Muri Beach Club Rarotonga

... re out on the road waiting for the bus to Highland Paradise. Bus arrives and we tell the driver our names but we’re not on the list. Tells us to get on in any case. Realises the bus won’t have the room for the people he’s supposed to pick up so asks if we’re ok getting off and waiting for the next one. Of course we are. So off we get and the next bus comes along. He doesn’t have us on the list either but he has room so ...

... aber so gut das man immer einen Strandabschnitt findet an dem man alleine ist, wenn man will. Für Hochzeiten soll die Insel berühmt sein, ich selber hab aber nicht geheiratet. Schwarze Perlen werden hier gezüchtet und verkauft auch da war ich nicht für zu haben. Es geht auf der Insel also vorwiegend um das gepflegte Nichtsmachen, dass man gekonnt durch leichte Aktivitäten unterbricht wie am Strand spazieren, Baden, Schnorcheln. Manchmal wenn das ...

... One little girl wouldn't give up me and kept trying to teach me, eventually I convinced her that I could just watch. They made us all types of things: glasses, headdresses, dancing skirts, bracelets, watches! Far too soon our time was over at the school, and we headed around the island for a tour of local farms and banana plantations. This was interesting but not the most fun. It was kind of like giving a tour of our garden, except surrounded by coconut trees ...

... answers on a postcard please.<br><br>My first couple of days on the island was getting acquainted with my surroundings, white beaches, a beautiful still lagoon with waves breaking about 800 metres out on the reef that completely surrounds Rarotonga. The fish swim right up to the beach, beautiful Picasso fish and angel fish. The snorkelling is good, but the lagoon is really shallow so it is difficult to swim, unless you wade over masses of rocks and sea cucumbers ...

... Sehr tueckisch, wenn man bereits Unterkuenfte pp buchen muss. Auf der extreem kurzen Landebahn des Rarotonga International Airports muss die grosse Boing sehr schnell runter...und das merkt man auch! Im Flughafengebaeude wird die Wartezeit zur Einreise gleich von einem Gitarrenspieler verkuerzt und die Immigration Beamtinnin tragen alle Blumen im Haar. Sehr gut! So habe ich mir das vorgestellt. Die Hauptinsel der Cooks ist von einem Riff umgeben ...

... breakfasts, 'sundowner' cocktails (drunk incongruously out of jam jars) and sometimes evening meals, for the next five days. Mine host was a gruff American with Scottish ancestry, whose direct manner was not everyone's cup of tea, but he was helpful enough and we got on OK with him. Most of the other guests were Kiwis, who we got on well with and had some joshing about the rugby. As relaxing was what we intended to do and did, there ...

... fatigued tonight. I'll blame it on my 700 kilometer bike ride. All I can say is that I intend to sign off early tonight. I've totally enjoyed writing to you every night, but my blogs from here on out will be more sporadic as I'll have far less access to internet. But when I DO write, I'm sure I'll have plenty to tell. In an ironical twist, I receive a message from the Travelpod ...

... been kind the past couple of days and been really sunny so we went to a good spot to see the local marine life. We were too stingy to spend $10 hiring a snorkel again but we could see plenty from the surface!! Huge fish, pipe-nose fish, some cool stripy fish, an angel fish, and we kept chasing around this blue flash but never quite saw it. This is all interspersed with some serious relaxing and letting our bodies recover from the ordeal that was the ...

... met Lawrie and Judy (Papamoa couple) for lunch and with them negotiated what we thought was a reasonable deal with a taxi driver to explore a little more of the island. $20 an hour sounded good. He took us to see Robert Loius Stevenson's museum, past some impressive 2007 South Pacific games venues, a golf course, the airport and the new Aggie Grey's hotel. After three $120. Either his maths was no good or he was having us on. He explained that $20 was just for around town and we ...