Here is the final instalment of our Rarotonga holiday from July 2023. We had plenty of fun in the last few days of the trip…… and while the weather wasn’t as perfect as the first week, it was made up for by some amazing kayaking and our own personal turtle encounters.
The first 3 blogs can be found here, with plenty more photos and stories…..
Sunday the 16th of July ……. rainy snorkeling!
The Rarotonga roosters crowing loudly in our yard had us up a bit too early for a Sunday morning. The number of roosters in Rarotonga is phenomenal, and they are known for being a bit of a pain in the bum regarding noise. Lucky they are cute and are rather pretty to look at.
This was the first day we’d woken up to less than ideal tropical weather. Our morning plan was to go to nearby Black Rock for a snorkel post-breakfast. Unfortunately when we arrived at Black Rock the wind was blowing waves right into the beach and it looked a bit too choppy for fun snorkeling. As we’d learnt that the weather is rather varied at different spots on the island, we jumped back in the car and drove around clockwise, past the airport, hoping to find a calmer spot.
By the time we made it most of the way around the island, we decided our favourite spot from the first half of the trip, near our first accommodation, was looking the best. We hadn’t snorkeled here in a few days. It was a much cooler 22 degrees today, but still warm compared to Canberra in July, but the ‘coldest’ day we’d had yet with some wind.
The water was still pleasantly warm, so it was plenty warm enough in the water…… just not that warm on the beach, as Zinnia discovered! Zinnia had become a star with her snorkeling over the trip and did a great trip with me out to see some fish and starfish before her beach play.
Due to the average looking conditions, we were the only ones in the water, and were lucky enough to see the rays again, out near the drop-off. We’d snorkeled this spot now so many times that we knew where they liked to hang out, and got lucky again.
There were plenty of our favourite fish around, so it was a fun and successful snorkel, even if not at the spot we originally planned.
While it was far less windy here than around near Black Rock, the current was quite strong and the wind a bit cold. This made for less picturesque tropical island vistas when out of the water. Poor Zinnia eventually decided she’d had enough fish and it wasn’t really great weather to be building sandcastles on the beach.
With cold kids, we dragged ourselves away from those rays and headed back to our holiday house. Now much further away from this spot, than our first villa, which had been right up the road!
Plane spotting while snorkeling….
As we drove back to the house and past Black Rock, it looked like the wind had changed direction and the snorkeling was looking good for the afternoon. The beach ice-cream van was there, so the kids scored some ice creams, as it was holidays after all!
All a bit cold and tired from our morning adventures, lunch and some rests were in order. Surprisingly even the kids declared the pool a bit too cool in the afternoon so were happy to go down to Black Rock and snorkel as the ocean temperature had been pretty nice.
Unlike the morning, when we reached the beach at Black Rock, the water was lovely and calm. The skies were overcast but it was plenty warm enough for a snorkel.
Zinnia was now a snorkeling star, and enjoying the nice shallow water with plenty of coral and fish.
This spot is right off the end of the runway from the international airport. Soren was very familiar with the flight schedule, so was hanging out on the beach between snorkels, to get some videos of Boeing 787s flying overhead……
The tide was quite low so we had to pick our way around the rocks and corals, which often lead to getting stuck in one spot and having to reverse your way out. It does mean you can get up nice and close to plenty of fish and coral.
This guy was a bit of a surprise. I swore this was a sea snake…. and he was huge and in about 1m of water. Once we did some googling we discovered he is a spotted snake eel (so actually an eel) but the most snakey looking eel I’ve ever seen. A much more pretty eel, than others we’d seen, and apparently harmless but I wasn’t getting too close until we’d established that.
It did eventually get a little cold, and the tide was getting way too low for safe snorkeling, you can see all those rocks sticking out, that were getting hard to safely dodge around! We called it quits for the day as it was now approaching dinner time and decided to head back to our holiday house for some warm showers and dinner.
We’d decided on Falafel Shack again, but as the weather was less than ideal, we sent Anto and Astrid down to pick up take away.
