Paradise! The Cook Islands

---

Our flight to The Cook Islands departed Auckland around 7pm on the 9th August but arrived in Rarotonga at 1am the same day. Of the many things we’ve been lucky to do on our travels we can now add time travel. Our next flight was to Aitutaki, a small, beautiful island. The only problem was that the flight was at 8am so we were in for a seven hour wait at the airport. The airport itself was pretty small and there were thatched huts where we managed to get some sleep for the evening.

We arrived at Aitutaki and were greeted by the owner of the Seaside Lodge, Roro, who drove us to our hut by the sea. We hung around outside on the beach for an hour or so while the room was vacated but once we were in we were in heaven. The hut was on white sand about 10 metres from the beach. Inside, there was a bed, DVD entertainment system, bathroom, kitchen and even AC. It was everything we wanted for our little break. The fact we had a kitchen was great because it had been so long since either of us had cooked.
Included in our accommodation was a lagoon cruise that went to a place called One Foot Island and also stopped at a couple of places for snorkelling. We had such a great time snorkelling and saw some great fish that once we were back we were looked for someone running snorkel tours. We found a great little place down the road called Matriki with a great couple called Christine and Fred. Funnily enough there were both ex-stuntmen (I guess that needs to be stunt-persons) and had actually met on the set of a movie. We went out for a couple of days and on each day we managed to get outside the reef where we saw to see Eagle Rays, Giant Turtles and even a shark! There were masses of Eagle Rays (about forty) which were keeping their distance down below but we swam down as far as we could to get a closer look. At one point Rich managed to get right next to an absolutely huge turtle which swam right past him. We got to see tons of different tropical fish, and some pretty impressive giant clams. We even fed the fish bananas. We loved every minute of it (well Rich not so much with the bananas).

Honestly, we didn’t do that much during our eight nights in Aitutaki. We just chilled out or went for a swim and snorkel most days in the lagoon. We hired a scooter the whole time we were there to get around and checked out pretty much the entire island which took about an afternoon though was well worth it. Although we cooked for ourselves most nights we had a couple of great meals at the plush Pacific Resort. The resort cost about 400 quid a night to stay and the food was a little pricey too but worth every penny.

We both fell in love with Aitutaki. The island is stunningly beautiful and we were both amazed at how unspoilt it was. The lagoon is abundant with marine life and the water is perfect swimming temperature. Neither of us were quite ready to leave this paradise behind Maybe that explains why we thought our flight was actually a day later than it was. Luckily, the owner of our hut had called the airline to confirm our flight and when she found out we had the wrong day came rushing round telling us we had about half an hour to board the flight. After a frantic time of throwing everything into our rucksacks and generally getting ready we arrived at the airport in perfect time to get the flight back to Rarotonga..

---