Tales of the International Dateline

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Landed at Rarotonga OK after passing over the international date line (yup just regained a day on a 3 hour flight - its mindbending!). Both feeling a little tired after the flight - 3am is never a good time to arrive somewhere! Were greeted by Jake on the ukulele who welcomes all the flights in - it's a bit surreal at that time in the morning. The place is small so the luggage came through OK, but there was no one there from the Rarotongan Backpackers to meet us. Unfortunately the phones only took cards and no money and due to the time there was no where to buy a card. Thankfully a nice lady helped us call the hostel but there was no answer and the phone kept going through to voice mail. As she was driving past she offered to drop us off so we grabbed our bags and hopped into her Jeep! When we got there nobody was up so we wandered up to the lounge and laid down on some tired old settee's where we managed to get a little sleep, except for when the gheckos were screeching and the Minha birds were trying to steal some food.


About 9am a lady from the office came around and we finally managed to get checked in albeit feeling a bit dazed and confused. Our room is fairly cute and overlooks the pool. The view to the sea is of palms and coconut trees blowing in the breeze. Both feeling a bit shell shocked but we got cleaned up and repacked the bags so that we can leave one here whilst we are on Aitutaki (one of the other Cook Islands) next week. Sorted out the transfer for the morning; 7:15 pickup for an 8am flight - its a small place! Headed into town so that we can get a driving license to be able to rent a scooter whilst in the Cooks.

Both got drawn to a curry house which smelt divine and after filling up on a curry and a couple of beers we headed off to the police station to get a local driving license (a first for both of us!). Wandered around searching for a while, just happening to pass some pearl shops, which Beck decided we needed to ask some directions in, before realising that the police station had moved down the other end of town. Finally got it all sorted, had a photo taken and picked up the license before heading back to town (to check out the remaining pearl shops!). Grabbed some food and returned to the hostel. Had some toast and yoghurt (rock and roll again!) watched a film with some of the other guests before heading to bed, both feeling really tired ; its been a very long 20th of December.

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