Last best bit of empire

Our driver could not have been mistaken for a ray of sunshine. Perhaps his cat had died or maybe he'd discovered a moth in his sock. Whatever it was, the taxi driver at the airport in Turks and Caicos was having a very bad day.

It was so bad, he wanted us all to share it.

Travelling with a camera crew is never easy. Instead of hand luggage and an irrational hope that you'll be upgraded from cabbage class, you have at least 15 check-on bags and, post-September 11, rather a lot of explaining to do about what exactly everything is.

'Erm, a sort of doofer,' will say Steve, the cameraman, 'for long-range shots of presenters with unnatural facial expressions.'

Obviously essential. And it means we need help to load up when we arrive anywhere. At Turks and Caicos airport we have possibly the rudest cab driver in the world, who helps. But under duress.

'How long will it take to get to Beaches?' asks Karen, the producer/director of the holiday piece we're doing for GMTV.

'Two hours,' he grunts. 'Oh, I thought these islands were really small.' No response. We arrive at our resort ten minutes later. He actually throws our bags off. 'Thanks for being so welcoming,' shouts Karen.

And that's the last bad experience we have (with humans) in the seriously beautiful string of Caribbean islands - one of the last remnants of the British Empire.

From the 17th Century, salt was the big trade, until it was undercut by prices elsewhere and production ended in 1970. The flag used from 1870 featured two piles of salt. Back in Britain, the flag-makers assumed they were igloos and painted a little door on one of them. Bless.

The latest flag has flamingos, a pelican, conch, lobster and turk'shead cactus - a weird succulent which looks like it has a fez on.

Providenciales is the island you arrive at on transatlantic flights. It has the only conch farm in the world. The first thing you have to do is learn to pronounce the little suckers as 'conks', otherwise you get the sort of look Eamonn Holmes reserves specially for me when I ask why 22 boys kicking around a spherical object is important.

Conchs are an endangered commercial species. So thank God for Chuck and his conch farm, is what I say. Although I'm not sure the conchs he farms would be quite so grateful. 'It's tough being the world's only conch farm,' Chuck says. 'I'd prefer to be second. We've learnt everything from scratch.' Can I just share with you an interesting fact about conchs? The male has its penis over its right eye. Something to tell your granny.

The islands have some of the best beaches and dive sites in the West Indies. So we try out Smiths reef for some snorkelling. By 4pm the wind's starting to pick up and the sea's so choppy that Steve and I almost drown in our attempt to get some shots of me snorkelling. At 5pm sharp, the sun goes down and the sea goes inky black. 'It'th a wap,' says Karen with her snorkel on.

There are innumerable islands in the archipelago and one of the bigger ones is Middle Caicos. The best way to go is by boat so you can stop at some of the others. We hire one which is captained by Pringle, a black version of Captain Haddock.

Within five minutes we're at Little Water Cay to look at the iguanas which have colonised it. As we film, the skies darken, the heavens open and we have to crouch under a viewing platform.

Raindrops the size of cauliflowers bounce off the ground. We watch one fat male iguana with its back legs splayed on a prickly plant. 'How inelegant,' remarks Ian, the soundman. 'Perhaps it's a yoga position.'

'Not one I've done, ' I say. 'Maybe it's an advanced posture.'

Back on the boat, Pringle has stripped down to a pair of leopardskin trunks. Grrrrrr.

Apart from Captain Pringle, we also have David on board, cultural officer from the Turks and Caicos Tourist Board. 'A flamingo-he points out in the sky, 'a good omen.'

Everywhere, it's your archetypal paradise shot - white beaches, palm trees and the sort of turquoise sea that looks fake beneath a royal blue sky.

We go past Parrot Cay - where people like Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Willis and Danny Glover have hideaways - past North Caicos and on to Middle Caicos.

David has phoned ahead to a little school where we can have lunch. We enjoy chicken, rice and peas, David plays his guitar and the children join his songs. And then we film hats and bags being made out of palm leaves by three women who have walked over specially and are quietly rustling away.

Next, to the Conch Bar caves where the original inhabitants of the islands, the Lucayans, lived. Now they're home to ravenous mosquitoes. Bites come up under our eyes. Literally. Steve - already a join-the-dots competition - is now colouring in. I get a bite on my lip.

As soon as Karen gives the nod, I'm out of there and into the van with the windows up. Hideous.

We cool off at Mujdin Harbour, a stunning beach nearby where the waves crash into a rocky outcrop. We film David singing The Conch Song to me, strumming his guitar as we stroll along the seashore. The sun is sinking as we head for the boat and race back past all the islands, miles of deserted beaches, miles of aqua sea, miles of pink sky.

The next day we fly to Grand Turk in a tiny plane. Jackie from the Tourist Board has lived there for some months, with her very tall boyfriend who runs the museum ('Nigel, who is long enough to be continued,' remarks Steve after meeting him).

Grand Turk is minute and gorgeous. The Governor of the islands lives there in a sweet white house with shiny brown wooden floors. I know, because his wife, Julia Jones, comes down after spotting us filming and shows us.

'We're in our second year of a threeyear posting and can't bear to think of leaving. It's just so beautiful,' she says.

No one locks their houses or cars because there's hardly any crime. Apparently, last year someone was caught stealing a bicycle and got three months' jail.

We film at the museum, and round the two main streets of the island with their wooden buildings and flowers and plants everywhere.

There are good cafes and restaurants and we have lunch laid on for us at The Water's Edge restaurant. A feast of conch salad, conch fritters, cracked conch, lobster salad and fried snapper and grouper. And rum punches - so strong we can't finish them.

And then we leave without paying the bill! There are compensations for having to work.

Do we get upgraded on the way back to Britain? Of course not. And we have the rudest taxi driver in the world's brother working in immigration at Miami when we have to clear Customs. Great.

But I can highly recommend the little string of islands east of Cuba, just down the road from the Bahamas.

? Sandals & Beaches Holidays (08701 626030) offers seven nights at its all-inclusive resort on Provo from £1,379 for adults and £829 for children up to 12, including return flights from Heathrow. Regional departures cost an extra £65-£80. Visit www.sandals.co.uk

Penny Smith's reports on Jamaica, Barbados and Turks and Caicos will be shown this week in GMTV's Great Escapes series.