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Muri Beach..
... one of the islands we swam too.Cook Islands
After leaving New Zealand and a sad goodbye as the country was awesome, so awesome we spent the majority of our money, oops! Moving on, we are well and truly ready for two weeks in paradise. On boarding our Air New Zealand flight NZ46 we get upgraded to first class with leg room to spare and window seats, result! The flight was really nice and was extra nice because of the three small bottles of Merlot we drank, free of-course! We land 3 hours later, but somehow yesterday at 9:30 in the evening and it’s a nice blast of warm air to greet us, bring on the sun! (Yes I did say yesterday, we travelled back in time when we crossed over the time zones, 1 more day of travelling, whoop!)
We’re greeted by our crazy guesthouse owner, Ingrid the large German lady! She’s really nice and surprisingly full of energy; she gives us a whistle stop tour of the capital of Rarotonga, Avarua. The place is buzzing with people relaxing and enjoying Friday night, apparently Friday is the local’s start of the weekend as they only work Monday - Friday afternoon, lucky devils! The room we
arrive at is retro and quirky and has everything we need. Sleep time!
The next day we’re tasked with finding somewhere closer to Muri Beach and begin our walk through the Saturday market, where, we see local girls doing their greeting dance wearing hoola skirts and coconut bikini’s, so far I’m loving the Cook Island’s! Moving on swiftly before Helen notices I wrote that… We start the walk to Muri beach, asking in a shop on route how long it should take to get there, 30 minutes were told so off we trot… 2 hours later we still aren’t there and were out of Pam’s Raspberry Cola! We finally arrive and find three little islands within the lagoon off the beach, looks like a postcard of paradise. After a bit of relaxing on the beach we check out the local hostels… all full or way to expensive! We find one for 60 dollars a night that’s on the beach but 60 dollars!! We say yes but keep asking on the way back. Helen strikes gold and we get a gorgeous little lodge for 30 dollars for both of us but it’s about 40 minutes to get to the beach,
Hola hola..
... greeting dances at the Saturday market. but, bikes are about 4 dollars to hire so we decide it’s worth getting a bike for the 2 weeks and we can explore the island, result again! We arrive back at Ingrid’s, Atupa Orchid Units 7 hours and 30 odd minutes after we left to walk to the beach in the morning. Tired but relieved we found somewhere that fits our budget and closer to the beach we hit the hay for some much need relaxation.
The first day we have to pick up all our belongings and put them on our backs to get to our new guest house, we’d spoilt ourselves up to this point and not really had to carry our bags! It’s fair to say after 5 minutes in the sun we were exhausted and ready to give in… we managed to drag our lazy and by this stage very sweaty selves to the local bus stop with 45 minutes to spare till the 1 of 2 daily buses. Little did we know of island time, which meant the bus didn’t arrive till closer to 1 o’clock! Good job were not in any rush!
Arriving at château Jamelen (Mount View Lodge) for two weeks
Cook Island fruit.
... Star fruit and passion fruit! we dump our bags and head for Muri beach to catch some much needed rays, were both looking like Casper since our month of winter in NZ! Did I mention its 30 dollars a night for the two of us, bargain! Scratch that, coming to pay Shona, it’s actually 23 dollars a night, hoo-ra! We swim over to one of the islands and spend the rest of the day chilling out and then attempting to fight the lagoon current to get back to shore!
Our new home on Rarotonga is a simple, spacious hut with a kitchen, double bed, en suite bathroom with every surface decorated with colourful little flowers with a fantastic view of Ta Manga (the tallest mountain on the Island), absolute paradise!!!
The next week we chill out, adopt a spastic pregnant ginger cat, get a ride in a police car, eat fresh paw paw, passion fruit and star fruit and get savaged by mosquito’s! We make our way to the lagoon on Tuesday 30th and swim to the closest island and relax in the sun, the lagoon is a pretty nice temperature and isn’t too much drama on the dip-arge! On walking to the other
side of the island you can see the Pacific ocean crashing against the coral barrier, MASSIVE waves coming out of nowhere, crazy that the lagoon water is so still and clear. After a few hours of burning we swim back and find loads of fish swimming around us, awesome for snorkelling, we get out and start the 7 kilometre walk back… about 5 kilometres in were a little tired and I think it shows as a random guy offers us a lift, we must have had sad body language as he drove us right to our guesthouse, whoop! Just like the New Zealand Maori’s the Cook Islanders like using the word “Bro”, maybe a little too much, funny to see how many times you can get them to say it in a sentence, I counted about 10 in a sentence!
The morning after were aching all over from the days before and aren’t up for much movement so we decide to go and see if we can find a bit of sand over the road between all the coral… well, we find some sand, not much but what looks like enough to sunbathe in. Bear in mind there is
Budget accomodation..
