Safe and Sound

Just a quick note to let everyone know Alice and Lynn arrived safe and sound here last night. We spent today just resting at home as it was very HOT. We had a lovely swim in the lagoon and Alice invented a new style of swimming which she calls the Alice Flop.

Cocktail - Pacific Pacifier

This is it! The best ever cocktail. It takes a bit of effort as you need to make the coconut milk but it is definitely worth it. (Canned milk might be ok as a substitute, but I can’t say I’ve tried). To make it I cut up a coconut and placed chunks of the flesh in a blender with some water. Whiz it up and drain off the liquid through a sieve. (Apparently squeezing it through muslin is better but I don’t have any).

Pacific Pacifier:
o Fresh coconut milk
o Banana
o Vanilla essence
o Cocoa powder
o Cherry Bandy Liqueur

Ok, so take two cups of coconut milk, and blend with the banana and 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence and 2 teaspoons of cocoa. Place in freezer until slushy. Blend in 1 tablespoon of cherry brandy. Pour into wine glass and garnish with a sprinkle of toasted coconut. If required these can be left in the fridge for about half and hour before you need them.

You can toast the leftover coconut flesh from making the milk by lightly frying it – without using oil. It can then be used for making coconut ice or Kura’s Rum Slice-recipe to follow at a later date.

Compulsory Viewing

Being a sucker for a photo-op I have been dying to go visit Wigmore’s Waterfall, quote: “Rarotonga’s only public waterfall.”
Easier said than done. Despite being marked on what passes for a map here there are no roadsigns. Fortunately, due to some local directions and a lack of candidate roads we found the correct path first attempt. Unfortunately the mosquitoes had arrived there first.

Holiday Fun

Mum and Alice will be visiting us in a few days. YAY! Here are a few holiday activities I have lined up for them:
- lying in the sun
- hermit crab racing
- walks through the "jungle" past taro patches and rusted-out cars to buy fresh bread from the local bakery.
- cocktails and fresh fruit on the deck in the dappled shade of the gently swaying coconut palms.
- watching the sun set into the Pacific ocean.

Chris has planned:
- plane spotting
- feeding the wild baby chickens
- more plane spotting

Compulsory Fun – Part 2

Well it rained. But still, fun times were had all round. Chris scored a bullseye in the darts challenge and had to climb a tree to find a stuffed toy. Other challenges included canoe paddling, cycling, puzzle making, flag building and drinking Raro’s famous—or is that infamous—“Noni” juice, which is a reported cure-all tonic. It has a fearsome reputation for being vile tasting.

Chris’s team came 2nd overall in the race. They are pictured here building their flagpole.

If that wasn’t enough excitement for one weekend, Chris is currently off on the Marine Research boat having a close up view of the whales.

Compulsory Fun - Part 1

This afternoon after work Chris has to attend a team building exercise. Him and the other 200 or so people that work for CITC. The event is meant to be like the Amazing Race where teams compete in quirky challenges. I get to tag along to take photos, so hopefully I shall have something interesting to report back here.
The weather today, if you can believe it, is actually overcast and drizzling and a “cool” 20 degrees. But that’s probably a good thing as they think the “race” will take 4 to 5 hours & I don’t think I could last just being outside for that long on a normal day let alone imagine how tough it would be for the competitors. We shall see.

Monkey Business

Despite popular belief on what flora and fauna should be found in abundance on a tropical isle, there are no parrots, macaws, parakeets or similar feathery specimens that might be suited to perching on the shoulder of an eye-patched individual other than those painted on murals outside the theme restaurants.

However we have learned there is a monkey. How did we learn? Chris received a prescription for it…er, her.

A tan, what’s that?

I have these strange brown squares on my feet where my skin peeks through my sandals. Is it? Could it be a tan? Of course maybe it’s not the beginnings of a very faint tan, maybe it’s just dirt.

Weather Forecaster

Pictured at Muri Beach.

Click on image for full size photo

Messing About with Boats

Some evenings we drive down to buy a burger from Palace Takeaways located on Avarua harbour. While waiting for our food (I recommend the Special Burger) we like to check out the boats. Big boats, little boats, rusty containerships and sleek catamarans nestled with charter boats that will take you “Big Game fishing” or a glass bottom boat to view the coral reef. Click on image for full size photo.

Raro Sling - Cocktail

This drink recipe is giving me a bit of trouble, despite its simplicity. Currently I think I’ve made it too sweet so I might think about swapping the lemonade for tonic water, or possibly using homemade lemonade instead of fizzy…

Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far:

Sweet Raro Sling
- Lemonade
- Vanilla rum
- Grenadine
- Glace Cherries
Freeze sliced up cherries into ice cubes. Stack ice into cup. Pour in lemonade. Carefully spoon in Grenadine – don’t stir! Add a splash of rum. + optional cherry garnish.
Serve with fresh fruit platter.
Pictured here with: watermelon, oranges, pawpaw and starfruit.

It's all about Me

Have I mentioned that "Kura" is a common name here? My entire life (so far) in NZ I never met another Kura.

I've already met 2 here and I know if you're looking for a place to stay while in Raro there's Kura's Kabanas and if you're hungry you can eat out at Kura's Kitchen.

Stand Down from Code Brown

Phew! By late yesterday evening the water had returned to normal. I have invested in a bottle of hand sanitiser just in case it happens again.
; )

Not so smug now

Just in case you thought I was a bit smug in my previous post, as you can see it’s not all clean living here. And I thought Dunedin water was bad. We are at a loss to explain the sudden mud (?) content in our tap water. I guess we weren’t being over cautious by buying our drinking water ($7 for 19 litres). But the question remains, will we be showering tonight?

