pacific paradise

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air new zealand offers free stopovers in a variety of polynesian islands, so we decided to take a little post-christmas/pre-work vacation in the cook islands. the main island is called Rarotonga. these islands are similar in longitudinal location to hawaii, except on the southern side of the equator.

our flight route was from toronto to LA and then to the cook islands. upon arrival to rarotonga, we were greeted by a ukulele playing man in the airport at 6am local time. after collecting our luggage (6 checked in bags - because of heightened US security baggage rules/no carry-on luggage).... we headed off to our beach bungalow which jeff had extensively researched while we were working up north.

we stayed at raina lagoon beach bungalows...and it was absolutely fabulous. we were directly on the beach and had a huge patio which we spent most of our days relaxing/reading/eating on...

the island itself is quite interesting, with only one major road that circles the entire island. we frequently took the public bus to check out different areas of town. the buses are labelled "clockwise" and "anti-clockwise"......making it pretty easy to get around.

we spent most of our time doing pretty much nothing...and loved every second of it. we did manage to squeeze in one hike, called the "cross-island track", which goes directly from the north to the south of the island, over a mountain. we also snorkelled a bit - pretty impressive technicolour fish.

one week was definitely not enough time...but alas, reality calls...

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Photos

the needle
along the cross-island track