Cruise The World With Us

Wednesday – February 26, 2025

Legend has it that New Zealand was settled in the 1300’s when a fleet of canoes sailed from Rarotonga from the spot shown in today’s feature photo. Each canoe was to have held up to 300 people. That legend is disputed as it appears there were many canoes from other locations that also made the journey of discovery. Here is a link that will give you some background on New Zealand’s discovery.

Rarotonga is one of the Cook Islands. It has the largest population and is home to the Parliament. Of the roughly 15,000 inhabitants of Cook Islands, 10,000 reside on Rarotonga. Click here for information about the island.

There was no port on Rarotonga for us to dock so we tendered again and came ashore in the town of Avarua. In the media, following the sunrise time-lapse, you can see the relative position of our ship and the town. You’ll also notice that there are two roads that circle the island and parallel each other. We’ll get to that later. We booked an excursion around the island that began at 12:15 so decided to go ashore early to do a bit of shopping. Walking down the Main Street we passed a small eatery named Palace Takeaways. The smell from their cooking hooked both Kelsey and I but we had shopping to take care of. We found a store with a nice selection of clothing and purchased some. As we headed back to the excursion assembly area, Kelsey and I couldn’t resist so we decided to share a Hawaiian burger. It was delicious – inside the bun was pineapple on top, the beef, cole slaw and a sweet teriyaki-like sauce. We split it in half, gobbled it down and headed for our bus.

We boarded the bus and while waiting for the driver and guide I was able to take a bus-selfie and a photo of a passing local city bus. The guide – Temu – and driver – Bates – arrived and we began the tour. Temu is a Maori name given because he is a warrior within his tribe. Bates was named after the motel in “Psycho” (just kidding). Bates is not a tribal official so he doesn’t have a Maori name. As with Aitutaki, there are no communal cemeteries. Tribal royalty and ministers are buried in the cemetery while family is buried on family land. There are a couple photos showing a church and the associated cemetery.

Our first stop was the place from which six or seven large canoes (holding 300 people each) sailed from and populated New Zealand (at least that is the legend). Perfect spot for a selfie. Temu had some interesting narration so I have included clips in the media with some of that. The first clip he explains the flowering of what are called flame trees. He finishes this clip with a question about why our second stop is set up in the sun rather than the shade. It was a place for some juice and island fruit. It was situated near a nice beach. You’ll see a selfie of us on that beach.

A little about the two roads that circle the island. Rarotonga is reliant on New Zealand for much of its income. At one time their major source of that income was export of fruit juices. However, the major source for all of the Cook Islands now is tourism. The land on Rarotonga between the inner road and the outer road was not useful when Rarotonga’s income came from fruit. Once tourism began in earnest, that land became valuable and sought after because that is where resorts could be built. In the second video clip Temu explains how he missed the opportunity to own a piece of land that would have allowed him to retire rather than act as a tour guide.

Land on Rarotonga is divided among six tribes. The land belonging to each tribe is in the shape of what a piece of pie looks like. Imagine you cut Rarotonga into six pieces. The land runs from the peak at the center of the island to the sea. Tribal burial sites exist in each of the six segments and you’ll see a couple of them in the video clips.

There are several other video clips that have been labeled with at least one topic Temu discusses in the clip. One with no discussion shows a sea wall that is decorated with art. If you have a way to slow playback of that clip you’ll be able to see all the renderings along the wall – very pretty.

We finished our tour around 3:30 and boarded a tender to return to the ship. There are stills of the return trip and a couple showing Jan and Kelsey disembarking from our tender. Took a couple shots from the upper decks, got ready for dinner and headed to the restaurant. Photos of some of the selections of the evening.

This evening’s entertainment was a trio from New Zealand named The Madeleines. They sang many songs that would have been popular in the 40’s and some more current. I think they will be with us at least until we reach Auckland. Final video of the list is our sail-away from Rarotonga. This is the last tropical island we will be visiting in the South Pacific.

Here is a link to today’s video and photos.