Fun in the sun on Rarotonga (the Cook Islands)

Had a fab first week of proper backpacking in the Cook Islands, I think Icould get used to this lifestyle heehee!

Arrived in Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands on 16th Nov early in the morning, after only a few naps on the plane - Sarah, I got VERY excited when the Air NZ crew brought round some lovely Marlborough sauvignon blanc, yummy!! Got picked up by Bill, the owner of the hostel, a bit grumpy on first impressions but he turned out ok once we got chatting.

Arrived at hostel and couldn't sleep so wandered down to the beach for a laze and also got the bus into town to get a few supplies - all the food was pretty pricey as they have to import it all from NZ. Being all on my own took a bit of getting used to and I had a few moments of freaking out, then got over it and told myself "it'll all be fine"!!!!!

Had a super long sleep that first night and felt fully revived the next day. I hired a bike and cycled around the the other side of the island to Muri beach, stopping to take lots of piccies of the amazing beaches and greenery along the way. Spent the day on the beach and then cycled back to hostel to see the sunset.

Met Lucy (from Plymouth but living in NZ) the following morning and we headed to beach just near our hostel for some snorkelling - saw soooo many fish and some cool coral and spikey sea anenomes!! We went to the beach bar in the evening for food and a few beers and tried out the hammock, funny funny!

Hired a moped the following day and we went off exploring the island, was very cool although had a few comedy moments starting, stopping and getting on and off of the moped, once we were crusing along the coastal road it was all good though! The hostel put on a night of local food that evening and we had some yummy food including a local speciality of raw fish marinated in coconut milk, sooo good. After the food we went into town to an 'Island Night' where we saw local dancing, costumes and music, it was very lively and we had a bit of boogie afterwards too!

We had more moped adventures the following day and went into town to watch the blessing of the canoes for the start of a week long annual paddling competition that takes places on the island - teams come from NZ, Oz, and some of the other pacific islands to compete and is a very lively week on the island. The blessing involved lots of chanting, some of which was not very tuneful and went on a bit too long!!! On the way back from town on the moped we stopped for dinner at an amazing gourmet burger bar - so tasty - Becky my 'no burger' rule didn't last very long, oops!! Also saw a massive crab crossing the road on the drive home, how bizarre!

And then came the epic adventures of Lucy and Sandy on the cross island walk, which should have been a 3 hour trek from one side of the island, up to the needle (the highest point on the island) and then down again to the other side of the island. We reached the needle pretty quickly and had some amazing views of both sides of the coast - we also climbed a bit higher up onto a ledge using some chains and ropes, was great fun. Then we started to walk back down and ended up climbing down a crazy steep slope with only tree roots to hold onto, at the bottom of which we realised we'd gone the wrong way and had to climb back up!!!! We ended up heading back to where we started from as we didn't fancy getting lost in the jungle in the dark! the whole thing took us about 5 hours and we'd run out of water, were covered in mud and scratches and were completely drained of energy, however once we were clean and safe and had a beer in our hand we were able to see the funny side!

My last day on the island was Sunday and I woke up with every muscle in my body aching from our crazy jungle trek! A few of us from the hostel went to church to see a local service - the singing was really impressive and very powerful, and we got free food afterwards! Spent the rest of the day lazing on the beach for the last time and then we had a few drinks and a fire on the beach in the evening, before I packed up my stuff ready for my early morning flight to Christchurch, felt a bit sad to leave but lots more exciting adventures to come!