London to Raratonga 

We spent a good evening with Jim in Dalston, eating at Magal, a superb Turkish restaurant very close to his flat, before setting out for Heathrow on Sunday morning. The airport was quiet and so we went straight through check in and security without long queues. 

We had a good view of Concorde, presumably a museum piece now. 

We are flying Air New Zealand to LA and then on to Raratona, one of the Cook Islands.

Our route as displayed on our screens - the plane was still on the runway, so pointing in the wrong direction was not a problem. 

We had cloud for much of the 9000km, but this was the view after 6000km as we flew towards Winnipeg.  

We had left London at 1530 and arrived in LA at 1900 local time, so while we were in the air for almost 12 hours, for most of the flight, we were flying on the edge of darkness all the time. 

LA as we flew in

Los Angeles immigration was the usual long wait, but once through, we had a couple of hours to spare and enjoyed a beer and some good Californian wine before joining our next 10 hour flight. 

Fortunately, we managed to get some sleep on this flight and landed in Rarotonga at 7am on Monday. 

First views of Raratonga from the plane. 

From the Tarmac. 

A warm welcome foe a tired traveller

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The view from our cottage on the beach