Rarotonga

Rarotonga is the main island in the group. It has a land area of 67.2 Sq.Km and a population of about 8,000.
It was one of the later islands to be found by Europeans. The Bounty mutineers probably saw it in 1789 as they were searching for a safe hideout. The first known European visitor was Philip Goodenough, captain of the Cumberland, in 1814. The missionaries arrived in the Cooks in 1821 but didn’t find Raro until 1823.

The capital, Avarua, is a small town situated on the north of the island near the airport. There is one road that goes around the island, roughly at sea level. There are two bus routes – Clockwise and Anti-clockwise. They take 50 minutes to do the circuit.
One of the most popular methods of transport is on small motor scooters. We hired one for a couple of days and it was a good way to see the island and get off the main road.

Rarotonga is relatively young, about 2 million years old. It is the eroded top of a giant undersea volcano that originally reached 1500 metres above sea level. A coral reef has grown up around the island. There are a number of channels out to the open sea, including Avana passage from which it is believed the migration to Aotearoa/New Zealand departed about 800 years ago.

There is a circle of seven stones representing the seven canoes – Takitumu, Tokomaru, Kurahaupa, Aotea, Tainui, Te Arawa and Mataatua – that took the ancestors of the present day New Zealand Maori. It is probable that the canoes originated in Tahiti. This is a good map of Polynesia. There is also the Modern Canoes Stone Circle commemorating the arrival of many traditional Polynesian waka here during the 6th Festival of Pacific Arts in 1992.

We stayed at Muri Beach on the South East side of the island. This is the view looking back over our units to the interior.

Here the lagoon is shallow and wide and there are four motu (small islands) within it. The area boasts some lovely white sand beaches fringed with coconut trees..

There are a number of walks in the rugged interior. We did the ends of the Cross Island Walk on consecutive days. It’s a fairly good path, but steep in places and would get very slippery if wet. One of the most prominent features is The Needle, a tall outcrop of breccia that appears to have a face on it.

There are good views from this point.

Two birds you see a lot of in Raro – in fact on all the islands we visited. Mynas

and chickens! We were amazed to find them a long way from civilisation on the highest point on the cross island walk.

One other thing you see a lot of are graveyards and graves. Here is a large one near the airport. Others are attached to churches and many people are buried in their family's garden. There will be a picture of this in the Aitutaki post.

Lastly, an interesting feature in the lagoon opposite where we stayed in this traditional fish trap. There is a constant current from right to left and fish enter at the wide end and get funnelled down to the apex where a big net is waiting!