Rarotonga Part 1: Welcome to the Island

Sorry for not posting last week - I fully intended to post a quick note saying we were on holiday in Rarotonga, but then I slipped into full island relaxation mode and did no such thing. Oops.

As is usually true for our trips, I'll break this into several posts. I feel like I could write fairly unlimited posts about this particular holiday, but I'll try to be reasonable.

Before I get started on our experiences, I'll give a little background on Rarotonga. It is one of the Cook Islands, of which there are 15. I didn't realize this until we were leaving, as people here just call it Rarotonga. I also learned, as I talked to people about going there, that a staggering number of Kiwis have been there. As in, the vast majority of the people I mentioned it to had been there multiple times. Apparently, it was one of the first pacific islands you could easily fly to, and it continues to be among the most popular holiday locations, as it is "only" a four hour flight from Auckland, making it one of the closest places to our isolated country. The Cook Islands are in "free association" with NZ, and they even use NZ currency there, in addition to their own Cook Island money. Even knowing this, we were still astounded to see that the plane taking us to this tiny island was as big as the ones we take back to the States. The entire island is only 32km around, and the total population is around 10,500. It felt like we were bringing more people than would be able to fit onto the island! There were tourists from other places there as well, but the majority of the visitors we met were from NZ.

Anyway, Rarotonga is the biggest and most populace Cook Island, and is also the seat of the capital, Avarua. The islands are extremely spread out, with the furthest one actually being further away from Rarotonga than NZ is. Their native language is Cook Island Māori, which has a lot of similarities with NZ Māori. Their are some similarities in culture as well, although they have their own unique and rich traditions and ways of life. We had some small glimpses of this during our time there, which I will write more about in future posts.

This was our first view of Rarotonga from the airplane. How exciting! You'll notice the line a little way out into the water - that is the reef, which is where the big ocean waves break, and it creates a lagoon inside it where the water is quite calm and there is lots of amazing sea life.

I got this picture of Rarotonga from Google Earth to better illustrate the lagoon. I had always thought that a lagoon was standing water separated from anything bigger (like the ocean), but apparently it includes water protected by a reef. To the northeast, there is little to no lagoon, so we were instructed not to swim there, and also to avoid the places in the south where you can see what look like dark rivers; these are strong, dangerous currents. But otherwise, there is an abundance of beautiful places to swim and observe the amazing ecosystem.

This is not actually about Rarotonga, but look how amazing the shadow of our plane was, encircled by a stunning rainbow!

Once we landed, we saw the rich, verdant forest on the hills in the middle of the island. The highest point of this volcanic island is 4,500 metres (14,750 feet) above the sea floor, which is 658 metres (2,140 feet) above sea level . The vast majority of people live around the edge of the island. There is one main road that circles the whole island, and almost everything is close to that.

Coconut trees are everywhere and are central to many aspects of island life. As we explored different locations, we often noticed huge leaves wrapped and woven around other trees or around posts and support beams in buildings. It was very beautiful.

This is the view from the balcony of our hotel room - just one of many, many gardens we admired while we were there. The temperature stays between 21 and 30C (70 and 85F) year round, only getting down into those lower temperatures at night, as I understand it. It is their winter now, as it is for us in NZ, and it was at least 24C (75F) every day, and usually warmer. Apparently, the biggest difference between summer and winter is that in summer, they regularly have 90%-100% humidity, which turns lovely and warm into uncomfortably sticky. During our visit, the climate was impressively perfect.

All around the island are stunning white sand beaches with luminous water. I never get tired of admiring the ocean.

If you look closely, you'll notice a school of little silver fish. I didn't get any pictures of the many more colourful tropical fish, but it was amazing how many fish you could see even from the beach, let alone snorkeling, which we did lots of and which was incredible.

The view from the other side of our hotel room was up towards the middle of the island.

The beaches (of which I'll post lots more pictures) were fascinating. Because there is lots of coral living in various places the lagoon, there is lots of old, dead coral washed up on the beach, and it varies depending on what's in the ocean, making each stretch unique and interesting.

I felt like every picture I took could go on a postcard.

Did I mention how lush and green the interior was? It is truly amazing.

There were also black volcanic rocks in many places around the island, which was a beautifully contrasting compliment to the white sand.

  

There was also pockmarked and jagged volcanic rock, in contrast to the smooth formations in the picture above. For such a small island, there was incredible variety in the landscape, and we had a great time exploring.

Okay, hopefully that gives you a bit of context. I'm still getting my many, many pictures organized, but I'll use the next few posts to focus in on various aspects of our amazing time in this beautiful place.

Wellycon XI

Last weekend, J and I went to Wellycon XI, a very popular board game convention in Wellington. Our friends Christophe and Anaïs told us about it, and I'm so glad, because it was a interesting and enjoyable experience. Lots of people come and bring their favourite games to share with others, and game designers come with prototypes (not sure if that's the right word when it comes to a game, but I'm going with it) and people can try them out, give feedback, and potentially support the game on sites like Kickstarter. There are also lots of games for sale at discounted prices.

When we got there, we went into the main room, and saw lots of people looking like they were having a great time playing all kinds of games. They put up signs if they were looking for more people to play with them, so you knew where to join in.

We decided to try a new game ourselves first, and chose Kodama, because it was beautiful.

In Kodama, you create a tree, and get points for the various objects (like caterpillars, clouds, and mushrooms) on the branches. It was quite fun, and lovely to look at, and I think would be good to play with children.

J pointed out that I needed to take a picture of his creation, as it was the winning tree, and therefore more impressive.

Next, we joined two nice ladies to try out Flaming Pyramids, a very fun game that is in the design phase and raising money on Kickstarter. The husband of one of the ladies created it, and we were very impressed, as it was simple to understand, but had lots of strategy built in. I highly recommend it, and am considering donating to the Kickstarter, as I think it is a worthwhile game to support. You can click here if you'd like to learn about it.