We ended the evening with our traditional holiday card games of UNO and gin rummy. The kids might be able to beat us at UNO, but they have no hope with rummy 😉
Monday the 17th of July……. Our final day of tropical paradise
It was another day of rainy weather, but that’s the tropics for you! Anto had booked a last morning of diving. Astrid had depleted her pocket money with diving and snorkeling with turtles so opted to sit this one out. She’d quickly learnt that scuba diving is an expensive sport.
As it was our last full day of our holiday and less than ideal weather, we had a relaxing morning of hanging out in the house, reading, watching movies and pottering around starting to pack up all our stuff we’d scattered everywhere.
This house had been awesome and it is absolutely huge so plenty of room to spread out and relax. We could have stayed here months, although I’m pretty sure our animals were missing us by now.
Between the rain, we chased the roosters around, who were far less tame than our backyard chickens, who like to sit for pats. The kids had a few swims in the pool. Unsurprisingly, given the weather, we were the only ones there again.
It was a relaxing way to spend the morning, playing in the pool and watching the planes from the pool deck.
Rainy kayaks…
The kids had been banging on all holiday about wanting to go kayaking. There were a few kayak hire places in Rarotonga. Despite it being a rainy afternoon, it was our last day and there wasn’t too much wind, unlike the previous couple of days, so fairly decent conditions for kids to kayak. We thought we’d see what the conditions were like at Aroa lagoon as there was a nearby kayak hire place, and we’d done some amazing snorkeling there a couple of days prior.
On the drive to Aroa it was raining quite hard and about 22 degrees. The kids weren’t deterred, and the lagoon was indeed calm. So a double kayak was hired and Anto took them out in turns to explore.
The grey conditions meant there were only a few other people on the beach, but the water was warm and calm, and it was actually perfect kayaking and snorkeling conditions…… as long as you didn’t mind getting more wet.
The kids had kayaked before and think it’s endlessly fun. Given we only had the 1 kayak hired for 2 hours, they had to take it in turns. I was more than happy to head off snorkeling while they did their kayaks. The fish and coral here had been amazing during our prior snorkel in this lagoon. With the end of the holiday approaching way too fast, I was keen to get back for another snorkel here.
Zinnia might have been a bit little, at 4 years old, to paddle all that far on her own, but she was keen to go out with Dad for a kayak.
Despite the overcast conditions, the water was a brilliant aqua colour and you could see the fish and coral as you paddled.
After the kids had all had a turn kayaking with Anto, they agreed they wouldn’t fight if we let them paddle together, while we snorkeled nearby. In some kind of holiday miracle, there was no fighting or bickering and they happily kayaked around as we explored the underwater world of Aroa lagoon.
The area of coral and fish was quite vast and the majority of snorkeling was in 2 to 3 metre deep water, so great access to fish and coral. It was raining quite hard but the overcast conditions made the colours of the fish and coral even more impressive. Whichever kid was currently not on the kayak, was happily snorkeling with us.
A very special turtle encounter…..
Anto and Astrid had seen turtles on their first dive, and Astrid, Soren and I had done the turtle snorkel excursion, which had been an amazing experience. Rartonga is known for it’s large number of turtles, but I wasn’t expecting to find one in the middle of Aroa lagoon in fairly shallow water. I was snorkeling along, checking out some pretty zebra damsels and saw a cheeky head poking out of a rock shelf. On closer inspection it was a turtle, chilling in a hidey hole.
You can just see her head and feet poking out from under that rock. I was floating around, trying to get some great pics, not really believing my luck and expecting her to swim off at any moment.
She did not seem in any hurry to move and was quite happy letting me swim around her. She then decided to go for a swim along with me, so I snorkeled along with the magnificent creature alongside.
My turtle friend did not seem in a hurry to depart, so I managed to alert Anto and the kids to her presence so they could swim and kayak over to see her. I thought there was no way this turtle was going to hang around with 5 of us, but she continued to play with us, surfacing for air and then swimming for a bit to say hello.
