Blogs from Cook Islands, Oceania - page 13

Cook Islands After leaving New Zealand and a sad goodbye as the country was awesome, so awesome we spent the majority of our money, oops! Moving on, we are well and truly ready for two weeks in paradise. On boarding our Air New Zealand flight NZ46 we get upgraded to first class with leg room to spare and window seats, result! The flight was really nice and was extra nice because of the three small bottles of Merlot we drank, free of-course! We land 3 hours later, but somehow yesterday at 9:30 in the evening and it’s a nice blast of warm air to greet us, bring on the sun! (Yes I did say yesterday, we travelled back in time when we crossed over the time zones, 1 more day of travelling, whoop!) We’re greeted by ... read more

I am so glad I can sleep on planes! It makes that nine plus hour flight go by much quicker. It's been awhile since I have flown with checked bags, and I had forgotten the tedium of waiting in line for check-in, and then security. There is a reason you should arrive two hours before international flight departures; it took me 90 minutes for all of that (sigh!). The flight was fine, decent airplane breakfast. We arrived in Rarotonga while it was still dark. The attendant on the airplane PA was funny. Throughout the whole flight he speaks to us in an official and formal way with his accent. After we land, his comment is "Welcome to the Cook Islands, a recession free zone". It made a lot of people chuckle. When you enter the airport, ... read more

I made it to the Cook Islands and had a day and a half of the hottest and most humid weather of my life. The island of Rarotonga is a tropical paradise island only a quarter the size of Niue, but with 15000 people. After that glorious day and a half however, the weather turned to stink. 4 days straight of nonstop downpour, and no glimmer of the sun. I still rented a scooter and drove around the island, which took 40 minutes, but the things to do are severely low when the weather is so terrible. It was my first time driving a scooter and when you add the torrential rain, it made for a neat memory. After the first time that is. Every other time that I had to go to get food was ... read more

Brunch - Back to Saltwater Café Lunch - NZ848 Peppered steak pie and potato salad, chocolate mousse (absolutely delicious!!!!!) Unlike our last visit where we had to wait at the RSA across the road from the airport to catch our middle of the night flight, we were able to leave today at a very sociable hour. Following breakfast at the Saltwater Café, we spent quite some time trying to return our scooters. The details aren't interesting in the least, but it is noteworthy that there was no suggestion of stress or impatience from either of us. While my original intention of this Cook Islands blog was to highlight the food, it quickly became apparent that there were more interesting things to think about. Apart from a couple of surprising culinary highlights (eg bbq at Samade and ... read more

Breakfast - Same same Lunch at Royale Takitumu - toast and jam Dinner - Progressive Dinner to Island homes with 30ish American students studying at Canterbury University. The highlights - Ika mata (raw fish in a coconut sauce (even LV enjoyed it) and the hosts singing,while playing ukelele and tea chest bass. Leaving Aitutaki was pretty tough. Vince's bike had some petrol left (TC's had run out and there was none on the island to buy) so we decided a final ride would be in order. Vince had the bright idea of returning to our Ariki to thank him for the hospitality we'd received during our stay. Although TC had to wake him from his snooze under the tree, he was very pleased to hear what we had to say and we were invited into his ... read more