Pedestrian My feet are black. I may have only owned my jandals for a week but they have a month’s worth of miles on them already. I am truly pedestrian. I have not rented a bike and I don’t want to rent a motorbike - I can hardly afford it anyways - despite it being the most common mode of transportation here. So I walk or run, depending on how much time I have to get to where I am going and if it’s ok for me to be sweaty when I get there or not. All in all I [View Full Entry]

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Ending the First Week So now I've been here a few days and am starting to get settled. The canoe club around here doesn't paddle every day and it's Constitution week - meaning many places are closed - so I havn't had much to do about canoeing. Instead I've been sorting out what's around this place and getting some miles in. I don't have a bike or anything yet so the only ways to get around are walking, running, or skipping. Last time I skipped someone made fun of me so I stopped. Basically it means I've been putting a [View Full Entry]

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A Taste of Outrigger If you truly want to taste outrigger simply mix some water and salt, load it into a SuperSoaker, and spray it into your face while running; don’t forget to enjoy. It’s a Saturday morning and the paddlers have gathered and moved the canoes to the water. We assemble at the rocky beach, awaiting Fletcher to tell us where to sit and where to paddle to. I trudge into the water and awkwardly slink into 5 seat, just in front of the steerer. A light drizzle is irritating me slightly but the drops are small and these [View Full Entry]

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Tiare Village So this post is meant more for the Cook Island traveler community than anything else. When I arrived here I stayed at Tiare Village at first. This post will describe the place and my thoughts about it (along with a secret for staying cheap in the Cooks). The pictures below hopefully say a lot. Other than them I've only got a few comments. The place is run by Adrianne who is a sorta pretty nice lady. After a day or two though you realize she's really out there to make a buck though. For example, one of the girls [View Full Entry]

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Getting Gone Hard to believe but I actually made it. For those of you who didn't hear I was stuck on the tarmack in Boston for 3 hours, which made me miss my connection to the Cooks, a flight which only goes once a week. After waiting in line for an hour I was finally able to get a flight the next evening to Auckland and then on to the Cooks. They wouldn't put me up in a hotel because it was a weather delay and since it was 2AM Pacific (felt like 5AM) I just got a discounted room at [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Rorotonga on Tuesday the 15th July after leaving Auckland on the Wednesday the 16th July. We travelled back in time because we crossed the international date line an hour or so into our short 3 hour flight. As we landed in Rorotonga we got to see the sea and Lagoon on one side and the mountain peaks on the other. There was no room for error on the landing as the island that encircles the island runs along the end of the runway and after the road, the lagoon and sea encroach. We did an Island tour which [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, Thanks for your comments and messages, it's always nice to know people back home are thinkin of us!! Really appreciate it. Anywayy, two days ago we were in town and bumped into the lady who's been helping us at the New Zealand Commission...we said hi and she asked us if we'd picked up our brand spanking new passports as they'd arrived!! Yayy!!! WOOHOO!!!! So the worrying is all over!! The new passports look a bit odd, and my photo is absolutely hideous, i had to get it taken here after a night of little sleep and lots of worrying, [View Full Entry]

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Well, there has been some progress since I last wrote...basically due to an angry e-mail from my Dad which our landlord told me went to the primeminister?!, Nick and I going on tv, shouting in the police station and ranting to anybody who listened...the police ended up taking us seriously. We had to make a new report and a statement, as before they made a report our passports had been burned in the fire (easier for them) instead of saying they were actually STOLEN, the case has been in the papers most days and the crime was moved to different department [View Full Entry]

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I would be telling you about the fantastoc diving we did on Sunday, or the cool day we had just chilling out on the beach on Monday....but unfortunately all that has been overwhelmed by the events that occured on Sunday night.... Nick and I had cooked dinner and were chilling in our room reading at around 7pm. We heard really weird noises - glass crunchign and breaking, people running...it was really odd but Nick suggested it could be rubbish collecting...sounded plausible....five minutes later the noise grew too loud to ignore. Nick popped his head out the door and shouted at [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone!! Well we had a great last few days in NZ. Nick managed to get a days skiing in so he had funwith that. I was a bit terrified driving upto the ski resort though- the road was icy, windy and on the edge of a mountain. Arghh, looking over the edge was a steep drop. Not good!! We had to put snowchains on the camper but it was still sliding around a bit, eeek!!! I didn't ski, I was going to get a scenic lift pass but due to the winds that lift was closed so I just chilled [View Full Entry]

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