It is our penultimate day in Rarotonga and we (again) are sad to be leaving. We have met so many nice and friendly people here (photos of a few of them below) that this part of the trip has been as much about the amazing scenery as the people.
Over the last few days we have been relaxing on the beach and swimming. On Tuesday there were the most enormous waves (the photos don’t capture the hugeness of them) but very abnormal for Rarotonga. I sat at the top of the beach on a table and still the waves came up the legs of the table. Normally the lagoon is pretty still and calm so it was quite a different experience on the beach that day.
Yesterday we put up the hostels Christmas decorations- tinsel overload! Leticia (the family’s little two year old) was having great fun pulling them all down again! I was lucky to get a photo of the Christmas Tree decorated because this morning it was bare and she was rolling baubles around the floor. We had clubbed together for a BBQ last night- very odd (Christmas decorations and BBQ).
Andy and I have been planning Fiji (I want to go to Nativiti Island over Christmas). Most of the Yaswana islands don’t have electricity or phones (some are even low on water!- thank goodness we have our water filter!) so we will be out of contact for about 3 weeks over Christmas and New Year. We will be probably camping over both important days, ooh and maybe a bit of swimming, snorkeling……
Enjoy the photos- the waves were bigger than it shows- honest!
If we don’t email before we go to Fiji, have a happy Christmas, and we get the first rays of the 2007 sunrise 12 hours before you guys in the UK will!
Becky and Andy
Hope you like the photos!
I’m no wordsmith, and do struggle trying to get across just how amazing this place is which is a real shame! So, if I describe the last few days to you, you’ll have to imagine its much better than it sounds, because it really is.
So last night we went out for Chris’s last few hours on the island before he flew home to the US for Christmas. 10 or so of us went to an Indian Restaurant for Dinner, they were having an all you can eat buffet for NZ$15 which sounded like a great idea, the food was very nice but hot food in a hot country, I don’t think anyone got past a plate and a half. Once finished we said our goodbyes to Chris, he went off to the Airport and we went off to Whatever! bar. Now this bar is very cool, its on a platform maybe 20 foot up in the air overlooking the sea to one side and the harbour to another, they play very interesting dancy remixes of 80′s/90′s songs, we liked it. Because there are no street lights there is very little light pollution, so the stars are amazing! We stayed there for a while, watched Chris’s plane fly overhead and went to find Bill in the hostel bus to go home, lovely evening, the rest of the day was taken up by swimming in the sea, chatting on the beach, the usual…
The day before, Friday was Beckys Birthday, so as a special treat we had our washing washed in a proper washing machine! First time on the trip, and it made a refreshing change to hand washing in the sink. I took Becky out in the evening to the nicest restaurant we could find on the island, the Windjammer, we dressed up (shirt and shorts instead of a tshirt) and caught the bus around to the restaurant. It really was very very nice, we had drinks, meals, deserts and it still only came to NZ$80 (which is about 28 quid). Its very hard to spend money out here. We then went on into town, actually we didn’t have a choice, after 4pm the buses only go one way around the island, so you have to go all the way around to get back home, bus routes are easy, you either get on the clockwise or anti-clockwise bus, and they both go to the same places for the same price. The bus company’s called Cooks Transport, just like home. Anyway we went into town had a few quiet drinks and headed back.
What else, well I’ve been SCUBA diving a few times, Becky’s not to keen so she stays on the beach while I’ve been out on Dive Rarotonga’s boat. I went to a places called Paradise and Crocodile Alley both of which are a little way out from the harbour. They’re both about 18 meters down and you get about 50 meters visibility, which is amazing, hundreds of fish, Parrot Fish, Picasso Fish, Sea Cucumbers, Spanish Dancers, I cant remember any more names, beats diving in the UK.
Big news out here at the moment is that an illegal Chinese Fishing Boat ‘Tim Tom’ has been caught and impounded, the police force (which is 8 strong) has been very busy. Ironically the Police Station (which is massive for those 8 policemen) and the Court House were both gifts from China.
We tried to walk back from the airport, walking along the road is hard, not because of the heat, or the traffic, or the pot holes, but because you cant walk 10 metres without someone offering you a lift, a lovely Canadian couple drove us back.
The Christmas decorations are going up on the Island. You’ve already seen the inflatable snow man and there’s much more of that, Budget Car Rentals have been putting a huge neon sign up on top of their building all week so we’re excited for the big switch on. The Christmas message this year in the Cook Islands is “If you drink and drive, drive carefully”
Nope… no proposal on Beckys birthday.
The Moons is upside down! Could someone remind me which way the toilet flushes in the UK? I want to have a look here!
Its 11 am and 33 degrees…
After all our lazing on the beach we decided to do some exercise, we walked across the island, we caught the 9:30am bus after a late night out in the Banana Court (the local club). We got off just outside town and started to make our way into the centre of the island, its a few miles on the road until you reach the ‘Jungle’.
The road walk was a nice steady climb past the islands power plant (a shed with a couple portable generators in it it seems), past some farms and to the ‘car park’ at the top. From here on in it was scrambling over and under trees, up banks, down banks, vertical scrambles up tree roots. Apparently a path but more like a mud slide. We made our way up the 7k and 350m height gain up to the Needle, a 60 metre high rock looking over the island, fantastic views of all the coast!We stopped there with a couple of american guys for lunch, then started to make our way down, this point was pretty much the half way point of the walk. Scrambling down, or ‘falling’ was just as hard if not harder than going up! Sliding down banks, paddling through streams, ending with a little paddle in Wigmores pool, a waterfall at the end of the hard part. All left for us to do was walk out on the road and back to our Hostel! showers and a good nights sleep.
Tomorrow we’re leaving the Hostel to go stay in a beach hut for Becky’s Birthday! (Toilets and Showers of our own! Hurrah!)
Here are some photos of the Island.
Hope you like them!
