More diving and Walking!!

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Last day today.

Since we last wrote, we’ve had a couple more dives and done some more walking.

The first dive was at some caves, not overly exciting but we did see a huge octopus swimming around before backing into a hole to hide from us. The last one was back at the Mataora for another night dive. This one was badly organised though with some very inexperienced divers kicking up silt, dropping torches, swimming into people…not that I am saying we are experienced or anything, but we are better than that!

Between those dives we took the bus round to Muri beach/lagoon. We had a look at a couple of historic boat launch sites. The first one, marked by a stone circle, was where boats were supposedly launched for the great migration to NZ, the other more a slightly more recent site (1992!), again marked by stones.

Yesterday we did the cross island trek, which took a whole three hours (Rarotonga isn’t a big island!) We took the bus to Avarua then wandered the back streets until we found the start of the walk. For a while it was like walking through peoples backyard and fields, then the forest begins and it feels like you are really on the right path.

The views were great from the top, and might have been better if we’d climbed the ‘Needle’, a rock at the top, but there had been landslides in the area and the track to it was closed.

The walk down the other side zig zags through the trees eventually coming out by Wigmores Waterfall, described in the guidebook as ‘beautiful’ and a ‘real delight’ to cool off under. In reality, it was dry and the whole area was run down, full of rubbish and graffiti, a total contrast to the rest of the track which, although hard work in places, was beautiful and a real delight.

Today has been spent packing and doing another short walk up another valley behind Avarua.

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