Rarotonga Take Two

Dedicated readers of this blog (I fantasise that such people exist) will remember that we tried, and failed, to get to Rarotonga for a holiday at the end of June. Our best-laid plans went aglay when the Sydney tourist came to Wellington, causing another Level Two alert, and preventing us from flying. I say prevented, but there was no actual notification given. Another traveller from Wellington was refused boarding at the last minute – that would have been us if we’d not cancelled at the night before.

We rebooked and once more filled out our forms – they now give you 72 hours in advance rather than 24, presumably to prevent a repeat of last month’s debacle. As we’d changed our arrangements slightly, we were now departing on Sunday, leaving Wellington at a more civilised time of 8:45am. Our flights were uneventful, and we touched down in Rarotonga dead on time at 5:00pm on Saturday. We picked up our rental car, and drove to our accommodation – Avaro Cottage in Matavera – and found the key under mat as promised. It was small but clean with basic equipment – not that we need much to keep us happy. We made a quick trip across the road to Super Brown’s to get some basic supplies – tomorrow being Sunday, most places would be closed so we needed to ensure we had breakfast supplies and, importantly, wine, as the sale of alcohol is prohibited on Sundays.

After sorting ourselves out we went for dinner at Tamarind Restaurant, where I had the Cook Island’s signature dish, ika mata – raw fish cured in lime juice and coconut milk. We then retired to plan our adventures over the next few days.

On Sunday we went out for breakfast, eventually finding somewhere open to serve us at one of the resorts. There wasn’t much else open so we lollygagged, swam in the pool, and generally did very little. We’re on holiday! In the evening we drove round to Muri Night Market, which is generally food retailers, with a band playing island music for accompaniment. We checked out all the stalls before deciding on some noodles, and listened to the band play. Wherever you go in Raro, there’s music playing – they’re a very musical island, like most of the Pacific Islands, with a strong tradition of singing from a very young age.

That concluded the lollygagging stage of the holiday – we had activities booked every day for the rest of our stay.