> > by Craig Tansley
The Cook Islands are the Pacific’s most under rated, and least populated, islands – there’s 15 of them spread across an ocean the size of Western Europe populated by just 14 000 people. When you consider over 9000 inhabitants can be found on the Cook Islands’ capital, Rarotonga, that leaves holiday-makers with more Robinson Crusoe-like opportunities than anywhere else in the Pacific. There are islands in the Cooks – and they’re only a 45 minute flight from Rarotonga – that receive less than 20 visitors a year.
But then there’s modern sophistication too, if you’d prefer. Aitutaki, in particular, is one of the Pacific’s most renowned romantic hotspots, while the capital Rarotonga has five-star retreats on most of its lagoons. But the difference in the Cook Islands is that progress has left no eyesores, there are no overcrowded metropolises here with traffic jams, street crime and poverty; on the contrary Rarotonga’s main town Avarua has no traffic lights or high rise and the only traffic jams occur at iconic watering hole, Trader Jack’s on a Friday afternoon when everyone wants the best view over the lagoon as they bring in the weekend. Cook Islanders are easily the friendliest souls of the Pacific and supported by the New Zealand Government, living standards are relatively high. Cook Islanders won’t try to sell you anything, on the contrary, you might have to wake them to buy something (haggling over price in the Cook Islands is strictly taboo). I was born here in the 1970s and nothing has changed since, children still walk barefoot to school and the concept of stranger danger is something limited to TV shows (although TV here is still limited to a few hours a day with religious services broadcast on Sundays). The modern world seems to exist only within more sophisticated resorts and hideaways; slow moving chickens, pigs and dogs still rule the narrow, bumpy roads, Sunday mornings bring whole islands out dressed in all their finery for noisy Church sessions (there’s more churches here than resorts) while even on Rarotonga, all you need do is take a turn off the main road and you’ll find somewhere entirely for yourselves.
Rarotonga in particular has the most interesting topography of the Cook Islands, it’s every bit as remarkable as Bora Bora with high mountains that plunge directly into blue lagoons, you can spend just as much time in the cool interior here as the coast. Others, like the pristine Aitutaki, are the perfect representation of the classic Pacific atoll: flat as pancakes, with a gigantic triangular lagoon littered with tiny uninhabited motus (islands) with cutesy names like One Foot Island.
WHERE?
The Cook Islands are located 5000 kilometres east of Australia between French Polynesia and Tonga and are a four and a half hour flight from Auckland. From July 4 Air New Zealand are offering a weekly direct six hour flight from Sydney.
THREE TOP THINGS TO DO:
A lagoon cruise around Aitutaki’s world-renowned lagoon. It’s a lagoon unlike any other except perhaps Bora Bora’s, but no-one lives within it once you leave the main island behind. Snorkel the clearest waters in the Pacific or just lie on a perfect sandy beach.
Hire a motorbike and get lost on Rarotonga. There are secret valleys offering a window to the island’s stunning mountainous interior at every turn, in over 30 years of searching I’m still finding new havens. Have no fixed agenda; just get on your bike and ride!
Visit a romantic, deserted atoll. Take a 45 minute flight to Mitiaro which receives less than 20 tourists a year and stay with a local family at a homestay.
There’s no shops, cafes and not one other tourist – just 150 people living a simple existence in paradise.