Greetings from Rarotonga, the main island of the Cook Islands! Our second and last week has started here on this piece of south pacific paradise. Unfortunately paradise has been a bit windy and cloudy (in fact very windy) since we arrived, but we have seen some sunshine and can hardly complain when the base temperature is still around 23 degrees every day. The showers are brief and refreshing and the bright side of the wind is that we haven't seen more than one or two mosquitos even though we've occasionally been far inland on hiking trips.
In fact, we've done quite a lot of hiking during the past week. We've walked some easy trails along creeks, done a longer (24 km) hike into the main town and back, and climbed the highest mountain on the island - Te Manga, 653 metres. That killer climb was really something special. Half of the trail snaked along the ridge of the mountain ever higher, the path wasn't broader than half a metre and on both sides you had drops of 50 metres or more. One wrong step and you'd gone crashing down through the vegetation - a long way down. Luckily there were tree branches and roots you could hold on to, which made it all the more exhilirating, not to mention the fact that some sections had to be climbed with ropes! Thrilling and a bit scary sometimes! The last 30 metres to the top were though. It was more or less a straight vertical climb. The view along the way and at the top were, however, very rewarding. It was definitely the meanest piece of climbing either one of us has ever done, without a guide and all at that!
At this point you might be wondering were all the pictures are and why there is no text of what we did on our road trip in California. Well, you just have to wait for those as we can't upload any pictures from the computers at the beach house we're currently staying at, and we really don't want to release the text on the road trip adventure without the pictures. But once we get to New Zealand in a week or so you'll definitely see some eye candy, we promise you that (no, we're not referring to topless bikini girls on any of the LA beaches, sorry guys)!
We've made our stay on Rarotonga all about health and exercise. Either our own feet or the bicycles we've rented take us wherever we go, and in our opinion it's a waste to rent a car or a scooter on this beautiful island since you won't have time to see anything when everything flashes before your eyes in a blur. It's only 32 km around the island so the distances are quite small and managable with a bicycle (we've circled the island only once but done several tours into the main town Avarua, which lies 12 km from our accommodation). The Muri Lagoon which lies no further than 10 metres from the dorm we are sleeping in is wonderful to swim in and if you swim over to one of the small islets in the lagoon it can actually get pretty hot as the trees break the wind from the ocean. Windsurfing and snorkeling are good options in the lagoon, but we haven't tried any of those yet.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we have also been sleeping a lot. And I mean a lot. Once it gets dark here around seven or half past seven, it's really easy to fall asleep after a taxing day of sports and fresh air. Well, we don't mind as we've both had hectic summers and the California road trip was quite intense - we both needed these two weeks to relax and charge our batteries. It hasn't stopped us from sampling the local beer "Matutu" though :)
Our remaining days on the Cook Islands will be spent pretty much in the same way as so far. On Wednesday (or Thursday at the latest) we'll do the cross-island hike which should take about 4 hours and takes us to an elevation of over 400 metres - a piece of cake after the "as-high-as-you-can-get" hike we did yesterday. The weather should also turn into a bit more sunny, which means we'll lie on the beach a lot more than so far. It's actually no problem finding things to do here even though the weather hasn't been superb; two weeks was definitely the right length for our stay. Even though it would have been awesome, we have decided not to visit any of the other islands like Aitutaki, which is famous for its heavenly lagoon. Trips there are far from inexpensive as the distances are in the range of hundreds of kilometres and you have to fly there from Rarotonga. It doesn't matter, there's plenty to see here and it sure as hell won't get boring (besides, Giigan wants to save that experience for his honeymoon!).
We probably won't write another post from the Cook Islands, so next time you hear from us will be from the rugged sceneries of NZ! Best wishes to all of you back home and abroad, wherever you are!
P.S. If any of you have tried to reach us by telephone or send us text messages while we've been here: we haven't received them since neither Sonera or Elisa telephone subscriptions work with the local operator. Hence our mobiles have been useless here.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
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Hello!
ReplyDeleteKuulostaa hienolta pojat - hankkikaa itsellenne paikallinen prepaid tms. numero kun pääsette uuteen seelantiin niin voisin pirautella skypelle sitten sinnepäin (tai vaikka duunin laskuun kännykällä).
Postatkaa siis vaikka uusi numero sitten tänne blogiin, niin löytyy sitten helposti =)
On varmsti ollut upea lekotella ja chillata noissa maisemissa.
Eiköhän tuo onnistune. Laitetaan vaikka spostilla tulemaan halukkaille.. Niinkuin on tapana sanoa: "Ei se väärin ole!"
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