An Island to Oneself.

OK, here is the long delayed RaroReport (Tm) - I know we've been back for about 3 weeks now, but we've only just got the photos back from our waterproof camera and we wouldn't want you to miss those, would we? So now that we've got the excuses out of the way, here's the tale.

We left on the 7th of June. Err, OK, not quite. On the 7th Kieran left for Rarotonga. Due to an absolute SNAFU trying to do simultaneous online bookings from different buildings we ended up on different flights to Raro, Kieran off on the 7th, arriving on earlier the same day (damn dateline) and Rochelle leaving about 16 hours later and getting in late on the night of the 7th.

We went to Raro for 10 days and here's a shot of the hostel we spent the first 6 nights in.



It's the Rarotonga Backpackers, run by Paul and Rebecca. A fairly new, nice and clean place, set on the hillside a few hundred metres back from the coast, it's got outstanding views over the South Pacific Ocean. There's a nice pool if you want a swim near your room, the kitchen is clean and practical and the common areas are friendly and open. Only downside is that the thin walls make the place fairly noisy.

We spent the first few days exploring Rarotonga by motorscooter.



Raro is the biggest island of the Cook Islands, about 32km around the circumferance and a road runs right around the coast, so it's pretty easy to explore. There's only one town worthy of the name, Avarua, Capital City of the Cooks, with a bustling population of 5000 people.


Downtown Avarua


Parliament House - I kid you not - used to be the hostel accomodation for the builders of the airport.

To be honest, we didn't do too much during the first few days. We slept in, read books in the sun, wandered around the island and did a bit of kayaking in the beautiful lagoon.

There was a fireworks display in Avarua in the middle of the week to celebrate the Queens Birthday Long Weekend. The Independence Day celebrations in February had been cancelled due to some cyclones, so they let off twice as many fireworks in June. Funniest moment was watching the crowd ignore the token security barrier (a thin piece of blue rope) , right up until the moment the fireworks started and they were assaulted by sparks and falling debris. All of a sudden the other side of the rope seemed to be safer.

Sunday afternoon was a wee sailing trip off the coast of Avarua in a beautiful tri-maran. As well as giving us a chance to get a look back at Rarotonga from off the coast, we got to do some snorkelling in the deep water outside the lagoon reef.

For the second week we moved around the island into a self-contained (and thankfully quieter) apartment at Muri Beach in Vara's. Now we were right on the lagoon, with easy swimming, incredible mountain views. Muri lagoon is wide, deep and sheltered, with a handful of beautiful motu scattered throughout the warm, aquamarine water.

Muri Lagoon from the deck at Vara's.

Rochelle relaxing outside our apartment.

During this second week we got right into snorkelling in Rarotonga's fringing lagoon. There are heaps of great, accessible and safe snorkelling spots with masses and masses of brightly coloured tropical fish (though the damn things didn't show on our photos). At one place the local cafe (Saltwater Cafe - great smoothies) provided fish food and within a few minutes Rochelle had some Sunset Wrasse eating out of her hands. Later that day some more aggressive Trevally took a chunk out of her fingers in a search for more food.

Being a relatively small island, it's possible to walk across Rarotonga in a few hours. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the interior of the island is lush tropical jungle, spread across ragged tropical peaks and deep, wet gullies. We took an afternoon out of our busy schedule to do the walk and started up a wide, grassy path that soon disappeared into deep forest.

In the background is Te Rua Manga (The Needle), the midpoint of our walk.

The walk rapidly started a steep climb over a staircase of knotted roots towards the spine of the island and the Needle. After a quick photo-stop at the saddle, we headed up to the base of the Needle where I took this "Pullet-zer" Prize winning photo...

Yes, at the summit of the walk we were greeted by a chicken. We knew they were everywhere on Raro, but we didn't realise they were everywhere!

Down the other side of the ridge and the walk out to the south coast ran through a beautiful fern-clad creek gully - photos don't do it justice.

That's just about all we got up to. On our 11th morning we jumped on a plane back to Auckland and Dunedin (yes, we were on the same flight this time) and back to winter. Just to finish off, here are a few photos there were no other spots for.

Snorkelling spot at the Fruits of Rarotonga

Vara's from the lagoon.

The rest of our digital photos from the trip.

Enjoy whatever you're up to this weekend, and if you've got a moment, drop us a line and tell us what's going on in your lives.

K&R