On the 18th June we had a wonderful lie in and at a very civilised hour drove ourselves down to Wellington Airport. The airport actually has a sign on it purporting itself to be "The Centre of Middle Earth"! After a smooth check in we settled down, underneath a giant fibreglass model of Gollum, for the first drink of the holiday (Beer for me gin & tonic for the better half). Waiting there for our flight to be called we were approached by a woman and her two kids who asked us (and I swear I am not making this up), "Have you seen a gold ring anywhere?" I suppressed the laughter (and the urge to make a fatuous comment) and discovered that one of her children had been playing with her ring and had lost it whilst they were seated nearby.
We boarded our plane, flew to Auckland and transferred smoothly to our international flight to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Due to Rarotonga being across the international date line we actually took off at 7:30pm and, after a 4hr flight, arrived at 1:25am the same day. The flight was a bit turbulent as we had a 100km/h tail wind most of the way but it did make it quick. We landed in the dark and stepped off the plane into a warm sub-tropical night. To greet us at the airport was a ukulele player singing the greatest hits of the Cook Islands. Half asleep we cleared immigration, caught our transfer bus to the hotel and before we new it we were tucked up in bed.
We woke, on Tuesday morning again, and had a chilled morning around the resort. With a private beach onto a marine reserve and a bar overlooking this there wasn't much need to stray from the resort that day. We snorkelled in crystal blue waters and then at a very civilised hour wandered to the bar and ordered a drink. It then struck me that in some strange, paradoxical temporal dichotomy I had already had a drink at this exact time on this exact same day but in a different place. Thinking about this hurt my tiny brain and as I was supposed to be on holiday I gave up trying to work this out and settled down to a cold, refreshing beer.
That evening we treated ourselves to an "Island Cultural Night". This involved a long speech by a local chief then a huge "umu" (feast). There was fish (at least three types), pork (slow cooked), chicken (curried), lamb (roasted) and all accompanied by local fruits and vegetables. Desert was more mounds of fruit and sweet things. To follow this there was a fantastic display of drumming and dancing - a truly memorable night.
To justify the way we had stuffed our faces the previous night we set off the next day for a long walk. We caught a local bus to Avatiu on the north side of Rarotonga. There is one main road on the island that goes all the way round the circumference. It is only 32km long. There are two buses Clockwise and Anti-clockwise. These come complete with mental drivers who take pleasure in telling you they are convicts on work experience - island humour apparently.
The walk was hot, sweaty and steep but well worth it for the views and the jungle. Why we picked the middle of the day to walk in I don't know. Temperatures rose to nearly 30 degrees - I'm glad it was the cool and dry season. We actually walked completed across the island (from north to south) a distance of about 7km. The track rose from sea level to nearly 400m and back to sea level again and was hard work. It ran through pristine jungle and at the highest point was a 50m high pinnacle of rock called "Te Rua Manga" (The Needle). I was very tempted to climb it but the green moss, lack of rope and sheer drops dissuaded me. We descended to an idyllic beach on the south coast, via Wigmore's Waterfall (which was more like Wigmore's Dribble). We had to wait nearly an hour for the bus but couldn't really complain about the bus stop with white sand, lapping waves and palm trees.
Thursday was another chill out day, snorkelling, walking on the beach, cocktails at the bar then dinner overlooking another beautiful beach. On Friday we headed to Muri Lagoon on the east coast of the island for a day with Captain Tama's Lagoon Cruises. We were treated to singing, drumming, giant clams, tree climbing, coconut husking and sarong tying on top of a cruise round the lagoon in a glass bottomed boat and BBQ lunch on one of the smaller islands off the coast.
On Saturday we headed into the main town, Avarua. We spent a few hours exploring the sat in a bar on the harbour and had lunch watching canoe racing in the lagoon. Unfortunately our flight time returning to New Zealand wasn't as civilised as outbound. We had to hang around the resort until 1am on Sunday morning before catching the bus to the airport. We were then serenaded onto the plane by the same ukulele player. After a less turbulent, but longer flight, we touched-down in a cold Auckland on Monday morning (another temporal anomaly due to crossing the international dateline again). After breakfast at the airport we caught another plane back to Wellington.
While we were away Wellington had experienced some unusually wild weather. (When they call weather wild in Wellington it means it is pretty extreme.) On the Thursday whilst we were away Wellington had been subjected to the mother of southerly gales. Winds reached over 150km/h and there 9m waves on the south coast. Trees and powerlines had come down, houses had been damaged and the south coast had been battered by the sea. There had been landslips along the coast line with sand, trees and huge rocks scattered across roads, gardens and the foreshore. Thankfully, despite the devastation, no one in Wellington had been seriously hurt.
Our car had been parked in an open car park next to the airport and was caked in salt from the sea spray. We drove home along the coast road which was still littered with debris. We were quite apprehensive about what condition the house would be in, especially given we live on a ridge 100m from the south coast. Arriving home we drove past a flattened garage three doors away and the neighbours wooden fence flat on the ground. Our house was still standing, still had a roof and appeared to have suffered no ill effects. There were lots of small branches and leaves in the carport and a few cracks in the plaster but nothing more. Our landlord has said he will send a builder to carry out an inspection just to be sure.
Writing this the holiday is becoming a more and more distant memory. The better half is reaching the busiest point of the year at work and I have had a week of early mornings and long days. We have both just made the most of the glorious weather last weekend but I think I will leave that for another blog. That is all for now...
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