Cook Islands Getaway
Hi everyone! It's Spring Festival in China this week (also known as Chinese New Year), and the city has almost completely shut down. We've been crossing deserted streets like we own the place, and reveling in the silence. I'll tell you more about Spring Festival when it's over, but first, a look back at vacations past. Right after Christmas we went to the Cook Islands for a couple of weeks. If you're wondering where they are, you're not alone—see pin below:
This clump of more than fifteen islands was named after Captain Cook in the late 1700s and then grouped into the British colony of New Zealand at the end of the 19th century. In the 1960s they became a self governing nation in "free association" with New Zealand. Today, the island residents have New Zealand citizenship and use both New Zealand currency and their own Cook Island money.
For Americans, the Cook Islands are probably not high on the vacation destination radar, given how remote they are. My husband did weeks of research on all the island paradises of the world before discovering that Rarotonga, home to the capital of the Cook Islands, had everything we could ever want in an escape destination. The biggest perk: a tiny population (approx 11,000). Also, there’s hiking, beaching, and fishing to be done, and once you get there it’s a little less expensive than Bora Bora, for example. PLUS, it’s very small, which means there’s less Fear of Missing Out, which is an important consideration when your main goal is to relax. This was our “R&R” trip from Beijing, which is mandated and subsidized by the government—the trip where you’re supposed to get your head right and chill out.
A beach on Rarotonga.
To get to this dot in the Pacific Ocean we flew from Beijing to Auckland, New Zealand, and from there to Rarotonga. We left Beijing on December 28th, landed in Auckland on the 28th, spent the night there and then flew to Rarotonga on the 29th. TWIST: We arrived on Rarotonga on the 28th again, because the Cook Islands are on the cusp of the International Date Line. Apparently, tourists in Rarotonga regularly get screwed up by the timezone and arrive a day earlier than they expected, without a place to stay for the first night. In fact, that almost happened to us, but we realized our mistake a few weeks before we left and booked a night at “The Islander,” across the street from the airport.
Our view from The Islander Hotel.
The airport, by the way, was very small. Think small, and then cut that into quarters and that’s how big it was. The only airport I can compare it to is Lawton, Oklahoma’s, but it’s smaller than that too. Fun bonus: when disembarking the plane we could choose between the front door or the back door. How cool! I was wearing long pants and a sweatshirt, so I immediately began to sweat to death, but it was ok because we were staring at amazing volcanic mountains and the ocean in the not-too-distant distance.
Tropical mountains.
On our first night, we discovered that our airport hotel was the hot spot for locals, so we ordered rum & cokes at the bar and settled down to people-watch. But the night ended abruptly when the bar closed at 11:30PM, which was our first glimpse of the island's relatively conservative alcohol laws.
The next day we were told it would cost us 40-60 New Zealand dollars to take a cab the 4 kilometers to the Nautilus Resort (our subsequent home), which seems exorbitant. Plan B: there are two buses on the island—one called “Clockwise” and the other “Anticlockwise”— and (as you can imagine), they drive the same route in opposite directions around the island’s ring road. We decided to wait for the Anticlockwise bus and commenced standing on the roadside with our bags. The bus was late and I started to melt into the asphalt, which is when a pickup truck pulled over and the older couple inside offered us a ride. At first we said no, not necessary, we’re waiting for the bus, but it became clear that these folks would not take no for an answer. We eventually gave in and hopped aboard, hoping they weren't serial killers. So began an informative ride down the eastern coast of the island. Isaac and his wife Nani (spelling?) gave us a little history lesson as we drove, and pointed out roadside landmarks. We even stopped at someone’s house to drop off boxes of frozen taro. Isaac and Nani took us to the doorstep of our resort and gave us hugs and kisses before taking off. Whoa, we weren’t in China anymore.
Our mini infinity pool at the resort.
We spent the next few days in a charming bungalow right on the beach, complete with its own mini infinity pool. Sure, the beach and the scenery were nice, but we (I) were most psyched about the complimentary breakfasts, which included BOTH a buffet and an a la carte entree. The portions were reminiscent of Hawaii’s—AKA massive beyond the level of fun surprise—and I pretty much ate myself silly. This resort was the only place we got a real inkling for local cuisine—or what was claimed to be local cuisine. Lots of paw paw fruit, coconut, taro, and another white root vegetable that was very tasty. We were super jazzed to eat fresh seafood and visited the resort restaurant a couple of times for dinner, too. This was LIVING. We also went to the resort's New Year’s Eve dinner, which was all over the place theme wise, but good (menu items included Brazilian barbecue, the best pork tacos I’ve ever had in my life, grilled tuna, and pasta (whaat?)). Other resort activities: swimming, kayaking, walking, and drinking mojitos by the pool.
New Year's Eve light show from the beach.
The view from our Airbnb.
After morphing into giant sea slugs at the resort, we rented a scooter and moved to a nice, one bedroom Airbnb on the side of a mountain (no tsunamis, man!!) Here we could spread out a bit and cook our own food. Whenever we leave China we get SUPER PSYCHED about grocery shopping—there’s nothing like the supermarkets of a western culture. But Rarotongan groceries had a lot in common with the western foodstuffs we buy in Beijing. There was little/no fresh milk, so we continued to drink UHT (ultra high temperature pasteurized, shelf stable) milk. We also found the same brands of New Zealand butter and cheese that make their way to Beijing, and a very limited beer selection. Sadly, there was a dearth of ground coffee as well, so we drank a lot of instant stuff, which my husband thinks is fine but I find joyless (pinky: raised). We did find some awesome ice cream and multiple flavors of dip. We ate MANY a dipped chip.
FRESH TUNA.
