Isolation! Our own desert island...

Our arrival terminal...
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Arriving in on the one flight a week the island has, we disembarked into the strong wind and swealtering heat that would be the feature of our stay. Our first step was to pass through immigration, which was literally a small tin hut with a sign displaying "Welcome to Christmas" (with "Is", as in island, discreetly tagged on to one side.) A primitave start to a very primitive stay! To be fair, we did have our stay at the most sophisticated resort on the island, with hot and cold running water and air conditioning (!!).

Us and our "Leis"
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The first few nights were sleepless ones as we coped with the increased humidity from Hawai'i, and the banging and flapping sheeting that was pulled down each night by a mysterious man with a torch to protect (we think) the windows from the strong night winds. In the end, we managed to form a rudimentary weighting system to keep it stable enough to sleep through.

Our first comment of the island, is that the food was delicious every night! Dishes ranged from tuna steaks, octopus, lobster, stir-frys, and even cheesecake (my fave!!). The most curious dinner we had was the Mantis Shrimp - a local treat, and we were not disappointed! The sight of a live mantis shimp is an imposing one in itself, as it is approximately the size of a lobster and has extremely razor sharp folding claws (like a preying mantis). It tasted like sweet lobster meat, and was really nice.

Our private beach!
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In honesty, the sun was too intense to be out in for our skin, so we spent most of the day reading and playing cards on the veranda (when the strong pacific wind wasn't blowing!) The sea was very warm, and crystal clear. The white sands of the beach and the untouched green of the trees added to the scenery. The isolation from our world was plain to see, as even the basic needs a corner shop brings, were absent! Even the cars had over 174,000 kms on he clock!! In fact the only shops were in London (their capital, named by the British during their occupation for nuclear arms testing!) and even they provided nothing but tins of various foods, and other needless (to us) items.

We were treated on the last night to a special buffet/dance show. The buffet was, as usual, really good - the dance was...odd. There were 3 dances in all, performed by the same local school girl. The first - very traditional, and displayed bird like movements tought by the islands finest traditional dancers. Impressive. However, the by the third dance, the costumes switched to a boob tube and pedal pushers and involved a lot of body popping and general grinding and thrusting, mainly seen in Croydon performed by girls at 1am after one too many WKD's!!

All in all, a nice relaxing week in which the locals were very friendly and good times were had. We were presented with beautiful floral crowns, which were intricately handcrafted and smelled gorgeous. Such a shame that they were fresh and barely lasted the rickoty open backed pick up truck/milkfloat ride to the airport.