Our journey so far continued...Cook Islands (Rarotonga)

May 23rd - June 4th

Other than what we’d read in the guidebook, we didn’t really know much about the Cook Islands. It isn’t a typical holiday destination, and the amount of people we know who have been there can be counted on one hand. This of course added to its appeal and we certainly weren’t disappointed given that we had spent enough time there to find out just a little more of what the place was about underneath the artificial surface that usually exists solely for tourists.

Straight off the plane and into the tiny airport building, we were collectively greeted by Jake Numanga, a locally-famous native and one-man-ukulele-band, who has apparently received every inbound flight, without fail, for 25 years. Being a former colony, the airport, which is the size of a mere garden shed in comparison to some of the world’s international airports, was regally and officially opened in 1987 by Queen Elizabeth II. Accommodating three flights-a-day, the staff seemed well-practised in their duties as they shuffled about on island time in their flowery shirts and lei’s expertly looking like they were doing nothing when in actual fact they were busy at work. On the strength of the greeting and atmosphere on arrival, it wouldn’t have been silly to assume that we had arrived in a standard tourist trap as eager to take our money as much as we were to spend it. But what we found was surprising.

There are no high-rise buildings of any sort on the island, including hotels. There are a good number of resorts but none with any recognisable commercial name. There is not an abundance of overpriced restaurants serving fayre seasoned to tourist taste buds or bars where it’s always happy hour. Consequently, there is no ‘strip’ to speak of, no central hub that satisfies every need of the holidaymaker. These places exist of course, but rather they are scattered around the island in clusters of no more than two or three at a time. Those people in positions of authority with the power to develop the island beyond all recognition but have resisted must be acknowledged - the island is peaceful and quiet because of it, and has subsequently retained its aestheticism, ambience and charm. It is refreshing that, while a portion of the Rarotongan economy obviously relies on tourism, it isn’t what holds it up.

Rather than spending time in an artificial resort hidden and separated from everyday society, in Rarotonga it is more a case of existing with the locals, which allows you to really experience island life as it should be, alongside the natives. We rented a garden bungalow (a sixty-second walk from the beach on the other side of a road), where passion fruit, avocado and coconut grew liberally in its grounds ready for picking. Almost invariably, the beach closest to our bungalow would be deserted, just waiting for someone to ‘discover’ it. Since no beaches here are owned by or have any affiliation with any hotel or resort, it hadn’t been raked, swept or aesthetically prepared beforehand in order to please the eye of the visitor. Though consequently more rugged, it effortlessly retained its beauty with cartoon palms scattered along its fringes and crystal-clear water that behaved calmly inside the coral walls of its surrounding reef, creating a pretty lagoon.

We hired a motor scooter for the duration of our stay and made sure we explored every inch of the island from the beaches and towns to inland residential areas seldom seen by visitors. We sampled the local produce on offer from fresh hand-picked fruit and vegetables to the locally-made banana, pineapple, coconut and carrot cake topped with butter and caramel icing to which we faithfully returned on more than a couple of occasions. We were lucky to be there for the Cook Islands national rugby league finals held at the BCI national stadium too, for which we gladly paid our five dollar entrance fee. In attendance was none other than the Prime Minister himself (no doubt he arrived in his car complete with the number plate PM1, which can often be seen around the island) and Miss Cook Islands 2011. As is well-known, southern hemisphere countries love their rugby and, since the whole island appeared to be in attendance, this was abundantly clear. Forget any of the finalists winning silverware though. The trophies consisted of large, intricately carved wooden pieces undoubtedly handed down for generations.

One of the things most notable about Rarotonga, we agreed, is that it is a place where it seems like the locals only play at working. Not that the locals are lazy – it is just simply the way things operate on an island – on island time. Life here is in such stark contrast to life in the western world and it is almost as if they work in pretend jobs, like in the Truman show. As we found while touring the place on our rented motor scooter, our aim being to explore every nook and cranny, the societal differences living on an island of this size are such that there exists one Dentist, one Plumber, one Television Engineer, and so on. You get what you get there since competition is scarce, unless your business is a bakery, of which, bizarrely, there are three.

I could write three times as much about Rarotonga if I knew it wouldn’t become tedious to read. It is a place where not much happens but life itself, albeit at a much slower pace than we are used to in the western world. The island is charming, and it is not hard to tell that Rarotongans are proud of it. About as charming as anything on the island is that the two local buses run clockwise and anti-clockwise and are named as such. And therein lay a perfect example exemplifying how simple life is there.

We are back!

Okay, yes, we are back. And no, we are not happy about it. It is all over and returning to reality is like a huge slap in the face and, as you can probably well imagine, we both feel very flat. What will we do you ask? Probably plan the next adventure.

