We crossed the date line when flying to Rarotonga, the main island and capital of the Cook Islands, so we are now 10 hours behind the UK. We are writing this on the afternoon of Christmas Eve having just finished snorkelling off Titikaveka beach that backs on to our villa. It is in a Lagoon, so the water is very smooth, the reef holding back the Pacific waves, which makes it great for snorkelling. Attached is our official Christmas selfie from our earlier swim together with a photo of Titikaveka beach and some of the fish we have seen.

Scott’s Xmas Selfie

Titikaveka beach

Tropical Fish off Titikaveka beach

Tomorrow on Christmas Day we are flying to an outlying island called Aitutaki and spending the day on a catamaran; cruising, snorkelling and BBQ’ing around it’s fabulous lagoon (no Turkey for us or left overs).

Aitutaki

Life on the Cook Islands is very basic, slow, yet really enjoyable. They are like a dominion of New Zealand, but self-governing – a bit like the Channel Islands. We get around on bikes and the buses. The bus system is fantastic, there is only one road around the island and two buses, one called clockwise and the other anti-clockwise – so you can guess how that works. They run on a sort of flexible timetable every hour and you can hail them at anywhere on the roadside. When you want to get off you simply stand up and the bus stops – we definitely need to adopt this system in the UK! The roads are fairly safe for cycling, the only danger being falling coconuts from the numerous palms.

The architecture on the island is interesting, for example the main parliament building is a posh shack, in fact most of the buildings on the island are shacks! Shipping containers are frequently used as a building resource, an early form of modular construction.

As we are flying off to another tropical paradise, we won’t be able to communicate on Christmas Day, so we wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

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