3^rd January, 2016

We slept in – sunrise is at some ungodly hour it seems, so we slept soundly until 8.30am and then made it down for breakfast by the pool for 9am.  We were greeted with fresh fruit – pineapple, mango, orange & apple with some local Coconut.  We had toast, muesli, coffee & juice. 

By the time we finished breakfast, we decided to go for a walk.  So we turned right when leaving the hotel, and we tried to find “The Yacht Club” where Simon & Rachel used to walk to – and Kayak to from our hotel.  We walked and walked and walked in the sun…. .was very hot – 31 degrees.  The wind was up, so thank god the breeze was lovely and whilst we waked along the roadside, that ran long side the beach, so we weren't often without a direct breeze to cool us down.  Steve had had enough of walking by about 45mins, so we turned around – no where near the Yacht Club.

Check out the stunning Flame Tree!  This one is outside our resort, but they are all over the island and are in full bloom right now - they are stunning!   There are a few "yellow" flame tree's as well, but the red ones are very striking!

We decided to walk along the beach to get back to the Little Polynesian.  Why not?!!!    It wasn't long before we spied this dog, way out in the lagoon on a reef!  He was barking his head off and clearly wasn't happy about swimming back to shore.  

We stopped and watched him for a while and then he took the plunge and swam back.  It wasn't long before he ran up to Steve and they made friends for life, and they walked along the beach together for a while.  Was very cute I have to say!

We got back to our room where the bathers were put on, and we decided to go snorkeling!  WOW – the fish are RIGHT THERE – by the shore – honestly – its amazing!  The visibilty is ok, but not fantastic, due to the winds whipping up the atol.  The further out closest to the ouster reef, the better.   I swam quite far and I was SOOOOO happy with what I saw….. white fish with black stripes.  Big Parrot fish in vibrant blues & greens.  Black n White striped fish, black fish, Sea Cucumbers, bright blue Star Fish small fish, big fish, tiny fish – all there, right at the shore!   Oh and giant Travelli swimming up and down the shore line too!  OMG – a fisher-mans paradise, except you are not allowed to fish here as it is all protected – damn it!

We were out there longer than we anticipated, so we might have seen a tad too much sun (oops)

We then laid on our day bed and had a nanna-nap or two, and had something fabulous to drink before it was once again time for dinner.

Back to the pool, where Steve had the steak again (alas there is nothing else on the menu for him) and I had the chicken as the fish had sold out due to the long weekend – they had run out).

I had been fighting a headache all day but it had gotten the better of me by this stage – I wasn't happy.

We raced back to the room for sunset again.  This night was different….clouds were different – looked like more, but of course there wasn't much when it came time.

We got to talking to some “tourists” and a local – a guy from Fiji who is a Chef who has been here for 8 months.  He was very taken with our photography and he reckons all we'd need is a portfolio of works to take to each resort (and he was keen to introduce us to his Manager of the resort he was working in) and he said they'd buy our work.   There is basically no photographers here that are any good he reckons!    Awwwhhh that was so nice of him to say.  Steve was showing him the back of the camera of some of the sunset shots were were taking – straight out of camera & he was blown away!  :) 

More to drink and off to bed – good night Cook Islands – very happy to be here!

Oh and the sugar-ants….I had forgotten how bad they can be……. And everywhere they get into!  Thank god for Mortien spray – I've sprayed everything to kill the little bastards.  Not that they really harm anything, but if you have anything sweet open (like Malibu) they'll get into it – so all the alcohol is now in the fridge.