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Landing in Sydney on Thursday afternoon it felt strangely like I was coming home... Sydney remains the closest place, in my opinion, to London and for that reason I love spending time there. However, by the time I had wandered around the domestic terminal trying to figure the best way to reclaim my left luggage from international terminal and then arrived (via the airport link train) at Central it was quite late. This time my stay in Sydney was going to be at Sydney Central YHA, as decided that it would be worth my while getting YHA membership as planning on using their hostels whilst I’m in NZ... Settled into my room and then headed off to find the cinema on George Street that Hayley and Lucy (the ‘Fraser Island girls’) mentioned to me. Fortuitously I arrived at the cinema just in time for the start of the new Indiana Jones film, so that was my escapism for the evening and very enjoyable it was too.
Went for ‘my’ run around Sydney on Friday morning - avoiding the masses en route to work - and was pleased to discover that despite the last run that I went on being in
Cairns the legs held up ok (must be something to do with all the walking uphill etc that I was doing at Ayers Rock and Kakadu). Then it was time to shop! Am very pleased with how restrained I’ve been regarding my favourite pastime since I’ve been away, and was very good (for the most part) on Friday and stuck to buying a couple of jumpers, long sleeved tops and a woollen hat and gloves for NZ - as the realisation of just how cold it is going to be is beginning to dawn on me. Chilled out in the hostel (doing washing!?!) later in the afternoon and then I headed back to the cinema to watch ‘21’, which is another book that I’ve read since being away. The film is good, but isn’t like the book at all - so that spoilt it a bit for me.
Saturday (the first time, for reasons that will soon become apparent) was spent packing a little bag for the Cook Islands and then finding a place near to the YHA to store my big bag for the week. Headed off to Starbucks for a quick coffee and then thought that I
might just head straight to the airport. Took the airport link train again, as it is super fast and a lot cheaper than a cab, and some bloke randomly started talking to me as he was off on holiday to Newcastle (England) but was from Newcastle (NSW)! Arrived in Auckland on Saturday evening and then changed to a flight to Rarotonga that would arrive on Saturday morning at 4am - so I got to experience a Groundhog Day sensation! Landed in Tonga and had to wait until 8am to take my internal flight to Aitutaki (pronounced At-tu-tacky!), so found a very uncomfortable row of metal chairs and tried to get some rest. Didn’t really work and then it was off in the oldest and smallest plane that I had ever seen to the island - coming into land was stunning as you could see the outline of the lagoon and reef all around Aitutaki. Arrived at my hotel, Tamanu Beach Hotel, and had some breakfast looking out over the beach and sea whilst my room was prepared. It seemed to take forever for my room to get ready and it was all I could do to stop myself from falling
asleep in my breakfast whilst waiting (as was suffering from a lack of sleep!), but soon I was asleep in my beach hut - just for a few hours though! Spent the rest of the day chilling on the beach and giggling to myself at all the hermit crabs racing to the sea, as towards the end of the day and as the sun began to set, all you could see were loads of hermit crabs moving around on the beach (and I ‘made a movie’ of one of them too, just because). Had a much needed shower and covered myself in bug spray before heading to the restaurant beach hut for some sashimi and calamari for supper, although the calamari looked suspiciously like onion rings... Then to bed for sleep, sleep and more sleep especially given the fact that my Saturday had lasted 48 hours!
Sunday morning was beautiful. It was sunny and warm, so I had a little stroll along the beach before heading for breakfast. Made friends with a little cat that came and sat next to me (and it’s even cuter than Tiger cat, Sister!), and laughed at all the chickens running around like crazy
people in the sunshine. Happily spent the rest of the day sunbathing and reading my book, the height of laziness but was so enjoyable! Some old man came up to me at some point during the afternoon and commented that he’d seen me on the beach all day and was wondering if I fancied going out on his boat on the lagoon - I politely declined and mentioned to him that I was planning on doing a trip myself soon (not entirely sure if this is something that I’m going to end up doing - but it provided a good excuse!). Options for eating on Aitutaki seem somewhat limited, so I headed to the hotel’s restaurant for dinner again - but this time no calamari/onion rings! - arrived and the place was packed (on a Sunday?!?) and full of locals, so I pleaded my ignorance about needing to make a reservation and they found me a table to sit at. A kiwi couple came over and asked if I wanted to join them for dinner, and introduced themselves as being on my flight over to the islands, then asked if I was a travel writer! Admitted that my blog is
the extent of my travel writings, but that I was enjoying writing it... Chatted to the kiwi couple over dinner and a couple of glasses of chardonnay, then walked back to my hut along the beach with my torch leading the way (so that I could avoid stepping on the hermit crabs!).
