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.
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