Rarotonga, Cook Islands 3

We are snorkelling at a multi-coloured, piscean picture show; unbelievable vivid creaures really make you keep your head down.















Flippering fantastic experience. We're so stunned that we have to keep each other at arms' length.

Circling the island, (all 30 kms around) proves the best way to keep cool in the sticky

40degree heat

I get disorientated in the garden of Eden.........

....but eventually find the bananas I'm looking for, suspended above their pregnant flower bud.

Stupendous sunset from our little beach balcony..

..where we barbecued fish several evenings - our favourite was Broadbill steaks; a type of swordfish caught locally and plentifully, sold in the tea-time markets after the boats sail in.

At the highland heritage centre, Irene croons to the conch and bongos.....

...and she gets to take one of them home after narrowly beating him in the Rarotonga all-comers shiny face competition.

Meanwhile a dusky maiden demonstrates fifty ways to stash your sarong....

plus how to wriggle out of it. The audience are all taking notes with different gender-emphases.

The most intriguing dances portrayed the changes of dress enforced by arriving missionaries in the late 19th century. Would you believe they had to suddenly adopt long black trousers beneath the grass skirts?!

Thankfully reverting to the original au-natur costumes for the new found tourism influx from the 1970s when QE II opened the airport runway to let us all start swarming in. Liberation or what?

There's that camera-shy intruder again.

The memorable but sweaty evening of Feb 14th.

Irene's birthday and valentine's evening spent in style ......

2nd instalment at Rarotonga, Cook Islands

In our local beach bar, 'Jim's Beachside Inn', we're not sure

whether the fall-out warning is to be taken seriously...

But that afternoon the truth hit home brutally as

I was innocently hugging a tree to try to commune

with my inner spiritual fibre. Ouch!






















At Titivakeiei, we hear the amazing gospel choir
on Sunday morning...
















...then join the Sunday-best congregation for tea
in the parish verandah















while the non-conformists take their ease amongst
the graves of their ancestors. The atmosphere is essentially
a combination of mid 19th century English propriety
and joyful 'plantation-style' gospel exuberance; fabulous.















Some of the choir hurry towards the tea and
cakes...

... while further along the beach, at the sacred site

where the forefathers originally launched great canoes

to reach New Zealand thousands of miles away,

a new recruit is baptised in full dress by the collar and tied

church officials. There but for the grace of God......

Meanwhile, back in the garden of Eden,

one of the hedonists adjusts her organic

head-dress ready for the pagan rituals

which follow in the next installment.

Don't miss it!!

Rarotonga, Cook Islands

After a 4 hour flight from Auckland, we arrived on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, the fauna couldn't help getting stuck right into the flora.





























Then Johnny Weissmuller popped in ...


















... to our little treehouse beach retreat, where the 3 of us stayed for a week -
swimming, snorkelling and generally enjoying life in the coral reef lagoon.

In the next instalment we mingle with the natives and Anton gets his coconut-uppance!