In the meantime, however, owing to a very rushed last few weeks with close to non-existent internet access, we still have updates, stories and blogs to publish from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Hawaii and San Francisco.

So don't desert us just yet. You can pretend we are still away. We will.

We Come in Peace

And there we appeared like monsters from the deep…

 

Swimmers in Australia are constantly advised to be on the lookout for jellyfish and to take precautions wherever possible by wearing stinger suits. So that’s what these are. We don’t usually go out of our way to look and feel completely moronic but, since we were given them to wear in the Whitsunday Islands, who were we to dispute whether or not we needed them? We didn’t see any stingers but we had a good time fooling around in them...

Polar Bear with a Cleft Palate

Tell me you see this too!

Can ya guess what it is yet?

Kangaroo Poo

It's Kangaroo Poo! Well I thought it was funny.

Would-be Roadkill

Driving in the outback is quite an experience, owing to the arid desert terrain and very little in the way of civilisation for many a country mile. The scenery in itself is something we hadn’t experienced before anywhere, such is its uniqueness. Whatever lives and survives in this environment needs to do so with little in the way of moisture for weeks on end. Surprisingly, it is usually the road which kills the animals, not the environment and, because the land is so vast, you don’t see many other than those dead at the side of the road.  For this reason, it is not a good idea to drive at night and is something you are advised against seeing that cattle, camels (see Road Train blog) and marsupials are likely to write off your car before you can say kangaroo poo, not to mention seriously endanger your life in the process. Since we didn’t leave Alice Springs until 3pm and the journey takes around four and a half hours, we knew we’d have to stop the night en route. But before we got to the only campsite outside of Ayers Rock Resort, however, we found ourselves driving in darkness listening to abo.fm with only the power of our headlights to guide us. We knew we were taking a risk so seeing a live dingo by the side of the road, oblivious to the danger he presented to himself and us, was an obvious and glaring reminder to be careful. A few kilometres further down the road, a second glance exposed a huge, living, barn door-sized slab of prime steak standing directly across our lane, staring us down with one eye-brow raised in contempt like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Now, I have no idea if the damned creature was asleep or not. Why else would any being wander into the road like that and stand there like they were invincible? In fact, while we’re on the subject, apparently it is possible to push over a cow while it snoozes given that they sleep on their feet. So perhaps if I’d have nudged him as I came to a stop, while squeezing the last pound of pressure from my brakes, he would have toppled. Who knows? It may be a myth, but I reason that since Beavis and Butthead did it in one of their many juvenile but hilarious episodes, it must be true. Anyway, luckily the cow was just outside the breaking distance for our speed, otherwise he would have been seriously tenderised or, more than likely, us. As soon as we stopped with nothing more than a metre or so to spare he looked at us nonchalantly and trotted off the road and into the darkness. I think if he could he would have flipped us the bird upon leaving. Pretty scary stuff, especially since the hire vehicle we had picked up only a few hours before was held by a 2000 pound insurance bond on my credit card and we were liable for any damage. Thankfully, we reached the campsite soon after this incident and to our knowledge we had no other occurrences to report on the way.

Road Train

We became aware very quickly of Road Trains during our journey deep into the outback on the way to Ayers Rock from Alice Springs. These immense machines intimidatingly bear down on you from the other direction, making your vehicle look tiny even from a distance as the heat rising off the tarmac does so in waves like transparent flames. You can almost imagine them being from a sci-fi movie where the windscreen is a strip no wider than a ruler against the size of the body, obscuring the view of the driver and making it seem driverless. As big as these non-conformist mavericks are, it is the thick metal bull bars surrounding the front end that increase their menacing look. Essential in their role, they protect the truck and driver from animals dumb enough to get in their way, especially cows, which can weigh in excess of a ton. We saw huge cows, obvious victims of an acceptable hit-and-run, lying dead in ditches at the side of the road after being hit by one of these powerhouses. One can only imagine the force on impact.

Road Trains are a trucking concept used in remote areas of Argentina, Australia, Mexico the United States and Canada to move freight efficiently, although the term ‘Road Train’ is most often used in Australia. Australian Kurt Johansson is recognised as the inventor of the modern road train, but it was the Government of South Australia in the 1930s who started the trend of progression by operating a fleet of military trucks to transport freight and supplies into the Northern Territory, replacing the Afghan Camel Trains trains that had been trekking through the deserts since the late 19th century. Incidentally, camels were originally brought to Australia for their suitability in the desert conditions of the outback where they can last for weeks with no water and can shift up to ten times their own bodyweight for considerable distances. Once machinery began to replace them, owners released the camels into the wild, creating numbers of free-ranging herds. Today it is estimated that there are 500,000 feral camels roaming free in the outback causing havoc to the eco-system as they munch their way through the vegetation. It is comforting to know that Australia still harbours some affection for the odd creatures by keeping some in farms, sanctuaries and zoos while others get to star in annual camel races. Now that’s something I bet you didn’t realise about Australia. Neither did we. Seeing them in herds at the side of the road as you drive by is a bizarre sight, I can tell you.

