welsh boys, Aron and James, came to stay and they are seasoned travellers and a lot of fun, and we've also got neighbours, Kate and Anne who come and play cards with us.

Today the weather is glorious and we are planning on taking the bus into town as I have to go to the bank. They gave me too much money and by the time I reached Vara's beach house, they had already rung me on someone elses mobile twice, see, crime really doesn't exist! We're then gonna spend the afternoon on the beach topping up our burn and the boys are cooking a barbie tonight and I imagine a small sherry will be consumed.

Hope all's well back in blighty, I've got some awesome photos but here is a bit basic and in Fiji they only have electrcity between 8 and 12 at night so they'll have to wait til Australia. My phone is also dead in both places so I'll try to contact people via pay phones but they're only on the Fijian main land and we're not planning on staying there for even a night, so I might be out of range for the next month. Anyway, I'm just gonna get back to the blistering sun and white beaches, life's really tough sometimes...................