Day Lag

The kiwi is a flightless bird with wings the size of a liquorice all sort but I think that it might have been able to get me to Rarotonga quicker than New Zealand Air. It wasn't their fault however- a bad front had hit the Pacific Islands which meant that had we even managed to leave Fiji we wouldn't have been able to land anywhere. So we went to Auckland!

Yes, our flight was redirected to New Zealand much to our bemusement. I like to think that it was because you can use kiwi dollars in the Cook Islands and the powers that be knew that we had all changed our Fijian money. But it was the weather really. There was a couple of hours delay while waiting for the NZ authorities to issue visas to those that needed them and then we were off!

The crew on board seemed happy that no-one was making a fuss. Indeed, I had gone to the airport with a group of four other English girls and we thought that it was very funny that we had all already been to NZ and missed it. They even let my mate into the cockpit while the aircraft was still on the ground.

We arrived into Auckland and were all confused about the daylight saving hitting in. The time doesn't change until 2am but there seemed little point getting up at that time just to change the clocks so we went on the new time so we landed around 2am. NZ Air put us up for the night at the Centra Airport Hotel- a nice treat for five Poms who thought that they would be spending that night in various backpacker hostels around the island. In fact, we each got out own rooms and luxuriated in having double beds, hot water, baths and TVs- nicceeeeee!

What wasn't so nice was the news as we all tuned to CNN to hear about the bombings in Bali.

And none of us went to bed before 3.30am. Which made getting up for breakfast a hassle. But it was worth it- also on NZ air, we stuffed our faces with enough food to keep us full for the rest of the day. Our flight was at midday and we arrived into Rarotonga at 5pm on Saturday- 23 hours behind Auckland! Which led to all kinds of confusion- 'this time yesterday, I mean today, which was yesterday... erm.. I give up' etc.

For the record, we left Nadi, Fiji, at 9pm on Friday night, arrived into Auckland at 1am Saturday morning (which was just an hour before daylight saving hit), left Auckland at midday on Saturday and arrived into Rarotonga on Friday night. It is the kind of madness that can only be resolved by a long period laying on a sun lounger gazing at the beautiful blue water and the waves crashing on the reef beyond the island.

It is not really jetlag as the time difference is really only an hour- but the day before. Two Saturdays.. weird!

I am here for another couple of days and then on, hopefully, to Tahiti. Now I have a new NZ stamp in my passport and I had a chance to pick up a couple of things from the airport which I forgot to buy last time I was there- including something that I had promised my sister but been unable to find- though I had bought her a substitute which I can now keep :)

To say that the Cook Islands is Paradise seems no lie to me. The people here are closely related to the Maori of New Zealand and NZ had control over the island until the 60s, inheriting it from the UK in 1901. You can use Cook Island dollars or NZ dollars here- though I have only seen NZ notes so far. But the Cook Island coins are great- the two dollars is triangular! And the one dollar coin has a picture of a Tiki statue on it which is, to say the least, a little explicit! Lucky boy!

I have signed up for an art class tomorrow and hope that I can do the canvas justice with my painting. I fly out the day after tomorrow. I will be in the States by the end of the week which just seems crazy. And home in a month!

Anyway, back to my sun lounger....