As Zinnia didn’t go on the turtle tour, I was quite keen to get her to see the turtle. She paddled over in the kayak and could watch the turtle playing around just below her. She was pretty impressed, for about 3 minutes, after which kayaking became more fun again, so off she went.
At this point we realised there was actually another turtle nearby, so we had 2 turtles to play with. Soren, had thoroughly enjoyed his turtle snorkel earlier in the holiday but was now more interested in kayaking with Zinnia, so they hung out on the surface while Astrid, Anto and I enjoyed snorkeling with our 2 friends, and tried to get those elusive pictures of us swimming with a sea turtle.
The turtles really seemed to enjoy us being in the water with them. At any point they could have swum off but were content to swim around us for a bit and then just settle on the bottom watching our antics. We were able to get very close without any issue at all.
Astrid is one lucky girl, yet another swim with turtles!
Anto having been on Zinnia wrangling and accommodation relocation duty on the turtle tour day, finally got his chance to swim with turtles…..
Our two hours of kayak hire was about to be up so Anto and Astrid took the kayak back while I kept swimming with the turtles and Soren and Zinnia decided to build sandcastles on the beach. The turtles stuck around and Astrid and Anto swum back out and we got more turtle time……
The turtle tour had been my highlight of a pretty amazing trip, up until now. Our own personal and playful turtles topped it though. Anto managed to get some photographic evidence of me snorkeling with a turtle friend.
It was now getting late so we had to very reluctantly say goodbye to the turtles and drag ourselves into shore. I found so many other great fish and coral on the way in, and was cursing it was the last day of the trip. By the time we all got ashore the lower temperatures had left everyone very cold, something that wasn’t a problem while we were engrossed with kayaking and turtles. Soren and Zinnia had been building sandcastles on the beach but were now a blue colour, so it made leaving this amazing spot a bit easier, as we high-tailed it back to the house for warm showers and clothes.
Rarotonga, you weird but wonderful place….
All cold and tired, for our final night we opted for take away dinner from the nearby food van Kai Guy (which was very good) and had to finish the packing before playing some cards. It had definitely been a memorable holiday and we all voted that we’d like to come back to the Cook Islands again one day, both Rarotonga and maybe one of the other 14 islands.
I had mentioned that in the Cook Islands the official currency is the New Zealand Dollar. They use New Zealand notes and while NZ coins are accepted they do have their own Cook Islands coins, which are also accepted. These include these ‘triangle’ coins which are $2 coins. The kids of course had to keep one as a souvenir.
The Rarotonga roosters, and other free range chickens, that are literally everywhere are amusing. They are beautiful colours but noisy little buggers!
We also enjoyed the large array of amusing signs. From ‘danger jet blast zone’s to ‘tsunami evacuation routes’ which just pointed to the mountain in the centre of the island. As well as the signs warning of hazardous currents in the passages and a myriad of signs for the vast number of churches.
Most of all we enjoyed the beautiful beaches and amazing snorkeling. Rarotonga has a number of resorts, and while we didn’t stay at any and opted for Airbnb villas, the resorts did seem far less commercialised and touristy than other Pacific islands.
If you want a holiday to swim, snorkel, dive or generally relax on a beautiful beach then this is a great place to go. If you want tons of high-end dining, big resorts and luxury, there are probably better options. We found all the people very friendly and everyone speaks English. There are 2 official languages – English and Cook Islands Māori.
We did find food to be relatively expensive (even compared to Australia, where food is currently not cheap). This is due to the fact that most food is imported from Australia, New Zealand or Thailand. Restaurant prices and supermarket prices are high. At the time we visited (July) there wasn’t a vast amount of fresh fruit and vegetables available from the markets and in the supermarkets so we were a little disappointed that we weren’t getting the tropical fruit we’d been looking forward to, but it may have been the wrong time of year.
