Country Info
- Avarua
- Capital
- New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
- Currency
- 20,611
- Population
- CK
- Country Code
Cook Islands Slideshow
Cook Islands
Travel Blogs from Cook Islands
Enjoying spiritual matters
This morning we went to Church! Having been recommended by the rough guide and Adam and it being Sunday, we walked the 10 minutes to the local church. The service was really interesting, but the singing was amazing! All in Maori, and like a south seas ...
Vara's Beach House
Made it to Rarogtonga and its great here. Staying at Vara's Beach House. Will write more ...
Cook Islands: the gems of the Pacific
... of the island is very rugged, steep volcanic mountains covered in tropical rainforest and so virtually uninhabited. The main language spoken is Cook Islands Maori but most people have a good understanding of english so it's been easy to get around. Unlike ...
Cook Islands
My landing in the Cook Islands was very exciting because it would be less than 12 hours before I saw Ben!! Ben was in Thailand with me until Nov 24th and we had not seen each other since, so it had been a long 3 months apart finally coming to an end. ...
what the hell is out there?
We cleared immigration and customs. My hopes of some last minute duty free were dashed as although there was a sign, I couldn't work out how to get to it. Our transport was where it was supposed to be and we were in the van, in Rarotonga, and on our way. ...
Slugfest
11/10/09 Day 2 Muri Beach We woke up and apart from busting for a pee, all we could say/I can still say is wow! The living room has some high windows around it and from the platform we could see out across the amazingly blue lagoon. The rain had ...
No more ladders (or snakes)
... of land in Vietnam or Thailand and build the same resort from the ground up and it end up costing them less. Paradise though the Cook Islands are, they are way too hard to get to, way too expensive to get to, and for what you get at least at the ...
Getting hotter by the hour...
... was a breeze, but it was a hot one. Will this heat never cease!!!??!! Firstly I thought I might as well get my Cook Islands Driving License so I headed over to the harbour where they were issued. As I wanted to hire a scooter, I ...
Cook Islands
... day in Wellington with a long hike through the local nature reserve seeing a whole range of endemic nz birds. Off to the Cook Islands leaving at 0530. Still no programme but apparently the cabinet of the Cook Island Government has met to discuss it, with ...
Swimming in an Aquarium
... heads scattered about the white sandy sea lagoon. To top it all off we spent 3 days on Aitutaki, another of the Cook Islands, famous for its reef enclosed lagoon. It lived up to its reputation and the lagoon was spectacular. It is ...
Rarotonga
We have one more hour left before we leave the Cook Islands for New Zealand! We've only been here for 11 days, but it feels like we have been here forever (in a good way!) We've had such a great time - the hostel we are staying on is right on ...
An open heart
... introduced to nearly everyone on the island- pretty cool! Tonight I've been invited to a traditional dancing festival, which I'm very excited about, as the dancers of Rarotonga are supposed to be the best of all the Pacific islands. ...
Aitutaki
Decided to go to an island called Aitutaki for 5 nights, leaving today. Last night was the island pub crawl where all the island go out until 2am. Got totally hammered and we spent all our money. So got up today with no money at all and the flight ...
Bear With Me
Guys, I have arrived in Cook Islands and it is unbelievable. I have lots to say and an entry to put in for Auckland which is amazing. However finding a decent computer is like finding a needle.... The closest thing is a monkey smoking a cigarette on a ...
Paradise Islands - Again!!
Welcome to the South Pacific Islands, Bobby and I arrived at stupid o'clock in the morning with no where pre-arranged as per, so we were relieved to be greeted by one of the island's more enigmatic characters - Piri Purato III. He was offering us the ...
Week 1 - Cook Islands
"Kia Orana" from the Cook Islands. Today is our last day before heading off to NZ, and finally the sun has come out. It's been a hectic week out of the office. After landing in LA, we stayed over night at Venice Beach (what a crazy place) and ...
Six days in paradise
... name sounds like paradise, and that's exactly what awaited us when we flew in from Rarotonga. It is another of the southern Cook Islands, a 50 minute flight from Raro. The island is much smaller and quieter but the lagoon is huge, apparently the biggest ...
Sun!
Everything's closed on a Sunday as everyone goes to church so today we went to the beach spa resort hotel nearby for a free local show. It was a local group singing traditional songs and doing a bit of dancing, so was pretty good! A lot of people from ...
Date with Destiny
Rarotonga from the air looks amazing. We couldn't wait to get passed their very lax customs and get into the water. We arrived a day before we left which was wierd and we nearly filled out our customs declerations wrong. So being a Sunday again we met up ...
Gain a day, lose a day
21/10/09 – 23/10/09 Day 13 Aitutaki and Avarua, Rarotonga, Auckland, Brisbane We took off at 1am Thursday but within minutes it was Friday. Had two Sundays when we started the holiday, now we'd lost Thursday. For reasons known only to Air New ...
What Happened to 11 Days?
... Bali post, this is a prime example of totally sterile tourism. Anyone choosing between the two would miss out if they picked the Cook Islands as a typical South Pacific paradise. The biggest let down for me was the state of the coral and sealife... I've ...
Aitutaki, Cook Islands
... meal the entertainment begins which is a how of traditional dancing. It is amazing to watch and looks exhausting. Our dance troop includes the Cook Islands dancer of the year of whom the locals are very proud. At the end both of us are invited up to ...
Livin' the Cook Island !
Nous voila de retour dans la civilisation apres 2 semaines aux Iles Cook (archipel de 15 iles) !!!! Nous avons beaucoup apprecie le changement de temperature (20 a 30 degres), le soleil (present a tous les jours, sauf pendant les quelques ...
Imagine being stranded on a desert island
... I got the feeling the place I was heading this time would be a little bit more glamourous. Aitutaki is a bunch of 15 islands surrounding what I'd classify as a stunning lagoon. It's so remote Google Maps doesn't know where it is, but it's about 250kms ...
The Requisite Bicycle Trek
... , I spent the day riding around the island, taking pictures and buying souvenirs. I used to think that the white ring around islands like this was the reef. It's actually the white caps of the waves crashing over the reef continuously. There's a gellato ...
Back to the monsoon and being bitten
... a smile then ignored me so I don't think he wanted his colleagues knowing about his dodgy taxi rides! So that was my Cook Islands trip. Conclusions? I'd say 3 weeks was too long, I reckon two weeks would have to be a maximum. I'd also only go back ...
Over the top - auf der Südseeinsel
So inzwischen hat sich das Wetter beruhigt.Als wir auf der Insel angekommen sind, waren hinten am Horizont, also außerhalb vom Riff gigantische Wellen. Die waren konstanterweise so hoch, dass man den Eindruck hatte der Ozean würde sich am Horizont nach ...
Botanic Gardens
... again! But the winds have followed us across the sea from nz!! We braved these however, to walk to the 'botanic gardens' - Cook Island style. There was a map explaining where everything was on the side of the cafe (which we looked at after our tea and ...
While you're waiting...
While you're waiting for the grand return to cheapo internet land and the mammoth uploading session, have a peek at www.richallan.co.nz/new_zealand as slowly, very slowly, but very surely Rich is getting his photies on ...