Rarotonga

---

We had arranged for the free airport shuttle from our Auckland motel to pick us up at 8am ready for our 11:30am flight to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands on the 16^th August. As we would be crossing the International Date Line somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we would actually be arriving on the 15^thAugust, essentially gaining a whole day – something we wouldn’t be complaining about when we would be arriving on a paradise island!

The shuttle turned up right on time and check-in with Air New Zealand was once again quick and easy – Auckland airport has a large section dedicated to Air New Zealand flights so we were able to just use one of the many self-service machines to scan our passports and obtain our boarding passes. We swiftly passed through security without any hitches and were soon waiting in the departure lounge eagerly watching the screens for the announcement to board the plane. We had a wander around the shops to pass some time, but it was soon flashing up on the screen for us to go to our departure gate.

We boarded the plane and took our seats – the plane was surprisingly large (considering we were only going to a small island!), with two-by-three-by-two seating, with two aisles running down the length of it, and pretty much every seat was filled once everyone had boarded. The journey was only around four and a half hours, so this went by in no time. We both watched a movie on our seat-back screens, and were served lunch on there too, which Emma claimed was the best meal that she had ever had on a plane – pasta salad for a starter, New Zealand salmon with mash potatoes and vegetables for main and a raspberry and white chocolate ice cream for dessert! Craig tried the Thai Beef Noodle salad for his meal but unfortunately he wasn’t so keen on his!

Before we knew it the plane had started its descent, and we landed smoothly in Rarotonga airport very slightly earlier than scheduled at 5pm local time. For the first time in ages we had to actually walk down the steps off the plane and not walk through a tunnel to get to the arrivals terminal - they opened the back door too which was a bonus for us as we were a few rows from the back and thought that we would be at the back of the line at immigration! Due to this, we were soon pulling our bags off the baggage conveyor belt and walking into the arrivals area, where we had been told via email to go to the desk for ‘Vara’s Beach House’, where we would be staying for the next 16 nights.

A lady greeted us and showed us where to wait for our shuttle bus driver, who had just left to drop someone else off. We took a seat to wait and enjoyed the Polynesian music that a local man was playing on a ukulele on a small stage in the arrivals lounge. The driver eventually showed up after about 15 minutes, and we loaded our luggage onto the bus and took a seat. As we drove to Muri Beach (where we were staying), the driver pointed out a few areas of interest and told us a bit about the island. There is only one main road that runs around the entire outside of the island, which is around 30km in total, which gives you an idea of how small the island is! There are just two buses that you can catch to get around – a clockwise bus and an anti-clockwise bus. The centre of the island is a large mountainous jungle, with large peaks looking not too dissimilar from the ‘Lost’ island!

As we made our way, we also noted that there were a lot of dogs just wandering around. We had read previously on the internet that Rarotonga had quite a lot of roaming dogs, although all of them are actually owned by someone so none are technically wild and are actually very friendly, although they do tend to move around in packs. The island actually offers a free de-sexing service for the Raro dogs, we assume to prevent the island from being completely swarmed in unwanted dogs!

We pulled off the road down a track towards the ocean, and soon saw Vara’s Beach House as we emerged through the palm trees. We unloaded our bags along with a few other people and the driver told us our room numbers – the reception closed at 2pm (they don’t really work long hours over there!) so we were to check in properly in the morning. It turned out that we had literally been given the best room on the property! Most of the units are located in a couple of buildings a little further back from reception and the main kitchen area, however our room was located right on the front of the property, on a sundeck overlooking the beach. The only other room located here was a large dorm room which several people would be sharing which was next door to our room. Our room actually had five beds in it (four after they had pushed together and made up two beds as a double) and a large bathroom, so we assume that it was usually also used as a dorm room. We actually didn’t unpack on that first night as we didn’t want to get our hopes up that we would be staying in that room – we thought that perhaps we would be moved to a different room upon check-in the following morning.

Once we had dropped off our belongings in the room (and found the room key hidden under our pillow!), we had a little wander around, grabbing a bite to eat from a Mexican place just down the road. The location really was stunning – Muri Beach is located on a large lagoon with several small islands dotted around it and the white sand beach is lined with palm trees full of coconuts – a proper tropical paradise! The whole island is actually surrounded by a reef so the water is very calm and shallow for the most part, although there are a few passageways where there are gaps in the reef which are actually very dangerous to swim in as the current can suck you out and pull you down – several tourists have actually fairly recently lost their lives by swimming in these areas after ignoring the warnings, but thankfully none of these passageways were located where we were staying.

