Islands of Eden    Deep in the heart of the Pacific lie the Cook Islands, veritable Gardens of Eden

From where we stand the view conveys a daunting sense of isolation.

We are encircled by the 270 degree arc of the Pacific Ocean, its immensity of deep blue restrained by a thin undulating ring of breakers delineating the fringing reef. Only at our backs is the rock-solid reassurance of Te Rua Manga, a sheer pinnacle of volcanic breccia.

Is this really the water planet? We are half a world away from the nearest continent; only the lush green jungle and rust red earth at our feet can counter this sense of dislocation. Across a chasm rise sawtooth peaks, their verdant slopes dotted sparingly with hibiscus. Wide, steep valleys drop away to a golden ribbon of sand.

The Cooks are the kind of place where a high-rise resort runs to two stories; where most evenings you find yourself downing a beer with your hosts. Mine host’s backyard ends at the shoreline, where the sunset turns on a gala performance night after night after night... Rarotonga and the other Cook Islands lay hidden in the vastness of the Pacific until its discovery a bare few hundred years ago by the legendary Polynesian navigators. The islanders still retain close cultural and political ties with New Zealand.

All day long, figures wade or paddle in the lagoons, silhouettes against the brilliant sky. At dusk the tidal pools are populated with gatherers, for now is the best time to fossick for octopus, crab, the spaghetti-like roe of beche-de-mer and other delicacies.

Our lodgings are a cluster of unassuming apartments, between the main road and the coral beach. Across the road is one of many small stores, dusty shelves cluttered with packaged groceries and a few local greens. The storekeeper hands back a $3 (yes, three dollar) bill, its design commemorating a princess who was borne on a shark's back.

Avatiu harbour must be an archetype South Seas outpost. Spiked peaks rise up sharply behind the palm-fringed esplanade. A motley flotilla of tramp steamers and yachts lies at anchor; shipping containers are heaped on a quay like rusty building blocks and across the road are the peeling colonial verandahs of the Cook Islands Trading Company. In a makeshift market beside the harbour, stall holders offer sweet potato cakes and delicious ika mata, fish marinated in lemon, lime and coconut milk.

Avarua is the village-like national capital, and its most historic building is the whitewashed 1840s mission church, the churchyard packed with tombstones whose inscriptions reveal much of the island's past. One for instance is ... Sacred to the Memory of the Revd. I. Williams... who was Massacred by Deluded Natives ... whilst Attempting to Convey them to ... their Salvation.

Nearby, the consecration of a new church has brought forth a smorgasbord of taro, sweet potato, arrowroot, marinated fish and meats smoked in the Umakai or buried oven.

Our circum-Rarotongan bicycle expedition is interrupted by the ceremonial launching of a vaka, an ocean-going canoe. Islanders wearing grass kilts and headbands join in prayers. Under an elevated platform bearing a heavily tattooed, spear-wielding chief, the huge twin hulls inch out into the roadway, manoeuvred carefully under powerlines and trees, and the sweating, straining bearers stop often for chants and hip swinging dances.

Rarotonga's thirty kilometre ring road seems endless in the early afternoon sun. We pedal past humble homesteads of coral cement. The corrugated iron roofs may be rusty but the riotous bougainvillea, frangipani and hibiscus glisten as bright and fresh as can be. To Western eyes the backyards are a paradise of coconuts, mango, bananas and breadfruit.

In the verdant valleys thrive the greatest riches of this island cornucopia. As we wind into the head of one valley, the bungalows of today's islanders speak volumes about an unpretentious but comfortable lifestyle. The ubiquitous pigs wallow contentedly under backyard banana palms, growing fat on fallen mango fruit.

Past the last bungalow, flooded terraces rise in tiers to the head of the valley, planted with the huge heart shaped leaves of taro, the staple tuber of Polynesia. Sultry bananas dangle their sensuous purple flowers and pawpaw and spiky headed pineapple flourish in rows, alongside cassava, kapok and sweet potato.

In this natural hothouse, fragrant gardenia flourishes untended alongside wild hibiscus, a deep dayglo pink and purple bougainvillea. Fragile pink and white petals sprout from the gnarled frangipani branches. Fragile pink and white petals sprouted from the gnarled stumps of frangipani.

Aitutaki atoll proved to be an even more isolated speck of land, 300 km across the Pacific, a fifty minute trip aboard Air Rarotonga's 18 seater commuter aircraft. On our descent Aitutaki's lagoon spread below like a huge ring of coral, low islands dotted about like emeralds, enclosing a basin of a clear, limpid turquoise.

Aitutaki's terminal was just a trio of weathered wooden huts amidst an expanse of waving grass. Squeezed into an open-sided truck with wooden bench seats we jolted several kilometres into town over roads of crushed coral.

Thomas, our guide, offered a homespun commentary illuminating our glimpse of the township dozing by the harbor. We bounced past the London Missionary Society's whitewashed 1828 church, the colonial administrator's Residence sheltering under a gigantic mango tree and the plots of vanilla and coffee beans.

Aitutaki's true beauty became evident revealed only as we waded out to a powerful speedboat then raced across the wide, shallow lagoon towards one of the motus, or atoll fringe islands. Local families paddled across for the weekend, no doubt fleeing the unbearable tension of urban life! Behind the fringing casuarinas stood their traditional steep roofed cabins, now used only as weekenders, woven sleeping mats in place on the floor and washing strung up.

Once lunch comes up in the net or on the line, there is little else needs doing except to paddle gently back and forth in the outrigger to amuse the baby, or watch the frigate birds wheeling and mating in the treetops behind. The visitors' day passed in a daze of fierce sun, crystalline waters and waving palms, combing the dazzling white sands for shells. Lunch was no great logistic effort: reef fish were hauled in effortlessly, cleaned, gutted and grilled, fresh fallen coconuts offered up their clear cool water.

Later, we would snorkel above isolated coral patches, in clear water a metre deep, mingling effortlessly with huge royal blue starfish, blue and purple lipped clams, white and gold striped fish - an underwater Garden of Eden.