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Travel Story

Cook Islands paradise

Relaxing on Rarotonga

A brightly coloured, foot-long fish darted out of the coral and charged straight at my mask. It glanced off my head, gave my arm a nip and wheeled around for another attack. It is early November, spring in the South Pacific, and in the spring the thoughts of trigger fish turn to – well – protecting their breeding territory. The testosterone-driven attacks are harmless but no less startling to an unsuspecting, jet-lagged northern interloper.

I moved away from the disputed coral head and tipped back my mask and snorkel. Two hundred yards from shore, in the middle of the lagoon, the incredibly clear, warm water is still only chest deep so I let my fins settle to the bottom and take a good look around. The white sand beach where I started my swim is lined with a double row of coconut palms. Behind the palms a dense growth of flowering trees screens the thatched roofs of the Pacific Beach Resort where we are staying, and behind them the rugged, jungle-draped mountains of central Rarotonga, largest and youngest of the Cook Islands.

We arrived at Rarotonga after a four-hour flight from Auckland and checked in at the Pacific Beach Resort at 2 in the morning. Four hours later we were wakened by the persistent crowing of a rooster perched on one of our patio chairs. A fussy old hen, waiting outside our door, demanded that we feed her nine chicks before allowing us to leave, bleary-eyed, in search of morning coffee.

From the private patio of our spacious room the cobbled walkway leads past flowering trees and shrubs (fragipani, hibiscus, and bougainvillaea), across a bridge where we paused to stare back at wide-mouthed tropical fish, and finally to the dining room where we were greeted with a friendly "kia orana." The atmosphere reminded me of Hawaii 40 years ago, when tourism was still blended with the bucolic charm of rural Polynesia.

Helping ourselves to tropical fruit and fresh baked bread we sat at a table overlooking a pond dotted with purple water lilies and shared our breakfast with the resident rooster who had earlier shattered our brief night's sleep. The thatch-roofed dining room has no walls so chickens and mynah birds come and go at will, adding their chatter to the rustle of palm fronds in the morning breeze and the sound of surf breaking on the reef – beckoning us to the ocean.

Revived by an early morning swim we traded our snorkels for a couple of kayaks and paddled out to the reef. Wind-blown swells from the open Pacific curl into steep-sided breakers and crash against the shore sending streamers of white foam skittering across the coral rings, around our legs, and into the calm shallow water of the lagoon.

The island of Rarotonga is the deeply eroded summit of a submarine volcano that rises more than 4.5 km from the ocean floor. Formed over a crustal hot-spot about two million years ago it has been carried northwestward by the slow movement of the Pacific crustal plate. Cut off from its supply of new magma the displaced volcano began to sink under its own immense weight. At the same time coral polyps built a reef along the old shoreline and continued to grow upward as the island itself foundered. Today the reef is up to 400 metres thick and separated from the volcanic rock of the island by a shallow lagoon several hundred metres across.

The surprisingly rugged sawtooth peaks and razorback ridges of central Rarotonga rise over 2,000 feet above sea level. The island is roughly circular and the jungle-covered mountains are flanked by a narrow coastal band of agricultural terraces and flat land where most of the island's 11,000 inhabitants live.

Getting around is easy. The perimeter road is 32 km long and you have two choices; clockwise or counterclockwise. Most of the locals travel by motor scooter or on busses which can be flagged down anywhere on the perimeter road. In the tropical heat and humidity bicycles are a sweaty option used mostly by tourists. Scooters and cars are available for hire but a Cook Island drivers license is required. No problem – you simply pick up your vehicle, drive it to the police station, and buy one for 15 New Zealand dollars.

We chose to make our way around the island on Nov. 1, the day after All Saints Day (Halloween). In the Cook Islands that is a religious holiday and the sprawling graveyards of the many churches were covered with elaborate garlands of flowers. It is also common practice to bury the deceased on their own property. These graves too were brightly decorated, and sometimes more substantial than the houses beside them.

Christianity was introduced to the Cook Islands by missionaries who flocked to the islands during the early 1800s. Driven by religious zeal these well-meaning characters had an enormous impact on the lives of the people whose souls they had come to save. While the new moral concept abolished cannibalism and most of the inter-tribal warfare, it introduced a set of punitive and moralistic "blue laws" that all but destroyed the easy-going Polynesian way of life. And along with their new theology the first missionaries brought new diseases. The islanders had no immunity to dysentery, measles, and whooping cough and by 1880 the pre European population of 7,000 on Rarotonga had declined to 2,000.

Despite its inauspicious beginning the church has come to play an important role in the lives of most Cook Islanders. On Sunday all commerce stops as people, young and old, make their way to worship. On the Sunday following All Saints Day Betty and I attended a service at the Cook Islands Christian Church at Ngatangiia. A few other tourists were there but the pews were packed with locals of all ages: women wearing elaborate broad-brimmed hats and brightly coloured mu'mus, men in freshly pressed casuals, and a surprising number of children. Speaking perfect English the pastor welcomed visitors to his church but the sermon was given in the Cook Island dialect which is still the living, working language of Rarotonga. Though we could not understand the words of the pastor the message in the singing was universal – hauntingly beautiful melodies, delivered by powerful untrained voices, blended as only the Polynesians can, in perfect three part harmony.

Back outside our room the old hen was waiting. After scrounging from us all week her nine chicks had started sprouting feathers and were now almost too big for mom to cover. We crumbled up a few crackers and headed out for a feast of our own. Wrapped in banana leaves and buried with hot rocks the food had been simmering in the umu pit for hours and was now being brought in for a traditional Polynesian feast. We helped ourselves from the dugout canoe that served as a table – succulent pork, beef, and seafood – a pumpkin stuffed with ground goat meat, taro and pickled octopus washed down with Cook Island Lager. A shameful orgy of self indulgence!

The food was cleared away to make room for groups of young dancers backed up by a drum and string band. The youngest dancer was perhaps five and the oldest about 16 and everyone of them was having a ball. The girls swivelled their hips, the boys shook their knees, and the sheer joy of dancing was reflected on every face. If you've ever marveled at the sensuous gyrations of South Pacific dancers I guess this is where it starts, with the kids. Despite the missionaries, the tourists, and the inevitable spread of technology; the language, music, rhythm, and dance – the culture of old Polynesia – is being passed on to the next generation to be shared with future visitors. And I can't think of a better reason for visiting Rarotonga.