The Cook Islands have always seemed to me like one of those places that might not actually exist – some fevered dream concocted by tourism boards and overenthusiastic travel writers.

A cluster of specks on the map, adrift in the vast Pacific, where the promise of paradise seems almost too good to be true. So, it was with a mix of scepticism and anticipation that I found myself stepping off a plane, bleary-eyed and clutching a slightly crumpled boarding pass, onto the tarmac of Rarotonga, where the air was thick with the scent of frangipani and salt, and the sky stretched on, impossibly blue.

Now, I’ve stayed in my fair share of hotels over the years. From the slightly terrifying neon-lit motels of regional Australia to the grandiose hotels of Europe that smell faintly of dust and old money. But the Nautilus Resort was something else entirely.