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Published: December 6th 2009
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He loves Curry!
and we love him!!! Kia Orana!(Hello from the Cook Islands)
To start off many of you may have thought we were going to Fiji which was our original plan, however when we tried to book flights we realised just how expensive it was, so decided on an alternative. Neither of us knew anything about the Cook Islands, and had never heard of Rarotonga before but after some research it sounded like just what we were looking for.
This blog will be slightly different from the rest as this part of our tour was always going to be our 'holiday'....holiday from a holiday that is! Believe it or not travelling can get tiring, constantly moving from one place to the next, not that we are moaning or anything as we have enjoyed every single minute of it.....it's just we wanted a couple of weeks relaxation, settled in one place. After we had booked our flights we searched on the couchsurfing website to see if there were any hosts on the Island and surprisingly enough there were two, one of those was away from home so we contacted the other (Marcus) who unfortunately had family staying so was unable to host us. We kept in
Saturday Market
All the mumas in one place regular contact with Marcus and he managed to arrange for us to stay with a local couple at a good price. So it was all set and he even said he would collect us from the airport as our flight didn't arrive until the early hours of the morning.
We arrived at Auckland airport and checked the Internet one final time to make sure all was ok....this is when we realised that Rarotonga is 23 hours behind Auckland time, therefore instead of arriving on Saturday night like we thought we would be arriving on Friday night! With not alot else we could do we sent Marcus an e-mail explaining our mix up and hoped he would read it in time.... we arrived at the tiny Rarotonga airport and lucky for us Marcus was there waiting!
We then drove to our accommodation, stopping off to check out Marcus's house along the way, where we sat on the beach outside his place for about half an hour. It was so peaceful, we have never seen the sky so littered with stars....we were so excited about seeing the Island by day!
At our accommodation we were greeted by Maria (lady who owns
Beach runs!
With Sandy and Randy - who didnt leave our side! it) she showed us our container in the garden. We had our own decking area with couches and even a mini kitchen - it was perfect!
Rarotonga is only 32 km round and is home to 9000 people, alot of these originally come form New Zealand, and the NZ dollar is the currency used on the Island.
Each Saturday there is a Market in the centre selling local Arts and Crafts, food and has fruit and veg stalls. Many of the locals work from home during the week, relying on the Saturday market to make a living by selling their produce.
The area we stayed at was called Muri beach, which is one of the main beaches with a beautiful lagoon, it certainly encaptures the tropical paradise setting, with its white sand, turquiose waters and stacks of coconut palm trees.
During our two weeks we got to know the owners of our accommodation quite well. Maria is an artist who has a hut at the market and also opens her house as a gallery, we lent a hand on a few occasions helping to set up her market stall.
Heemi (her partner) is a pig farmer (plus
goats and cows) infact he pretty much turns his hand to anything and is always busy with something. One of our days was spent going out with Heemi in his truck, tending to all the animals as part of his daily routine. We also learnt about and picked fresh fruit and veg, such as :-
Noni (a fruit used in Japanese medicine which tastes a bit like gone off blue cheese)
Beni Beni (a red berry from a tree which was quite tasty but sour)
Maniota (root veg similar to potatoes, but has to be cooked as soon as it's peeled)
Guava (looks like a lemon but eaten like an apple, nice taste but strange hard pips inside)
Taro (another root veg)
Then we also picked standard things such as bananas, pumpkin, mangoes, paw paws, chillies and tomatoes. It was great having access to so much fresh fruit and veg and we made the most of it, cooking with it each night and making batches of homemade Pumpkin and Tomato soup which we gave to some people we made along the way.
Spending the days with Maria and Heemi really gave us a good insight into real Island life
and also enabled us to see parts of the Island that we never would have seen if not.
Whilst on Rarotonga we got friendly with a coffee man (Neil) who has set up his own coffee shop based at home where he roasts his own beans and has a cafe in town. His son (Ruban) works along side him making bread and croissants for the coffee shops. It was great to get to know them both and interesting to find out more about coffee and bread making.
Our home was also home to 'Sandy and Randy', two really lovely dogs who were also the proud parents to 7 puppies, who were just two weeks old when we arrived. The dogs took a real shine to us and wouldn't leave our side - following us everywhere!! We got to see the puppies really grow up during our stay, each developing into a real little character, of course we named them all!
The first week of our stay coincided with the 'vaka racing competition' (ocean canoeing to you and I) which meant the Island was full of paddlers from all over the place. They held some of the events
One of the four tiny islands
you could swim out to from our beach. on our beach so we got to watch some of the action. We also went to the closing event and saw some traditional Polynesian dancing - where men stamp their feet and knock their knees together and women twitch and wiggle their hips in a suggestive manner (Hoola girl style) - all very entertaining!
So onto the weather which was really good most of the time with only a couple of off days - not bad considering this is their cyclone season!
All in all we had a brilliant 'holiday' - both feeling very relaxed and ready for our final leg of our journey (cant believe its almost over!) We have a few days back in Auckland, NZ again before we head off to South Africa on 9/12.
Our love as usual to all xxx
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mum
non-member comment
awww it looks lovely, soo lovely...loved the container, looks well homely in an open kinda way..lol..i would of loved it! those little puppys..didnt you want to tuck one under your coat ames, theyre gowges!!..certainly does look like paradise and what a lovely bunch of nanas!..hope your transition to south africa goes smoothly..be careful, thinking of you..another lovely entry..love you, muma xxxxxxx