We also met the first few Muri dogs who were hanging about on our deck – they were very friendly and were happy to receive our attention! We eventually returned to our room and had an early night ready for our first day in the Cook Islands. We arose bright and early the following morning and got showered and dressed before heading over to reception to check in. We still had to pay the balance on the room as we had booked through HostelBookers and had only paid a deposit, but this all went through fine on the pre-loaded card that we had been using in New Zealand – the Cook Island also uses New Zealand dollars as their currency. Once it was all paid up, we were given a bit of local information and given some recommendations about things to do, before being told to enjoy our stay in Rarotonga – we were keeping our amazing room, yay!

Now this is where the rest of our stay in Rarotonga becomes a bit of a blissful blur, and not only would a day-to-day report be mind-numbingly boring for you to read, but I quite honestly can’t remember exactly what we did most days, so I will just note the highlights! For the most part, our days were spent either sitting on the beach or sitting out on the deck overlooking the lagoon. Most days we would take a stroll down the beach and would usually be joined by a dog or two, who would then essentially adopt us for the day! We grew to know and love quite a few of the different Muri dogs over the short time that we were there – they were all so friendly and would love to play with coconut shells, sticks and palm fronds that you threw for them, though none of them really knew the ‘drop’ command and would expect you to chase them for it if you wanted it back! One dog in particular (who we learned from a lady staying at Vara’s was named ‘Charger’) took a shining to us and would often come looking for us on the decking, or would appear from nowhere as we walked down the beach, running up behind us very excitedly once she had spotted us from wherever she had been hiding! There were also a few younger dogs around (probably around 6 months old) that would usually be found play-fighting with each other and some of the older dogs that were willing to play with them - one little black one named Bruno was particularly cheeky and would usually try to play with the larger dogs before pathetically rolling around making some strange noises whilst simultaneously trying to bite their legs – always hilarious to watch! One of the dogs that we befriended would also often be seen jumping on paddle boards for a ride which was quite a sight to see!

As you’ll see from the photos, we did hire a kayak on our first full day, which we had for 3 hours. We spent this time paddling around the lagoon, looking at the coral reefs and the fish swimming around them in the crystal clear water and also visiting a couple of the smaller islands, where we got off the kayak, pulled them onto the sand and had a bit of a wander around. Of course, a couple of dogs were around – they had actually walked/swam across the lagoon to one of the islands to have a little explore of their own on the rocks, although one did almost capsize our kayak when he decided to swim out to us and try to climb on board as we paddled around the island!

We also took several trips into the main town of Avarua on the bus. There was a large supermarket here where we stocked up on food a couple of times to save costs (eating out is quite expensive – in fact, food in general is probably the most expensive that we have seen it on our trip), which we would then cook up in the communal kitchen at Vara’s. There were a few other shops in the town which we had a wander around too. Every Saturday, a large Market was held just outside of the town centre, which we visited on our second Saturday. It was pretty vast, with plenty of stalls selling the usual crafts, clothes, accessories and food items, and we spent an hour or so wandering around and trying a bottle of freshly made mix of Paw-Paw, Mango and Orange juice – yum!

We also spent an evening away from Muri Beach on the other side of the island at a place called Edgewater Resort to enjoy their ‘Island Night’ This consisted of a large Polynesian buffet, which we enjoyed whilst being entertained by a local band playing Polynesian music on their ukuleles and guitars. We were then treated to a cultural show after dinner, where a large group of drummers and singers played traditional songs as a dance troupe performed several dances to the rhythms – the men usually adopting a fast, energetic, warrior-like style of dance for most songs, whilst the girls (usually dressed in extravagant costumes with large head pieces) danced more with their hips and adopted a smoother-style dance, kind of like the hula-style that you might associate with Hawaii, although some dances were much faster-paced and energetic. It was an excellent show, and we left feeling both stuffed from the lovely food that we had eaten and impressed with the night that we had experienced.