We then tried Alchemists, which we soon discovered is the most complicated game in the universe. We spent well over an hour just trying to figure out what in the world we were supposed to be doing, slogging our way through the multitude of steps to get through our first turns, only to discover that many of the rules change as you progress further into the game, at which point we gave up. It had some great aspects, and was pleasingly scientific for J, but it seemed to us that the creators put in every cool or interesting idea or twist that occurred to them, and the result was an unmanageable mass of complication. It might be a great game once you have put in the many hours it would take to understand it, but I have to say, I'm not sure it's worth it.

After a quick return to Flaming Pyramids to clear our heads, we had a go at Hey, That's My Fish! which was delightful, simple, and included adorable penguins, so that's a win.

Some people then invited us to play Camel Up with them. It's based on a camel race, in which you bet on which camel will be ahead each round, and it was actually lots of fun. We were lucky to play with a group of people who were committed both to playing well and having fun, and weren't too worried about winning or losing, which is a hard combination to find. We played two games, and then noticed that somehow it had gotten to be rather late at night, and it was time to head home.

Wellycon is an annual event that runs for two days, and I think that next year, I'd like to spend more time there, as playing board games is one of my favourite things, and it is wonderful to have lots of people ready to spend hours doing so. Plus, it is great to be able to try out games before buying them, so you know what you're getting into. There are also tournaments, but we didn't participate in them, and I think I'll stick to just exploring.

Exploring Christchurch

This will be my last post about Christchurch, and contains all the pictures that didn't fit into any of the previous posts. J and I had a delightful weekend exploring, not being in a hurry, just wandering towards things that seemed interesting. 

We had morning tea in this little courtyard in the sun. The day started out much colder than I was anticipating for April (although I should have known), but it was glorious to soak up the sun.

Nearby, we enjoyed a cozy little bookshop, and I was delighted with this decorative piece made from an old book. I am hesitant to take on craft projects, as I have rather too many things to do already, but doesn't it look fun?

Right next to our hotel we this charming little street, with lots of interesting shops.

Unsurprisingly, J made a beeline for the gelato shop, so I was forced to agree to eating gelato in the sunshine. Oh dear.

I got fruity flavors, as I always do, but after J finished his chocolate and got down to his salted caramel scoop, we both agreed that it was the most delicious food we'd ever tasted. We went back the next day and both got only salted caramel, and it was perfect.

You may have noticed the tram tracks on this street. Yes, there is a tram, and it is fabulous. It's a hop on, hop off tram, and once we'd bought tickets for the day, we could get on and off anywhere we wanted, as many times as we wanted. The stops were fairly close together, so sometimes we just walked, but my injured knee also really appreciated being carried around.

The trams themselves have come from lots of different places, including this one from Invercargill (at the very southern end of the South Island). A conductor told us that some of them had actually been made in the States and sent here.

J really enjoyed relaxing on the tram, watching things go slowly by out the window, listening to the tram drivers share history and interesting facts about what we were seeing.

I met a friend and colleague who had recently moved to Christchurch, and she look me "up the hill" to a lovely little cafe overlooking the city. It was great to catch up, and the view was stunning!

We went to some interesting restaurants, cafes, and bars, including this one, which had the best sign.

J's colleagues had told us we just absolutely had to go to Bessie, which they described as unbeatable if you liked meat. We always take recommendations, so off we went, only to discover that it is a thousand times more fancy than we are. But there we were, so we decided to just go with it.

As it turns out, their speciality is aged beef. Apparently, the aging process mades the beef much more soft and tender, and so you can charge a fortune for it. We decided, again, to just embrace the experience, and shared a t-bone steak that had been aged for 33 days. It was definitely delicious, and I think I could tell that it was smoother than normal steak, although I don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway, we enjoyed it, and will probably allow that to be the extent of our aged beef experience.

After dinner, in the chilly but pleasant evening, we walked to Crash Palace for a drink. It's hard to tell in the picture, but they're serving food and drinks out of an old bus, which is pretty cool.

Also not captured in the pictures is the lovely lighting, which was colorful but soft and soothing. We had a nice time sitting outside.

During our stroll back to our hotel, we noticed this striking white tree, lit up in what looked like a big gallery. The next morning, we returned to investigate, and discovered that it was something like a mall courtyard. We ended up eating breakfast in a charming little cafe near the tree itself.

We were relaxing on the tram, when we noticed these beautiful, old buildings, which the knowledgeable tram driver was informing us used to be part of Canterbury College, and are now The Arts Centre/Te Matatiki Toi Ora. We hopped off and wandered around.

(Also, I love the guy pointing in this picture, who really seems to know what he's talking about. I hope he's expounding on the virtues of the patterns in the roof tiles, which are fabulous.)

It was a beautiful and stately space. I love college campuses, and this still very much feels like one.

They have a gorgeous great hall, with this spectacular stained glass window at one end. You can't really read the words in the picture, but it is celebrating the different ways in which people can make contributions to the greater good, including fighting to keep others safe and making scientific or social advancements. I quite like the concept.

J and I theorized for a while about what molecules or other scientific ideas this might be representing, and then read the plaque and found out that they're whimsical bubbles. Oops. Still cool.

As is true for most of Christchurch, this area was damaged by the earthquake, and is still recovering. 

I found this little street so powerfully interesting that we hopped off the tram at the last second and had a look around. There are many, many fascinating and beautifully made things to be found down lanes like this one, and although I don't feel a need to buy them, they're fun to look at.

It's funny to me that we were able to do so much in such a short weekend, and one in which we didn't even hurry or try to cram too much in. I'll look forward to returning to Christchurch for more exploration and relaxation.