After seeing the doctor in Nadi who told me that I was okay to fly but definitely not to dive, I decided to cut short my Fiji trip and head onto the Cook Islands. I caught a bus to the airport and got myself on standby, which meant a few hours waiting around until they were sure they had space. The flight was uneventful except that we went back in time - to all intents and purposes, anyway. We left Fiji on Saturday night and arrived in Rarotonga on Friday night. It was all very bewildering crossing the International Date Line and quite exciting, perhaps because I've watched "Back to the Future" so many times. I felt like I should have done something terrible that day so that I could pretend it never happened and live the day again. It was strange to be 11 hours ahead of GMT and then suddenly 10 hours behind.

Rarotonga is the main island in the Cook Islands group and takes about an hour by bus to circumnavigate. I'm staying in a hostel on the South East side and to get around you take one of two regular buses: the clockwise or the anti-clockwise. Now here's a public transport system I can get my head around. The hostel is right on the beach, which is fringed by palm trees and turquoise water. Perfect!

I met up with James, Eve and Susie and we ended up going to a rugby match on our first day on the island. It was an international between the Cook Islands and Papua New Guinea and cost $5 NZ! We bought ourselves matching t-shirts and cheered the home side (as though we were lifelong supporters in our naff identical shirts) who won pretty easily, 37 - 12. It was the first of two games that would decide who qualified for the 2007 World Cup in Paris, so the PNG team were rather dejected when they lost. I'd never been to a rugby international before, but I imagine that this was a lot more laid-back than most, with children running around and no changing rooms for the PNG team at half-time, who had to sit around on the pitch. They had the scary dance, then the national anthems, prayers and team talks at the beginning. We sat on concrete benches near a lady in a lovely fancy hat and the commentators sat at a desk behind us.

We went to church on Sunday in an old wooden building on the West side of the island. I'd put on the smartest outfit I could dig out of my backpack, but it didn't really pass muster compared with the beautifully dressed locals in their white dresses and suits. The ladies wore elaborate hats, many of which had plastic windows in the top which looked like sun roofs. After the gorgeous singing and rather random sermon (the death of Epsilon, son of David, in battle?), we hit the beach. We wanted to go out that evening, but of course, everywhere was shut.

There are about 10,000 people living on Rarotonga and a few thousand more on the other islands. Apparently there are more Cook Islanders living abroad than at home, as employment opportunities are better in Australia and New Zealand. The people are incredibly friendly, and will go out of their way to help you out. The ticket-taker at the rugby match saw that we were carrying shopping bags with perishables in (as we made a spontaneous decision to go to the match on our way back from the supermarket) and he directed us to a petrol station down the road where we could put our stuff in the fridge! The bus driver took a different route to drop us off at the small stadium and on our way back we were given a lift by the mother of one of the players!

The island is very hilly and craggy in the middle and lush on the outer edges. It's surrounded by great beaches and there are only two roads, both leading in circles around the island. The houses are colourful and neat with well-tended gardens, lots of bougainvillea and hibiscus, and athletic-looking hens and dogs running around everywhere. There are lots of graves around, some in peoples' gardens, with photos and flowers draped over them. People travel around by car or motorbike. Many tourists rent mopeds, but you have to get a license to drive one. We went along this morning to get our licenses and I managed to fail my test! Apparently this is almost unheard of, except in the case of one girl who broke her hip last week. I didn't stop completely at a stop sign (I paused! There was nothing coming anyway!) so I didn't pass, much to the amusement of everyone else at the police station, including the officers.

Dive shops abound here and I feel so disappointed that I can't go out. I was really looking forward to diving here and it's not like I'm going to be back any time soon. My ear shows no sign of getting better and the doctor told me that if I dive, my eardrum will rupture, which can cause vertigo and possibly death, so clearly that's a no!

It's been raining this morning but has started to clear up so I'm going to head on out...