Yebo Gogonuts

It is not a nice feeling - the sound of a human body crashing, thudding and rolling through undergrowth. 

“Gary! Gary is that you?“ shrieks a shocked female voice.  As the jungle vines cease their deafening cracking, breaking and snapping, all falls quiet. 

 

Then a surge of relief; “It’s not me” says Gary.  A wave of horror then floods back in as we silently wonder who it can be.  

“I think it’s Tony” mutters someone.  We had heard earlier that Tony had done the coast to coast five times (New Zealand’s toughest challenge across the South Island Alps).  “It was in my youth” Tony had said modestly as we introduced ourselves some 90 minutes earlier. Tony who looked 60 was still a very fit 70 year-old and the oldest in our party of 14 bronzed explorers who had set out on Rarotonga’s Cross Island Walk.

“Pa, Pa, we need you!”, but Pa didn’t need to be called.  He is already threading his way past us as he has had to do on many trips before. Later we were to learn that we were tour group 4432 of which only two self-declared fit adults had died of heart attacks on the “walk”.
 

“Everyone stay where you are!  Do not move - it is very slippery here”.  We weren’t moving - we were still transfixed as the realisation dawned that it could have been any one of us to slip from the trail.  Pa moves silently, swiftly down the mountain and reaches the very still body. 

Tony is not moving.  If alive, he dare not move a muscle, as he does not know how much longer the branch that arrested his fall will continue to hold.  Pa secures his footing and has Tony by the hand slowly dragging him back to firmer ground.  “He’s going to be alright” comes Pa’s call.  Relief at last.
 

 

It pays to be nuts to be married to my dearest.  My shoulders were still aching from the previous day paddling a kayak whilst surreptitiously feeding breadcrumbs ahead of Gill happily snorkelling along the coral reef off Aroa beach.  “Did you see that eel, it must be at least 2 metres long”.  Later we were to identify it as the Giant Moray.  Impressively Gill could also identify on the chart at least half of the colourful fishes she had spotted during her day’s snorkelling.

If Rarotonga is impressive both as a mountain and as a dive site, then you will be blown away by the beauty of the island group that is Aitutaki.  The day before we had spent snorkelling from the shaded catamaran anchored off Moturakau islet (the island used by the TV Survivor series). 

“It’s like swimming in a sea of Bombay gin” I said.  “Because it’s so intoxicating” asked an American lady?  “Well yes, but also because of the colour of the water – it’s the colour of a bottle of Bombay Gin”.  She laughed at the double meaning, “I like that”. 

It was a magnificent day at Aitutaki, some 250 km north of Rarotonga and described in the brochures as one of the world’s top ten island destinations.  Leaving our hotel at 7.00 am (yes – we had had to get up even earlier) we had arrived on a Rarotongan Airlines SAAB 340 twin prop (takes 34 passengers and helpfully provides plenty of airsick bags). 

We were then ferried on the back of a truck to the Titi-ai-tongo a 21 metre Polynesian catamaran.  This took us first to Ootu beach to pick up more holiday-makers at the over-water Pacific Resort cabins, and then to the Akaiami island – the site of the hotel where Jeff Probst and his crew had stayed.

“Take your shoes, it can be quite stony around the back!” warns Paul Farrell-Turepu (Canadian father, Aitutakian mother, and our guide for the day). 

It only takes us 15 minutes to walk around the island – and yes, we now have One Foot Island stamps in our passports.

Had we not done the cross-island walk that morning, had my knee not begun to pack up, had Gill not developed a blister, and had thick clouds not rolled in to conceal a full moon, we may have finished our bucket list walk around Rarotonga (32km).

As we were outside the Whatever Bar, we stopped for cocktails and a delicious Mahi Mahi fish dinner before catching the clockwise-direction bus back to our hotel. We set the alarm for 12 midnight.  The plane back to Auckland left at 02:05 am with one of us vowing to return to finish the walk.

It’s not easy going on a mind blowing holiday with Gill.