Polynesian escapade

Searching for travel inspiration whilst waiting for our Camper conversion, my eye lights on a speck in the Pacific called Rarotonga which is part of the Cook Islands even though Captain James Cook did not set foot on land there.

A flight from Brisbane gets us into Auckland at 2am for a flight to Rarotonga four hours later.
The Air New Zealand livery has ferns extending impressively to the tail.

All goes well during the flight until the pilot mentions the International Dateline which means we are arriving a day earlier than I had booked the rental. What to do? My feverish brain spots the Air New Zealand flight is so modern it has in flight wifi. Yes, I can log on and send a desperate SOS email to the accommodation owner saying we are arriving in two hours time, not 24 hours as previously arranged.

Arrival in Rarotonga is a 'slow down, get into Island time moment'. On a platform above the customs officials, an elderly musician with a woven leaf hat belts out tunes with gusto on his ukulele.

A friendly BlueSky communications lady pops a local SIM into my device and there is the chortling email from my accommodation saying: laughing out loud emoticon, we get this all the time, of course we've got a taxi set up for you and of course your villa is available. Ha, deep breath and inward smile.

Our very affable host, Lawrance, meets and greets outside the accommodation and tells us there is a solar eclipse about to happen next day. We scan the skies on the day, but all we see is a blanket of grey cloud and maybe a hint of a darkening of the heavens, though we might have been wishful thinking.

We stay on Muri Beach, a laidback mini-tourist strip with a handful of resorts, restaurants, and cafes.
Our villa overlooks a turquoise lagoon. The view from the balcony is stunning at any time of the day or night.

The weather is set to be very windy with 60kph gusts and squalls of rain lashing the road. Packs of stray dogs lope into shelter on the lookout to scrounge a morsel.

We duck into the local museum, a compact exhibition area and cafe complex. On display are Polynesian historical artefacts depicting the Polynesian Vaka migration in giant seagoing canoes.

The bravery of these seafarers is amazing. They would lie prone on the deck to feel the ocean through their body and thus identify location. Another fascinating aspect was the use of stick charts or navigation maps made with strings and seashells which they memorised.

At the back of the building is an aquarium with a large, superbly camouflaged stonefish. The guide tells us this fish will only eat from its owner's hand and steadfastly ignores any food offered by others.

In the evening, we sip a carafe of margarita and eat burritos in a Polynesian Mexican restaurant which we pay with NZ$. Tourism makes up 60% the economy on Rarotonga. There is a net outflow of inhabitants migrating to New Zealand and a large proportion of visitors are New Zealanders escaping their chilly season.