Picture Perfect

I haven’t posted any nice pictures for a while. So how about this? A bit cliché for a tropical island I know. But in the evenings wherever you are, imagine me as I wander down to the bottom of the garden and see another gorgeous tropical sunset. Sometimes clichés are worth their weight in gold.

Click the image to see it full size.

Drag of a Household Chore

Yesterday morning it rained and I thought I would use the cool temperature to drag out the vacuum cleaner, as that is too hot a task on a normal day due to the horrendous amount of hot air that blasts out the filter. I mean drag quite literally because it doesn’t have any wheels. It must have had them at one stage but where they are now I can only guess.

Island Food

The “island food” as they call it, meaning what the locals traditionally eat (why don’t they just call it food?) is very nice and we have tried a great deal. We also got a cookbook from the library so we can have a go at it ourselves. I particularly like the Rukau (taro leaves) boiled with coconut. And Chris really likes the Ika Mata – raw fish marinated with lime, coconut and onions. But my overall fav is an island/western hybrid junk food - fresh homemade coconuts donuts that we buy when they are available from the Saturday farmers’ market called the Punanga Nui Cultural Market. SO yummy.
We haven’t been able to try any breadfruit as it’s out of season – I know, who would think food would be seasonal here? Avocadoes are also out of season : ( Fresh fish is very well priced compared to NZ prices – tuna at $14 a kilo.

Black Pearl Jewellery

Despite the fact there is sooo much black pearl jewellery here I decided to get some loose pearls (had to pay retail prices, choke!) so I can make something nice for myself.
I got these lovely pearls (9-10mm) from “Fisher’s Black Pearl Jewellery”.

Will post photos as they develop into a necklace but unfortunately currently my drill is broken. Fortunately Mum & Alice may be able to bring my spare drill when they visit. But for now a cool breeze is blowing in across the lagoon, the sun is shining and a book and a fresh slice of pawpaw await me on the deck…

What's the Time Mr Wolf?

Just a technical note, I have finally changed the timezone on the blog from NZ hours to Rarotongan time, which is 22 hours behind NZ.
I find it easier to think of Raro being 2 hours ahead but a day behind. For example 12pm Aug 12 NZ time equals 2pm Aug 11 in Raro.

Coconut Logistics

Despite the many wonders of living in such a place I must say I am very disappointed that a coconut does not conveniently fall every three days or so. To begin with we only had 3 drop in 4 long weeks. But now we’ve had 5 drop in 3 days. Quick – I need coconut recipes!

Whale of a Good Time?

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve seen the whales now from our back lawn.
We’ve met the local whale biologist, Nan, and she has said she’ll take us on the whale research boat one day to get up close. Chris is really looking forward to that but I’ll have to give it a miss unless the researchers don’t think the whales would suffer greatly if I puked on them. Ahh well. Hopefully Chris will be able to take some good photos!

The Cinderella of Internet Cafes?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an exact closing time. I wonder what happens at 12? Do the computers turn into pumpkins?

Wildlife

Aside from the creatures in the lagoon, we haven’t encountered much inland other the domestic cats, dogs, rosters and pet shipping containers. As for The-Bug-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, let’s just call them “Rockpoaches”, the less said the better. If you call them they will come…

A far less threatening creature (although they give you a hell of a fright when they suddenly appear) are the little house lizards. I’ve heard they are good for keeping the flies down, but whenever Chris finds one he chucks it outside. The other night he did that and he went to turn the porch light on to make sure the lizard was off the deck to see one of the cats having a good chew on something… And that’s what they call the food chain.

Shipping Containers

There are a large number of shipping containers here there and everywhere. I have no idea why, but I find myself wondering – what’s in them? And what happens to them in a hurricane?

The one pictured here has a very nice location, perched on the harbour it enjoys a view if the ocean and the iconic bar Trader Jacks.

Domino est requiem

We were fortunate enough to have a new friend take us to the grand old CICC church the other Sunday. The service was interesting and varied with good dashes of humour, and in most cases bilingual.

There was a perfect balance of sitting down and standing up – those seats were hard, so standing up was a relief. The singing was great and I found the people watching very entertaining.

Also the old church itself is very nice, although the upstairs level is not so good for people like myself who are afraid of heights.

Tallship

I photographed the Soren Larsen tall ship sailing into the harbour the night before last when Chris and I were walking on the beach.

Catch-Up

I’ve been a bit slack posting to the blog and things have been happening. The well-respected former Cook Island Prime Minister Sir Thomas Davis, affectionately known as Papa Tom, has passed away at the grand old age of 90. He was given a state funeral and I was fortunate enough to see some of the procession and glimpsed the casket, bedecked in beautiful flowers, as it was driven by in the back of a Ute.

This month marks the islands independence and the “Constitution” celebrations are in full swing. Last night we went off to see a cultural dance/performance contest. And last Friday we saw the Constitution parade.

This year’s parade theme was based around Christianity coming to the islands. In keeping with the Rarotongan’s quirky sense of humour, some of the floats harked back to pre-Christian days of cannibalism and they had one guy tied to a spit and giggling tourist volunteers sitting in a giant cooking pot.
Not quite sure how the replica of the pirate ship the “Black Pearl” fit into the scheme of things…