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Dear all, Once again we write to tell you what we have been doing while you have been hard at work. We spent the last 10 or so days in the Crooks Islands (I think it sounds better than the Cook Islands) zooming around on our hired scooter and exploring the place. We also decided to do the PADI open water dive course and so spent the best part of 4 days reading books and sitting tests. great!. Eventually we were allowed in the sea as we had proved our competence (or lack of) in the pool previously. We both enjoyed it tho we still had to complete practical tests such as taking your mask off under water, and such like. We dived around the reef (Katie, it was beyond belief!). Whilst we were there we decided to walk across the island which we thought was going to be a simple trek but turned out to be rather harder than we expected. It had rained a little previously and was a tad slippery to say the least. At one point we were more or less climbing vertically and clinging on to tree roots. We met an older British couple who were also a little lost so we got lost together. It was quite fun criss crossing the river and scrambling up banks, and we finally made it to the other side about 4 hours later, just a little dirty and tired. The night we left the Cooks we spent the evening having drinks bought for us in the bar opposite the airport. The people are soo friendly. Anyway, we boarded the plane for Fiji a little tipsy on Friday night and arrived in Fiji on Sunday morning after a 3 hour flight. We crossed the international date line. Parts of Fiji are rather Indian and it gave us the impression of what we expect India to be like - lots of taxis, people trying to sell you things etc. We spent a few nights at the beach - where it rained - and met a couple from Watford!!! Who are also teachers!!! One of them taught year 4 at Cassiobury Juniors!!! They didnt support Watford tho , but you can't have everything, can you? We spent a couple of nights at a lovely place on the edge of a rainforest. We did a great treck thru where there were loads of waterfalls and places you could swim. Didn't see much wildlife, tho we saw some enormous fruit bats. From there we went to a small island called Ovalau where we have spent the last week. It was an interesting place as the main town looked something like that from a wild west film - there used to be 52 pubs in the tiny place - once the centre for whaling in the Pacific. Whilst there we did a trek to a village situated in an extinct volcano in the centre of the island. What should have been a 4 hour treck in the light turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. We climbed thru dense rainforest up a mountain (Yvonne says 'With huge spiders') but by the time we got to the top it was already getting dark - and we still had to get down. Our guide then preceded to get lost, nobody had a torch so we had to use lighted banana leaves to light our way when it got really tretcherous. For the next 2 hours we were coming down the side of a mountain in virtual darkness. Yvonne thought that we were gonna have to sleep up there. However, we did make it down and it doesnt seem so bad now - quite an adventure. Whilst on the island we also went to a beautiful sand atoll near by. Enroute in our little boat about 10 dolphins swam and jumped alongside, it was a bit like flipper! We did a dive but the weather conditions wern't great and we were swimming against really strong currents. There were lots of varieties of fish and corals and we even swam amongst reef sharks. Now back on the mainland and fly to New Zealand on Tuesday. Love from Philip and Yvonne Crook
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