... beach house attempt 1! not coral barrier at this part of the beach...!? So we settle down and get down to some hardcore sunning, about 5 minutes in a big wave comes out of nowhere and cover the both of us with sand and bits of broken coral, ouch! Maybe we were a little to close the water after all! We move up the “beach” and try again, success, for a bit! A bit dirty from the coral and sand we head back for our budget cold shower and some drinks!
Saturday roles around and a week on the Cook Islands has flown by, were both looking decidedly more brown and are well and truly into the swing of relaxing. In town on Oli’s advice we look into getting to an island in the Cook Island’s where you can get another stamp in your passport and we all know were all about more stamps in the passport. A bit of investigation and we find it’s $400 dollars each to get to the island so sorry to say that we won’t be flying, maybe attempt to swim it though! Time for date night and to get bicycles for the week, we find a Indian/Polynesian
Spaz cat..
... she liked to dribble and stick her tongue out at you! Curry buffet (Ravi’s) so it’s fair to say I’m there and Helens new found like for curry’s seals the deal, plus a few bottles of wine just to really seal the deal! Curry t’was sooo good I had three big plates and declared myself fully done (Helen stopped at 2, wise choice as I was pretty much dosing off!), 2 bottles of wine and we were both done and time to attempt the cycle home… it’s fair to say it was more successful than Oasis cycling but not as successful as sober cycling!
The next few days we explore the island on the bikes from Black Rock to several of the other beaches all as amazing as the others but only Muri beach has the islands you can escape too. The island is 32 kilometres all the way around so takes a few hours but no up hill parts, so we’re good!
The next day even though a Tuesday is spent like a Sunday just chilling out in our guesthouse not really doing much in preparation for Wednesdays beach day, plus it’s a little overcast today so no need to go to crazy! Our ginger spastic cat doesn’t
Wang...
..this is the demi god of mischief, he has a big wang as he is also the god of fertility, multi skilled!! leave our porch anymore as Helen bought it some cat food, I think it’s pregnant as well which could explain why it seems to have a little Ethiopian belly?!
The next few days it’s a bit overcast so we chill out and make it to Black Rock Lagoon and Muri, fingers crossed for the rest of the week… We find some delish noodles as well, one that tastes just like tom yam soup, sweet!
All the beaches, one day! We decide to cycle around the island again but this time stop and have a swim and sunarge at each of the beaches... We started at Black Rock Lagoon and did some sunning as the water was a little choppy around the Black rock. The next beach we got to was a beautiful hidden away beach where we chilled out but the water was still a bit cold for us so we decided we’d wait till we got to Muri Lagoon till we took a dip! On cycling around the island we do this is record time, 32kilometres in under 2 hours, not bad considering we were taking it easy.
The next day we decide to do the
Buffet curry night...
... $15 dollars all you can eat, BYO, suits me! same but this time have a look at the abandoned Hilton Hotel on the island. It’s a huge complex that was almost finished I think in 2003, it’s a bit Jurassic Park with all the tree’s growing out of the air-conditioning and pools. We find out from another guy been nosey as well that the reason it wasn’t finished was because it was been funded by Mafia money, so when it was almost finished it was abandoned and hasn’t been touched since. Crazy that no one has taken over as it’s a massive hotel with beautiful views and a pretty nice beach, according to the guy we spoke to they were about to put in a pool that went all the way around the complex so you could kind of rapid around the hotel, cool idea! On from the Mafia Hilton Hotel we head down to some more of the beaches and chill out before heading back for film night.
Our final Friday on the Cook Islands and it’s gone way to quickly, I don’t think I’ve been this chilled out for awhile, loving it! We decide to go to Muri beach and make the most of the last
Views from the deserted Hilton..
... the would be beach of Rarotonga Hilton! bit of our sun so off we go on our bikes and find a spot with views of the three lagoon islands, paradise. The Islands is obviously sad that we are leaving as the rain clouds come in and block the sun! Dam! Everyone leaves the beach but not us, this is our last chance for a tan so we stay and wait for every gap in the clouds for a few more hours of browning by the beach. Looking a little red we cycle back home for our tom yom soup noodles and to pack our bags for tomorrow, boo!
The day of departure from paradise leaves and we don’t want to leave our little home at Mountain View Lodge but we must. We drop our bikes back, get a coco-nut bra for Helen and walk back to the studio to chill out till our pick up at 9, Shona has let us chill out in the studio all day so saves us waiting around in the tiniest airport in the world!
Bags pack, well my bag is packed, Helen takes a further 4 hours to get her bag finally packed, gave me time to write this up
La Bicyclette..
.. 32k's in one day, whoop! I suppose!
Good bye to the very relaxing Cook Islands and the large people that live there! 😉 Also, I can’t finish without mentioning the little demi god with the big wang that can be found everywhere on the island apparently he’s the god of mischief, which I suppose explains why he has his wang out! Ha-ha!
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