In keeping with what will no doubt become a familiar routine, Monday was spent eating breakfast and then chilling on the beach. Although, given that there were a few clouds in the sky first thing I decided that I would venture into ‘town’ for a bit of an exploration - for ‘town’ read it as being a road with a few houses and shops. Headed off in what I hoped was the right direction and hadn’t been walking for very long when a motorbike pulled up on the opposite side of the road and one of the guys who worked at Tamanu asked if I wanted a lift. After establishing that ‘town’ wasn’t quite as near as I had been led to believe, I hopped on the back of his motorbike and got dropped off. Had a quick look around some of the shops, all of which
seem to sell anything and everything, and then began to walk back to the hotel - but yet again hadn’t got very far before the same guy offered me a lift back! My walk into town wasn’t really much of a walk after all. The rest of the day was, as mentioned, spent on the beach - and I had a little walk along the beach to Pacific Resort, which is supposed to be the nicest place to stay on Aitutaki, didn’t think that it looked too much different to where I am staying aside from the fact that their beach is raked and manicured to within an inch of perfection. Bet they don’t have to dodge hermit crabs! Dinner was some delicious curried fish accompanied by three (woo hoo, living dangerously!) glasses of chardonnay. A quick chat with the kiwi couple and I thought that I’d better have an early(ish) night as up early for the lagoon cruise the next day...
Was up and awake on Tuesday morning before reception called to ‘remind me’ that I had booked for Teking Cruise and that I had a 9am pick up! Well, the pick up was literally a ‘pick up’
as jumped in the back of a pick-up truck and headed to the boat. It wasn’t the largest boat in the world but raced around the lagoon just perfectly. Aitutaki is an island in the middle of a lagoon that is huge and contains other islands too (including ‘tiger island’ and ‘shark island’ from the Channel 4 shipwrecked series, and also the islands used for US Survivor!); the lagoon is surrounded by a large reef that encloses Aitutaki and the other islands in a near perfect circle - and it was this that I saw coming into land. The cruise that I was on stopped at five different islands during the course of the day including Honeymoon Island (which was tiny), One Foot Island (where you could get a stamp for your passport for the bargain price of NZ$2), Akaimi (where the beach and sea was so perfect and also used to have the seaplane land at it many years ago - in the 1950s) and also ‘TigerIsland’ from Shipwrecked... Probably the two main highlights of the day for me were snorkelling whilst holding bread and pieces of meat in your hand and literally being surrounded by loads of fish
nibbling/biting/kissing the bait or sometimes your hand by mistake; and the second being having a delicious lunch sat on a table in the water! Oh and of course the impromptu crab race that Mr Teking staged on Maina Island (where we stopped for lunch) probably deserves a mention if not for the small fact alone that I won - although an independent adjudicator might have a small issue with the final result given that I had three crabs in the race and everyone else only had one!
The next couple of days were spent sunbathing and walking along the beach (or into town, but this time I kindly refused offers of lifts from the locals as needed the exercise!), but unfortunately we had a massive storm set over the island for 24 hours - so torrential rain and visually stunning thunderstorms were in force on Wednesday night (and also soaked me on the walk back from town, maybe with hindsight I shouldn’t have politely declined the 5th offer of a lift). Before I knew it though it was Thursday afternoon and time to fly back to Sydney (but this time I ‘lose’ my Friday, as land at 8:30am on Saturday morning)... Oh and if anyone needs any suggestions on how to ‘kill’ 7 hours at Rarotonga airport whilst waiting for a connection, you could always follow the example of what I did: turn right out of the airport and head to Nu Bar for dinner and drinks, befriend the people in the band playing at the bar (on this particular Thursday night it was ‘Acoustic Sound’), then head into town to another bar when Nu Bar shuts for some more drinks and dancing, then voilà get a lift back to the airport in time for 1:30am and a perfectly timed check-in - sweet!
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Emma
non-member comment
sounds amazing and looks beautiful! Most important q tho - were you a tiger or a shark? x