Rarotonga

We just got back from a fabulous nine days in the Cook Islands. Rarotonga is the largest island of the Cooks and it was beautiful. White sand beaches, palm trees and crystal clear water - we were in paradise! As it is now winter in New Zealand (although nothing even close to a Canadian winter) we were ready for some sunshine. We said before we came to NZ that we would try to take advantage of our location and see as much of this part of the world as we could. So far I think we are off to a good start! The island is fairly small, taking about 45 minutes to drive around the whole thing. There is one road around the island and no stop lights! There are two buses that circle around the island and they make it fairly easy to remember which is which - one says "Clockwise" and the other says "Anti Clockwise" :) Everyone rides a scooter - even the elderly, albeit very slowly. We had a car rental included in our package so we didn't get to ride around on scooters. Maybe next time. There are 9,000 people that permanently live on the island and the locals were so friendly and laid back. Flip-flops are the norm everywhere, even in the "nicer" restaurants. The food was great and we found it was a fairly similar cost to eat out or to buy our food in the supermarket. As everything is imported from New Zealand, we found groceries to be quite expensive (as food in New Zealand is expensive to begin with). There's not really any shopping on the island or anything too commercial. We didn't even have any internet connection for the time we were there. It was a great place to go to truly disconnect and relax. It was Tyler's birthday while we were there and he was happy that he wasn't able to get any work emails :)

The beach outside of our resort

We stayed on the quieter side of the island, which had the best snorkelling and beach we thought. Often times we were the only ones on the beach or in the water, it seemed like we had the whole place to ourselves! We stayed in a small resort with only 10 individual huts. Below is the "hut" we stayed in for the week. There are no big resorts on the island and definitely nothing flashy. Not the place to go if you are expecting five star luxury. And that was ok with us!

Our hut. Only a few metres from the beach!

The "Anti Clockwise" bus

$10.50 for Cauliflower!! We didn't buy any.

Breakfast of champions. Waffles and coconut water at the Saturday market.

The adventures of Tyler and the coconut....

We went on a cultural village tour while we were there and they showed us the different stages in the life of a coconut and the easiest way to break them open. After the demonstration, Tyler was determined to pick his own coconut from a tree and give it a try himself. After about 20 minutes, with sweat running down his face and a cut and bloody finger, he finally managed to get one open. He was so proud of himself. And the coconut was delicious :)

Finding the best one...

Trying to crack it open on a rock...for 15 minutes...

Finally!

Yum, delicious!

Rarotonga is such a beautiful island. Not only the clear water, but the lush trees and forest as well. There is a cross island trek we could have done, which I originally wanted to do but we were warned by a few people that the mosquitos were so bad that they turned around. As that put us off, we just admired from afar :)

A tropical forest!

What a view.

There were many Tsunami evacuation route signs. Thankfully we didn't have to worry about that.

Beautiful Raro sunset.

Wine on the beach with a sunset. Could it get any better!?

The pool at one of the nicest resorts on the island - Little Poly.

Buying fruit from a local on the side of the road. 

An over-water cultural dinner show.

We were able to get in some exercise on our trip. The resort had kayaks for us to use, so we took them out on the water a few times. We also went paddle boarding for the first time which was really fun. And of course lots of snorkelling! Almost the entire island is surrounded by a reef which blocks the big waves (and sharks) from entering. The area between the island and reef is like a massive lagoon with amazing snorkelling. The water was the clearest we have ever seen. The coolest thing we saw snorkelling was lots of huge bright blue star fish! 

Starfish!

Tyler doing what he does best! Not. I think this was the only time he sunbathed as opposed to being in the water. 

The water was really warm and great for swimming!

We were sad to leave beautiful Rarotonga but I have a feeling it won't be our last visit. As it's only a four hour plane ride from Auckland, it's only a short way back to paradise!