Blogs from Cook Islands, Oceania - page 36

The flight back to Raro from Aitutaki was on the really small island hopping plane - although it was really packed out this time - but the flight was easy and smooth. The weather was much better so there was chance to see the Aitutaki lagoon and island as we departed - which let us see what we had been exploring for the last week or so. As we were on a domestic flight Vara's (the backpacker hostel for the next few days) would not lay on a transfer for us. The cheapest way was to get on the Island bus - there are two buses; a clockwise and anticlockwise which go round the island kind of hourly! It took us a few goes to get it right, and the bus drivers were a bit tempramental ... read more

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas/Boxing day with lots of joy (alcohol induced or otherwise), and good times with family and friends. It's still christmas eve here, and my cabin mates adn i are going to church - they have 3 choirs performing and one of our cabin mates went last year and said that its enough to lift the roof. can't wait!! I've started my elective experience, and it's quite good. there's another med student from Melbourne, whos really keen and seems to be studying an awful lot for his holiday.... I'm doing a 2 week surgery stint first up and it's very hard because OH&S isn't really a priority here, primarily because of the cost i think, so facemasks aren't compulsory in theatre (unless you're scrubbed), there are only 3 ... read more

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 ... read more

Howdy doody peeps Lots of news - Yesterday Ben adn I took the best cruise to the south east corner of hte island to a place called Muri Beach. We went in a little boat with plaited coconut leaves for a roof and skirted through the coral to get to an awesome marine reserve where they have tons of fish, giant clams and they have a little demonstration black pearl net/contraption. It was absolutely fantastic and we snorkled for about 40 minutes and then the guy went under the boat (glass bottom) and fed the fish - Got some great snaps. After snorkling and working up an apetite we went to a little isolated tropical island for lunch prepared by the Cook Island hosts. We had potato salad and coleslaw (not very cook island) and pawpaw ... read more

On our way to the Cook Islands we flew past the dateline so we had the bizarre experience of re-living a couple of days! Basically we left Fiji on the evening of Saturday November 18th, and then landed in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands on the evening of Friday 17th November. So, we had 2 17th’s and 2 18th’s of November! It was late when we landed and it was really windy and raining! On the flight they had even mentioned that we might have to land on another island because of the weather. Luckily, we landed on the right island for us - Rarotonga - but the weather was bad! We got the shuttle bus from the airport to our hostel. The room that we had was really nice and we just ‘crashed out!’ We ... read more