Once armed with a scooter we buzzed around the island to visit the beaches and hiking trails. The mountain trails were super steep (the island was a volcano, after all) so most hikes were relatively short but brought us thousands of feet about sea level. We're talking acute angles. Some trails had scary signs at the bottom warning us to proceed at our own risk, tell friends about our plans before leaving, and to avoid climbing in wet weather. I was spooked, and when it started raining on our first hike I led the charge back to base. But then it rained for several days and we started to worry that we'd never get a chance to hike if we continued to heed public safety warnings. SO we rolled the dice and tried it anyway. This turned out to be ok, although very slippery. The biggest hike we did took us to a giant “needle” of rock pointing at the sky—this involved some minor cliff-face-clinging while being battered by wind and rain. A smidge terrifying, but ultimately worth it.
This is what "needle" means. See white birds for scale.
A chain on the side of the needle that we held onto for dear life.
View of the mountain ridges next to the rock needle.
Peeking around the rock needle at the ocean.
The island’s ring road is only 32 kilometers long, so when you get to the top of a mountain you can see almost the whole island. You can also see weather coming and going, which is pretty wild. Apparently Rarotonga’s land mass is so small that it doesn’t have much impact on the weather, and forecasting is kind of a bear. (We watched the weather report on the sole available tv channel, by the way. It starred a timid, unpolished dude reciting temperature predictions for each island). We often went for a hike and followed it up with a swim to cool off—a really great activity combo, honestly.
View from one of our hikes. That white line that separates the dark blue water from the light blue water marks the perimeter of the lagoon.
Rarotonga is surrounded by a lagoon on almost all sides, which makes for soothing, low-impact snorkeling in very warm water. We checked out the local fish, which were overall pretty friendly. We did enrage one, softball-sized fish who repeatedly swam straight at my face while shaking its head back and forth. I’m not going to lie, I was scared. Although if I hadn’t been wearing a snorkel I wouldn’t have known it was chasing me, so my fear was especially shameful (what are you gonna do, fish? Head butt me?). There were no waves on the beach, thanks to the lagoon, but the waves crashing on the natural rock wall around the lagoon were massive. The kind that are so big they seem to break in slow motion. Very mesmerizing.
Waveless beach.
For the first part of the trip we were on high alert, waiting for people to scam us or rob us, but after being repeatedly proven wrong we relaxed a bit. I don’t think I’ve ever shared an island with so many consistently nice people. This might be related to the weather, and maybe the many churches on the island, too. I’m not sure, but we kept looking like idiots, assuming people were out to screw us. When we went to the Saturday market on the island, I was practicing my shopping-in-China attitude, which was QUITE inappropriate.
Ocean sunset.
We did have to adjust to the service style, which was sort of a perpetual hot mess—always very slow. One night, for example, we ordered the same two drinks three times because we never got them—they were brought to our table eventually, but we got charged for six cocktails instead of two, haha. Another example: waiting 90 minutes for a pizza, while people who had been seated after us got food minutes after sitting down. This would make sense if we’d been forgotten, but our server kept coming by to refresh our drinks. We’re used to the service in Beijing, which is rude/deadpan but typically very efficient. But it's hard to get angry about friendly, inefficient service, especially when the Pacific is lapping the sand to your left and the sun is setting on the horizon.
Breakfast at the only diner we found.
In an effort to have some kind of nighttime experience (besides eating at home and hitting the hay at 9:30pm), we went on a bar crawl halfway through our time there. This was a revelation—we were suddenly exposed to all the young people on the island and the crazy club scene (we fit in seamlessly, given my self-conscious dance moves and fairly low booze tolerance). We got picked up on the side of the road by a green bus full of silent young people (and one middled aged couple). The music was at peak volume, so we had some awkward screaming convos with the people next to use before giving up. Things loosened up quickly though, and everyone became good friends over the course of the evening. Our favorite comrade was a twenty two year old Australian woman who, along with her boyfriend, started slamming drinks at an ungodly speed somewhere around the third bar. She had lived in Singapore for several years as a kid and rolled out some of her Mandarin once she was a few drinks in, which was hilarious. We were definitely OLD for that group (idk how that happened) but it was still fun.
Goat buddy who lived on our road.
A weird thing about Rarotonga: the island has a ton of stray dogs. Or if they’re not stray, then the conventions of pet ownership are wildly different there. Every day we saw dogs playing together in the ocean, fighting on the beach, rough-housing by the road, begging for food at restaurants, or just snoozing in various public establishments. One night at dinner, a dog wandered over to our table. My husband told her to “sit,” but she gave him a blank stare. After some thought, he said “siit” in a New Zealand accent….and the dog sat! She hung out with us through our appetizers and then went to play with her dog buddies on the beach.
One cranky exception to these nice dogs haunted a graveyard alongside the road leading up to our house. He looked like he’d been roughed up in his day, and he liked to charge at me, barking, when I walked by. Eep. He nipped my hand once, but I practice my fearless warrior walk and he lost interest. I AM NOT AFRAID DAMMIT.
One of many amazing trees on the island.
We saw these butterflies whenever we went hiking.
Cool flowers by the road. We saw so many different kinds of beautiful/weird plants, trees, and flowers on the island. Photo credit for almost every pic in this post goes to my husband.
By the time we started our journey back to Beijing, we'd fully adjusted to the island lifestyle of sweating and swimming and smiling at people. Then grilling fish, drinking New Zealand wine, and staring off into the sunset. Our flights back to Beijing were a bit harrowing, but Rarotonga was an amazing retreat from China. We came back bug-bitten and sunburned, but happy. Apparently there are direct flights from LA to Rarotonga, so perhaps we’ll explore that option one day in the future.
More soon!