BACK ACROSS THE INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE

The first few days we were on the island of Rarotonga, it rained all nights and at times throughout the day.  By Monday of this week however the weather had cleared up, with pleasant tropical breezes and shirt sleeve weather for most of the week.  The roosters didn’t seem to crow as much in the dark since it stopped raining overnight.

Monday morning Alisa and I drove to town (Avarua) to do the work portion of our trip.  I met with 3 different attorneys, Heinz Matyzik, Wilkie Rasmussen and Tim Arnold, local attorneys that our Church legal office has used in the past.  I wanted to get to know them a bit so that as projects come up in the Cook Islands, I’ll know who we are doing business with and which to use depending on the type of matter involved.  I learned that attorneys in the islands wear Hawaiian shirts to work also!  Then we stopped by a little fish stand and had one of the best fish sandwiches I’ve ever had.  We dropped by to see a local member who is involved with public affairs work so Alisa could get to know him.   Back at our holiday home, we napped in the afternoon, and I went out to rent an electric bicycle for one day and an island motorcycle for 2 days.  For the 3 days total, I spent NZD$65 which is the equivalent of about USD$45, quite the deal.  I took the ebike back to the house with me.  In the evening we all went out to dinner at Antipodes, an upscale restaurant on a cliff top overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  My meal consisted of pork loin, a cauliflower mash and candied figs.  This was our evening for seeing the sun go down on the west side of the island, and we weren’t disappointed. 

Tuesday I was up early while the others slept, and headed out on my ebike.  I followed one path up the side of the mountain over some streams filled with rain runoff, then took the back interior road, where I got to see cows, a pig, pineapple fields, mango fields, a stone cutter’s shop and just delightful scenery.  I even got caught in a refreshing mist rain.  With the ebike I got good exercise peddling, but when I got tired I just pulled the lever and the battery power took over, with speeds between 30 and 40 mph.  This was probably my favorite activity of the vacation.  After breakfast, the four of us (Keith, Janet, Alisa and I), headed to the Koka Lagoon Cruise just down the street from our holiday house.  This cruise consisted of a barge with a glass bottom, and a thatched roof.  The crew sang to us, playing ukuleles and drums as we cruised.  First stop was a marine nature reserve, where we snorkeled in the crystal-clear water of the lagoon.  The current was fairly strong but we survived it.  Then we headed over to a motu (islet) out in the bay, where we had a bbq lunch served us, coconut tree climbing instruction, singing, and exploring the motu.  The lagoon water was as clear as I’ve ever seen.  After a 3.5 hour trip, we came back to shore.  From there we visited an outdoor sports bar/restaurant setup, with outdoor tv’s tuned in to ESPN, to watch the Hawaii Bowl football game between BYU and Hawaii.  We had pizza and burgers while we watched the game.  That was our Christmas eve activity.  Afterwards, Alisa and I dropped by the Muri Night Market to check things out.

Wednesday I was up early again, Christmas day. By then I had traded my ebike in for the island motorcycle for the last 2 days.  So I hopped on my motorcycle and drove around the south end of the island up a road to view a waterfall.  The island is working on a new drinking water system, and it looked to me like they had cemented up the waterfall and installed a spillway for their drinking water supply.  Not impressed by this I decided to hike in a little ways, once I found the poorly marked hiking trail.  I hiked in a ways, as the trail got more difficult to follow, through rivers and across rocks.  After a while I decided I had hiked in far enough that I didn’t want to hike back, so I set out to accomplish the cross island “walk”.  I kept thinking the trail would get better, but it didn’t.  I took a couple of wrong turns, but when the jungle brought me to a stop, I’d turn back and find the trail again.  Every once in while there would be a piece of yellow “caution” tape tied to a plant that sort of marked the way to go.  The trail started to get steeper and rougher, but by now there was no way I was going back the way I’d come. The jungle canopy looked like it was getting thinner with more sky visible, so I thought I was getting close to the top of the mountains.  But instead the trail got steeper and steeper such that I was having to cling on branches and roots to pull myself up.  Just when I was getting really worried, I heard voices ahead, and a few minutes later I emerged into a clearing to find a group of Indonesian day workers from Auckland NZ on vacation, they’d decided to hike from the north end of the island to view the Needle rock formation.  I had been hiking for 3 hours straight and was completely drenched in sweat, and had brought no food or water along, although I did drink from the streams to quench my thirst.  This group offered me a fruit drink and a boiled egg which kindness I gladly accepted.  I have determined that I have a strong heart, because it was really racing as I climbed, but didn’t miss a tick.  I was quite stiff by this time from the strenuous hiking and climbing, but the rest in the clearing did me some good.  I went with the group the final 200 meters to the base of the Needle rock formation, likely the highest point on the island.  I then headed along the north trail, and found out that going this way only took me about 40 minutes to hike out, and thus the reason that most people only hike the north trail.  But I can now say that I’m one of the few who have hiked the entire cross island walk.  At the trail head, I thumbed a ride with a Phillipino lady driving an island motorcycle, down to the back road, and I hiked from there into the town of Avaroa, where I called Alisa to come pick me up at the farmers market area.  I could tell that I was dehydrated.  After taking a shower and a little recuperation, the 4 of us headed over to the Rarotongan hotel for a Christmas buffet. Afterwards, due I believe to my dehydration, I started to get cramps/Charlie horses on both legs, calves and thighs.  That was a lot of fun!

Thursday was our last day on the island. The owner of the Grand View allowed us to stay at the house the entire day before we headed out to our night time flight, and that was great. I got up early to take pictures from our deck of the spectacular sunrise, which glistened off the lagoon waters and motus.  I also took a final motorcycle ride along the back roads. Both of my upper legs were sore as could be, I had obviously strained my muscles on the hike and I could only walk painfully and slowly. I took it easy that day. I returned the motorcycle, we had fish sandwiches in town at the Sea Salt, and we drove around the island some more.  We said goodbye to our maid, Michelle from the Philippines who works 4 jobs to support her family.  We gave her tips and a Book of Mormon.  We packed up and headed to the airport for our 9:30 p.m. flight back to NZ.  Even though it was only a 4 hour flight back, we went directly from Thursday evening to arriving Saturday morning at 1:30 a.m. in Auckland due to crossing back over the international date line. Our shuttle driver was waiting for us at the airport, and drove us back to our apartment where we were all soon asleep.  Saturday Mom drove Keith and Janet to Hamilton to see the temple and Church museum there, while I worked at doing a summary and evaluation of my visit with the 3 attorneys in Rarotonga.  Today the 4 of us attended our last Sunday Church services for 2019!