Most mornings we were woken up by the crowing of roosters that roamed around (although they would sometimes be heard in the middle of the night, which was a bit weird!), and also the beating of drums from the 9am ‘Koka Lagoon Cruise’ boat, which would depart just next door to us on the beach. It was a pretty nice way to wake up, and the boat would return at around lunch time for the afternoon cruise, where we would once again be treated to the songs played by the band on the boat (which we later noticed were actually part of the band that had played at the Island Night!). There was also a rope swing tied to a tree just off the deck, for which a platform had been built to take off from. You could really get some height on that thing and it was a great feeling to swing out over the beach twelve foot or so into the air! It turned out that on our last day there, we had actually unknowingly shown one of our air stewards how to use it – he recognised us as he served us drinks on the plane!

Craig also spent a fair amount of time trying to get into coconuts! He actually climbed a palm tree to get his first one – which he then kind of fell out of whilst trying to get down and ended up scraping his arm! The tree that he climbed can be seen in the picture that he is standing underneath whilst pointing at his injured arm. The other coconuts that he de-husked and opened up (a total of seven altogether) were found on the beach so no more climbing was required! Getting into them turned out to be quite a job with no proper tools (the locals usually use machetes – we actually saw some school kids being taught this in a lesson as we passed one of the schools on the bus!). Coconuts do not grow on the trees like the little brown hairy things that you see on a Bounty! They actually have a very thick outer layer that has to be removed to get to the coconut inside. Craig’s method usually consisted of smashing the bottom of it against a rock whilst peeling off the husk (a difficult task in itself as the husk was very tough to remove!), before then either piercing the pores on the bottom of the coconut (there are three on each one that make them look like bowling balls!) or smashing it against a rock to crack it open.

The coconut water was nice and sweet, and the coconut flesh itself was pretty tasty, although it tasted loads better after a Maori guy on holiday from New Zealand allowed us to borrow his tool which you could use to shave the white coconut flesh into the little pieces that you usually find coconut in – I guess the increased surface area just allowed it to stay that bit more creamy and we pretty much devoured a whole bowl of the stuff, it was delicious! However, most of the time we would just feed the whole coconut (including the water) to any dogs that were hanging around with us for the day, and they loved it! One dog (the largest one who we suspected was part Great Dane as he was huge!) pretty much ate two whole coconuts in one sitting – it’s actually really good for them too and helps to keep their coats nice and shiny. Craig also climbed a tree to get a paw-paw to try (again grazing the same arm on the way down!), although it wasn’t fully ripe so it didn’t really taste very nice!

So I think that sums up our stay in the Cook Islands! We were pretty much cut off from civilisation for over two weeks as we didn’t have a TV or radio so we had no idea what was going on in the world, but it was quite nice to not have to hear about some of the horrors that you often hear in the news – it’s no wonder really that Rarotonga is a very peaceful island with barely any crime at all, they really have the most relaxed lifestyle that we have ever experienced, and they were all so happy all of the time – one of the bus drivers in particular seemed to LOVE his job, he had a headset with a microphone (none of the other drivers had this so it wasn’t mandatory) and would pretty much give us a little tour of the island whilst telling jokes and bursting into song at various intervals – it was quite surreal to be sitting on a bus whilst the driver was singing ‘In the Jungle’ at the top of his voice!

We did purchase a bit of data at an internet café just so that we could message our parents to let them know that we were ok, as our phones wouldn’t connect to a network so we couldn’t send or receive any texts, although the internet was very expensive so this was pretty much all we used it for.

Our flight out of Rarotonga to Los Angeles wasn’t departing until 11:59pm on the 31^st August, so we had the whole day and night to spend outside of the room, as we had to check out by 10am. Unfortunately, this was the one day that it decided to THROW it down with rain all day – we’ve never seen it rain so heavy for so long! This meant that we were stuck inside for most of the day, but we managed to pass the time by playing games on our phone and reading magazines that had been left in the communal area. However as it got dark, the room filled with mosquitoes due to one of the window panes being missing, and we are now both covered in bites, which kind of sucks as we had managed to avoid this in our room by not leaving any windows open (although we were visited by several small lizards so it may not have been all that effective)!

We said our final goodbyes to Muri Beach as we boarded the shuttle that we had booked for 9:30pm, and it didn’t take long for us to check in at the tiny airport! Our plane took off right on time and we were on our way back to the USA, where we would be embarking on a road trip around California, Nevada and Arizona!

---