Rarotonga is surrounded by a sapphire blue lagoon, dominated by a soaring dormant volcano that remains remarkably un-eroded, and with warm temperatures year round it is no wonder why this island attracts so many visitors every year. The Cook islands, yes, named after, Captain James Cook, were originally settled in the 6th century, when the Maori landed here in their magnificent double-hulled wakes canoes. This style of canoe is still to this day a very traditional part of the way of life on the islands. Today, this culture had adapted to modern times, while traditional arts such as weaving, carving and painting are still taught and valued.
The Capital is Avarua, which has fewer than 6,000 inhabitants, has handful of shops, restaurants and bars and is where we began our day as the tender dock is located within a few minutes of this little town. We grabbed our tender tickets at about 8:30, no line up and was told the wait would be about an hour - no problem, time for a good breakfast sitting off the back of the ship with this beautiful island as a back drop. A quick note on the tender tickets, yes, there was the early birds, sitting in line at 5 am. Another passenger and I and the guy handing out the tickets had to have a bit of a laugh about this strange breed of people. The bottom line was, why, if you wanted you could everything on this small island in 2 hours. Ah, no need to sit in a line 3 hours before the tender tickets are released. The thing I have learned is to not wait until you are ready to get off, go get your tickets before breakfast but have all your stuff ready. When they are a few numbers away from yours, go get your stuff and you are good to go.
Today the weather was perfect for a day at the beach. Last night I looked at the local bus service on the island. For an 8 dollar (New Zealand Dollar) voucher , you can get two rides in. At the top of the hour a bus will proceed clockwise around the island, at the bottom of the hour a bus will proceed counterclockwise around the 32 kilometre island. We arrived at the dock at 10 am and there was a bus waiting, perfect, change for a $50 dollar note, no problem, perfect again - bonus seats on the ocean side still available. About 25 minutes later we arrived at our beach destination, Muri Beach, we jumped off along with about a half dozen other guests. This is a beautiful, safe, easy beach on the lagoon. You see there is a coral reef around the outside of the entire island, which actually protects it from any storms - kind of like a natural breakwater. The water is shallow warm and beautiful, great for snorkelling. Two hours and beer later we headed back to the bus stop. Now, these buses do run on island time so for some reason at this time it did take a while before any bus in any direction showed up, hmmm. Talking with some other waiting passengers the idea was to get on any bus in any direction, although a bit longer to go clockwise, it didn’t matter as it would allow us to see the rest of the island, which is in fact what happened, the clockwise bus showed up first, so we jumped on. The driver dropped us of back in the centre of town so we could do some retail therapy before heading back to the ship for a late lunch and a swim. Anne Francis came by for a chat during our lunch, great to get caught up a bit. Then is was time for my deck laps, shower and dinner. Show tonight was the singers and dancers and once again nailed out another fantastic show. Fat Tuesday party tomorrow night, whew, better get some rest… A few pics of our day, hope you enjoy…
Quote of the day - “Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.” - Sigmund Freud
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