Rarotonga is very small, being only 32km around the whole island. There is a bus that runs both clockwise and anti-clockwise on a regular basis. If you don’t plan to venture far from your accommodation then walking or catching the bus is a great option. It’s also common to ride around and hiring bikes is a great option. As we knew we were going to be snorkeling and diving in a variety of locations and had a lot of gear, and 3 kids, we decided to hire a car for the duration of our stay. The car hire was very reasonable for the 9 days. The bus fares aren’t particularly cheap so the convenience of being able to bundle all our snorkel gear and the kids into the car to head to different beaches made this an excellent choice.
We definitely all enjoyed our Rarotonga holiday and would absolutely come back again. The snorkeling and diving were very good. The access to snorkel sites and dive sites was excellent, with limited boat time to get to dive sites and snorkeling off the beach in a large number of locations, in calm and relatively shallow water made it excellent with the kids. There was a great variety of fish, coral and of course the rays and turtles.
Another trip to the Cook Islands will be on the agenda for future years!
The trip home…….. via New Zealand!
Unfortunately all good things come to an end. We had an early flight out of Rarotonga so were up at 5.30am but had some left over food in our kitchen so had a decent breakfast before the very quick 5 minute drive to the international airport. One of the benefits of being runway adjacent in our second lot of accommodation!
It was again pouring rain and rather dark as we departed. The bleak weather did make it a bit easier to leave, although after our amazing snorkel and kayaking the day before it had been tempting to just stay a bit longer.
We had flown over on a direct flight from Sydney to Rarotonga on Jetstar, and were expecting the same on the way home. When we arrived at the airport the line for check-in wasn’t too long but we were informed that due to a 200km/h headwind we’d be having a technical stop in Auckland, New Zealand to refuel, so it was no longer a direct flight and we’d be late into Sydney.
A long travel day home is never ideal, but as the rain poured down and the palm trees were just about being blown over, we listened to the festive local band playing while drinking some coffee and preparing for a long day ahead. Due to the unfortunate weather the aircraft was delayed coming in, so we didn’t actually depart until after 9am.
Our flight was half empty and we’d pre-ordered food, so at least had a hot snack to keep up occupied along with plenty of podcasts and movies on the tablets and phones for the kids.
We did get to see Auckland from the air, and then for a full 1.5 hours as we sat on the tarmac waiting to refuel. As we weren’t allowed off the plane it was a bit of a tedious delay, and the pilots were getting a bit annoyed at the length of time we were waiting for the fuel truck, while watching other aircraft come and go. Eventually we took off again and were Sydney bound.
Unfortunately the kids burned through our snack supply in the 4 hours to Auckland and Jetstar had no additional food onboard for the additional flight time. At least we had pre-ordered meals and I’d taken a fair bit of food with us. Other passengers were not so happy as it was another 3.5 hours through to Sydney, making a total of over 9 hours since we left Rarotonga.
We finally made it to Sydney at 2pm local time on the Wednesday the 19th of July. As we’d crossed the international date line it was 6pm in Rarotonga, the previous day, a long day indeed! The fun wasn’t over though as we had to clear immigration and customs, get our bags and get our car from the offsite airport parking. About now was where we were all wishing to be back snorkeling with turtles like the previous day, but alas we had the 300km drive home still!
When we made it to the car and were packed up and on the road, it was a bit after 4pm, Sydney time. The kids were ‘staaarrviiing…..’ due to the lack of meal service on the flight so we planned to make it out of Sydney via the M5 before the traffic built up too much and stop at a McDonald’s for food. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite make it into Ingleburn before Zinnia started feeling unwell and we barely made it to the carpark before she was sick……… not the end to the trip we wanted! We are experts at travel-sick kids so dug out some spare clothes and with some food in tummies were back on the motorway and heading for home. A slightly more adventurous trip home than originally anticipated but a small price to pay for a wonderful 11 days away in a tropical paradise.
We made it home to Canberra before 9pm, a long day but not as bad as many we’ve endured.
Rarotonga, you were pretty awesome and I’m sure we’ll be back one day!
