Aitutaki

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We woke up bright and early and finished our packing ready for moving from Amuri Pool Villa to a place called Inanos on the other side of the island. Paul gave us a lift over and we were finally able to find some bread in a shop on the way.

We were met by the owner who showed us to our accommodation. We had a one bedroom place on stilts right on the beach. Ours was the only beachfront property they had so we were lucky to have made the booking early. The view from the deck over the white sand and the lagoon was superb. It was clean and spacious enough for both of us with a couple of burners and a fridge.

We had high hopes for the location as this end of the island was supposed to have the beast beaches and swimming. After we’d dropped off our bags we went to explore. Unfortunately the part of the lagoon we were next to smelled of mud so wasn‘t the nicest of aromas. Recently they’d had diggers in to cut out a big channel in the lagoon floor to make a big plunge pool swimming area. The view was beautiful and the sand was white, plus we had about four sun beds under a thatched umbrella which was quite a novely as we’d been used to just laying on our towels.

We set off to walk around the rest of the area to check out the other beaches. We stopped for a cold drink at a restaurant called The Boat Shed and took our drink right to the beachside in the shade. Then we headed around and saw the exclusive Aitutaki Lagoon Resort which was on a separate motu across the water accessed only via a small boat. We had already been told eating there was very expensive but it did look like they had a fantastic stretch of beach there.

We headed around to check out another bar to scope it out for dinner and then headed back really hot.

We got changed into our swimmers and jumped into the lagoon outside our room. It was cold and smelled badly of mud but the water was still turquoise and it cooled us down. We shared our pool with lots of fish who weren’t sure what to make of us but they didn‘t seem too frightened.

Then we climbed out and lay on the sunbeds for a couple of hours enjoying the sunshine while appreciating having the shade of the umbrella.

Later on we saw David and Gail who we’d met on Raro - they had the unit behind ours. They were heading over for an Island Night and invited us along but we didn’t have a scooter like them and also we were trying to conserve our money which was going much quicker than we’d expected on these islands. Instead we walked around to the Samade Bar and had some garlic bread and pizza to share before heading back to our accommodation for a glass of wine. We were pleased that we’d had the forsight to buy in some provisions like wine and beer as there are no shops near Inanos as we were trying not to have to hire a scooter.

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