Gone walkabout

Even the immigration officer was sorry for us when we told her that we only had 10 hours for our last stopover in the Cook Islands before flying to to New Zealand.

Nevertheless we intended to make the most of it and went for a last scooter tour around the island.

one last scooter tour

32km around the island

.

Back in Avarua we enjoyed some Ikamata (traditional Cook Island dish made of raw fish in a yummy lemon coconut sauce) with fresh coconut drinks while watching the tropical Christmas Santa parade 🙂

Santa …

… and his reindeer.

Santa’s little helpers …

… and some tropical Christmas elves

Merry Christmas !!!

(Not sure what HE was doing at the Christmas parade?)

.
For our final sundowner we went back to the Waterline Restaurant, where we had our very first dinner on the island almost three weeks ago. Imagine my surprise when this (harmless) little gecko was suddenly jumping at my leg 😮

one last sundowner in the cooks

last sunset in the cooks

jumping gecko

aere ra (goodbye) Cook Islands! We will miss you!

“Uhhh yeees! I will miss you too”

For our second stay in Rarotonga we moved into the backpacker style Aramengo Guesthouse in Muri on the east side of the island. Since the hostel itself was rather basic it was a good thing that bananas and passionfruit were growing right outside the door and it was conveniently located just a short walk from the beach with lots of cute doggies, a French bakery and the “Matutu” micro brewery.

“these shoes smell really yummy”

… three dogs in the sun …

“I have found a new friend”

fruits of Rarotonga – bananas

original Singer Naehmaschine

fruits of Rarotonga – passionfruit

Who wants a nice and cool island brew?

Every bottle is hand-bottled and labelled by some poor island guy shivering in the freezing cold cool room while it’s 30 degrees outside. But the result is definitely worth it and the pale ale is very yummy, especially after the 3 hour Rarotonga Cross-Island Track. “Just go straight after the big rock and turn left under the trees with the flute-like trunks” was about all the description we got from our host at the guesthouse! Yeah right!

Rarotonga Cross-Island Track

The track is straight ahead!

“Is there really a path here?”

“Honey, are you sure we’re still on the right way?”

“Awwww”

Cook Island style bridge

Oh and just next door to our hostel we found a cute little cafe with a pool and two funny ladies on staff. One afternoon I was comfortably finishing my John Grisham book while Bea was splashing around in the pool when the next thing I saw was some photographer taking pictures of her in the pool for the new hotel brochure WITH ANOTHER GUY! Unbelievable! At least we got the drinks and fruit decoration and could spend the rest of the evening in their pool 😉

Aqua cafe and pool

Aqua cafe staff

relaxing in the pool

After three days in Rarotonga it was already time to head to our next island destination and Air Rarotonga brought us safely to beautiful Aitutaki where we would spend the next week in island bliss.

.

Our resort was located on Motu Akitua, a small (windy) little islet with magnificent views of the lagoon. Sadly most of the staff seemed to lack the genuine Polynesian friendliness we found almost everywhere else in the Cook Islands and you could really feel that they were ‘just doing their job’. Lucky enough some of the other guests were really nice and happy to chat and we may even visit some of them in New Zealand and Australia next year 😉

Aitutaki Lagoon Resort

island paradise

view from our bungalow

.

Apart from plenty of eating, sleeping and reading there was still enough time for:

Snorkelling …

who else is thinking of the ‘jaws’ theme now?

… fishies at our resort

… Crab racing …

lucky #7 paid for our drinks this night 🙂

… ‘wild’life …

fish feeding at the resort

What are you looking at? Keep walking man!

hermit crab – is it safe?

hermit crab – let’s go!

What the heck is THAT?

… Stand up paddle boarding …

… and a scooter trip around the main island. The local street signs were a bit confusing at first (haven’t we seen a slightly different Hollywood sign somewhere else?) but with only 2.000 people living on Aitutaki it wasn’t that difficult to find our way around 😉 Too bad the weather rock was wet and swinging wildly that night – making our scooter ride home a fierce battle with the elements at 40 km/h.

Did we take a wrong turn somewhere?

The almighty weather stone!

A surprise highlight on Aitutaki was Sunday church service in Arutanga with the women all dressed up in their beautifully decorated palm leaf hats and everybody singing – kind of like Whoopie Goldberg in ‘Sister Act’ – loud, enthusiastic and really really good! And after service everybody was invited to a community lunch organised for a high school group visiting from New Zealand. True Polynesian hospitality! Too sad we didn’t bring our camera that day.

… almost forgot to post about our other big highlight of Aitutaki: Instead of creeping through the lagoon on board of one of the bigger tourist boats we joined another couple from our resort on a private snorkelling trip with captain Black Jack! Much more fun and way less people in the water 😉

“Can we go faster?”

.

Those are friendly fishies, right? RIGHT?

What are you looking at? Keep swimming man!

.

Oyster shells? Or WW2 water mines?

.

A short visit to Honeymoon Island, ‘Survivor” island and Motu Tapuaeta’i (one foot island):

Honeymoon island … “Awwww”

According to Black Jack the TV show “survivor” was filming one season on this island. The bird doesn’t look too impressed.

Unfortunately the post office at “one foot island” was closed that day and we could not send all your postcards just yet 😉

Unfortunately the post office was closed that day and we could not send all your postcards just yet 😉 Whoever is interested in the remaining 2.000 pictures of Aitutaki is more than welcome to visit us after our trip for a loooong picture watching session.

xoxo

Bea and Wolfgang

Travelling back in time is impossible? So how did we leave Melbourne on Saturday the 30th of November and arrived in Rarotonga on the Cook Islands on Friday the 29th of November then? And does it really matter when you receive a warm island welcome with a traditional flower lei?

scooters are fun

scooters are fun

beach time for the toes

our favourite spot on the beach

… on the way to dinner

cocktails and dinner at the beach

snorkelling with starfish …

… and sea urchins