Anyway, back to the real subject matter of this blog. Road trains transport all manner of materials but common examples are, unsurprisingly, livestock, fuel, mineral ores and general freight. Their cost-effective transport has played a significant part in the economic development of remote areas and some communities are totally reliant on regular service. Today, Australia operates the largest and heaviest road-legal vehicles in the world, with some configurations topping out at close to 200 tonnes. As you can imagine, strict regulations regarding licensing, registration, weights and experience apply to all operators of road trains throughout Australia. Looking at the picture diagram you can see that some of them go on more than David Cameron at Question Time. K represents the largest road trains operating in Australia and, therefore, the world. Sadly we never saw one of these colossal machines. Called a "Powertrain" or a "Body and six", these machines operate at The Granites Gold Mine in the western Northern Territory – a state for which we sadly did not have enough time to explore.

Retired Texan Rockstars

While we were at Lake Wannaka, New Zealand, we found a campsite in which to chill out for a couple of days. It was quiet until the vacant spaces around us were abruptly filled by a convoy of Americans in identical campervans, otherwise known as a tour group. It wasn’t long until we met our neighbours, a lovely retired couple from Texas with a drawl so typical it made us feel like we were in an episode of Dallas. The only thing that would have topped it off for us is if Don, a cotton farmer by trade, sported cowboy boots and a Stetson but, sadly, he didn't  adhere to the streotype. We talked for some time until we realised the campervan they had hired, which was significantly bigger and more luxurious than ours, was actually like a shoebox in comparison to the one they own at home. Judy fetched a business card from her purse complete with an image of themselves on the back and a picture of their mobile home, or ‘RV’, on the front. It was only when Judy spoke again that our astounded expression was interrupted. Jon Bon Jovi be proud to call it his tour bus since it contains four flat-screen TVs and tows a full-size Hummer behind. In fact, Judy also revealed that they often pull-up to their house after being on the road exploring America’s vast continent and don’t actually go in, preferring to stay in the RV. I can only wonder what their house is like. It must be a real shithole.

Last fuel for...ever!

Running out of fuel in Australia, in the middle of nowhere, is no joke. However, as prepared as we thought we were for that eventuality, we still cut it close thanks to the vastness of the part of the country through which we were driving. We were on our way north up the east coast from Rockhampton to Airlie Beach, which is the base for touring the Whitsundays, and was around 500 km. It doesn’t sound a lot considering the size of Australia but for long stretches along the highway, there are no service stations and it is easy to get caught out. So we had to stop at a place called St Lawrence, a kind of place where tumbleweed blows across the road, animal carcasses decay in the heat, and locals get thrown out of the watering hole into the dust of the high street for having one too many. We had no choice but fill up at the only petrol pump in town, which, due to a missing cover, presented its oily mechanism in full glory. It still had one of those rickety, old manual ticker displays, the kind that makes you question its accuracy. Once I had pumped enough over-priced small-town fuel to get us to the next big town, I entered the store and awarded a twenty dollar bill to a large woman wearing a pair of thick-rimmed bins and behind which was a cross-eye so bad that it made me wonder if she could see round corners. It was the kind of store that receives a delivery once a month and out-of-date newspapers and magazines sit on the shelves amassing layers of dust and the refrigerated, processed food has long accepted its fate and given up being presentable. In the background leaning against a door frame was a weedy-looking man, in his mid-twenties sporting a wife-beater ribbed vest adorned with grease stains and looking on intimidatingly while a cocktail stick protruded from his mouth. I surmised that it must be her husband given that they were of a similar age, and couldn’t help but wonder if they were also related. If I had stood there for any length of time and pondered what went on behind the sparse dust-ridden shelves of the shop, my imagination took me to a place that envisaged this same guy carving a human body into pieces to put into the freezer while his gimp sat chained and terrified in the woodshed out back. Luckily, since I had told her to keep the change, I didn’t have to wait around for this image to fully reveal itself.

 

On the way out of town, the local radio station embodied such a place by giving out information on the regional beef expo and rattled out sheep scores in favour of football results. We had escaped and I got the feeling we should consider ourselves lucky. It was like Hotel California. And how was your day?