I write, photograph, teach and sing about the world, for the world. If you enjoy my work and would like to help support me to keep on doing it, please consider buying me a coffee at KoFi, or making a regular donation via Patreon. The links are here below: much gratitude to all those who have encouraged and supported me thus far. <3
Rowanleaf on KoFi (one-off donations)
Rowanleaf on Patreon (monthly donations)
(For new readers – if you’re just discovering this blog and you would like to read about my 2015 South Pacific travels from their beginning, you can click on this link to go to the first chapter: Travels in the Cook Islands.)
My second day on Atiu began with a gargantuan breakfast, fuel for the day’s explorations. Donna, Mark and I then jumped into Marshall’s truck and we picked up the three other tourists currently staying on the island, before heading out on a tour. First stop was the nearby village of Teenui, the closest thing that Atiu has to a busy metropolis.
On an island with a population of around 500 people, you’re unlikely to see much other traffic (apart from chickens). Marshall gave us a tour of Teenui’s sights, starting with the recently-created sports field, which had to be redone after the island was hit by five cyclones in a single season. Climate change is likely to lead to intensified cyclone activity in the South Pacific, so this doesn’t bode well for the people who live on islands such as Atiu.
We drove past the village store, which was originally the first school on the island (built by the London Mission Society). As elsewhere in the Cook Islands, imported (mostly Christian) religions have had a big impact on local society and culture. There are six churches on Atiu, including CICC (Cook Islands Christian Church), Catholic, Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Atiu people can and do marry folks from different churches, although this depends on each church’s policy: not every faith allows it.
Our next stop was the island police station (which also serves as Teenui’s bank and post office). Marshall explained that there are two police officers on Atiu, and the consensus is that no crime occurs after 3pm because that’s when they go off-duty… Or on Friday afternoons, because that’s the time for fishing. I quite liked the idea of limited hours for law-breaking. Presumably having the bank attached to the police station also discourages would-be bank robbers (unless of course they decide to carry out a bank raid after 3pm).
The legacy of colonial occupation can be seen in government buildings, as well as in the ubiquitous churches. Atiu’s council chamber and tax filing office (Kavamani Enua, or Island Government) are based in what used to be the old British Foreign Office building, when B.F.O. staff were posted on the island. British colonial rule from the 1880s became New Zealand colonial rule in 1901: full independence and self-governance in the Cook Islands not being achieved until 1965.
Other important buildings we saw included the CICC hall, used for singing and dancing events; and the CICC church building itself, the largest church on the island. As on Aitutaki, there were very few graves beside the church, with local people choosing to bury their deceased family at home: only incomers or strangers usually find their resting place in the church cemetery.
Next to the church a limestone obelisk called te pito, ‘the navel’, marks what is said to be the exact centre point of the island. It carries the name of Paulo Ngamaru Ariki, the Atiuan chief who helped restore the CICC church in the 1950s; and Tamaivi Ngamaru Ariki, the chief who planned and built the original church in the 1860s. There are three ariki (chiefs) on Atiu: at the time of my visit only two lived on the island, while the third resided in New Zealand. Ariki descends in family lines, but not automatically to the eldest son of the family: local worthies meet to decide who will make the best successor, when the current ariki dies.
As we travelled around Teenui it was quiet: we saw the occasional local driving a pick-up or moped; children strolling or playing; and of course chickens and dogs patrolling the mostly empty roads. With the population size having reduced by two-thirds in the late twentieth century (mostly due to the decline of exports of produce such as citrus fruits, coffee and copra), community life here is small-scale but still vibrant, with regular community meetings in each of the five villages.
Heading out of Teenui our next stop was the island’s Enuamanu School, which bore a banner celebrating 50 years since the school – and Cook Islands self government – was established in 1965. All stages of education – infants, primary, secondary and college – are contained on the same site. Marshall told us that Cook Islands Maori is the first language taught in Enuamanu School and English second (unlike on Rarotonga). This prioritising of Cook Islands language seems positive, though unfortunately Atiu pupils are disadvantaged when they sit exams under the New Zealand exam system, as exams are set in English. Marshall said that for this reason he and Jéanne home-educated their children, to try to overcome this problem.
After the school our next landmark was the village bakery, complete with cement bread oven! It reminded me of the cob oven (earth oven) at Wildwood Escot where I teach in Devon: basically a simple interior oven space enclosed in thick cement walls, heated by burning firewood inside. Should any cracks form in the oven’s walls (revealed by leaking smoke), this is mended by the simple expedient of plastering more cement on the outside… Hence the resulting huge oven structure, sheltering under its corrugated iron roof.
Once the wood has burned and the oven is heated, the ashes are swept out and the tins of bread dough popped inside to bake. The whole set-up is basic but practical, with the only machinery used a giant dough mixer that looked more like a cement mixer than anything else! I quite liked the minimalist kitchen (although I’m not sure what having a lawnmower stored in there added to the mix).
A little further down the road lay Atiu’s telecom mast, phone satellite and TV station. Microwave antennae capture signals transmitted from Mangaia and Mitiaro and boost them onwards. Atiu’s TV channel can receive several signals, but can only transmit one signal at a time to island residents – so locals have to be patient and cooperate with each other, taking turns to watch their favourite TV programmes. At least that avoids TV ratings competition…
Our next stop was at a coffee plantation, formerly owned and run by German growers Juergen Manske-Eimke and his wife Andrea. Their business ended when Juergen sadly died in mid-2015, but the coffee bushes were continuing to grow well. Missionaries first brought coffee to the island, and it became a cash crop in the 1950s. The island’s calcium-rich soils lend Atiu coffee a unique flavour, and despite fluctauations in the coffee trade it continues to be grown and sold. The production of Atiu Island Coffee is now headed up by local woman Mata Arai, using hand picking and roasting with coconut cream, giving this coffee a very special taste.
Coming through the forest we emerged near the island’s airport. While we watched a Pacific golden plover or toretoreā (Pluvialis fulva) pottering about on the runway, Marshall related how an Air Raro plane had a tyre blowout while taxiing on the crushed coral runway a year or so previously. It must be interesting being an Air Raro pilot! A request had gone in for a new tarmac runway to replace the crushed coral surface. Locals had already begun clearing the site and bringing in machinery, only waiting for funding to be found so that they can begin work. Marshall also showed us two massive blocks of coral (each half as big as the pick-up we were riding in) that had been thrown up onto the runway by the sea during a cyclone in 2005.
Southeast of the airstrip we hopped out of Marshall’s pick up to walk over the makatea to the cliff tops on Atiu’s northeastern edge. Just as we’d found the day before when trekking to Anatakitaki, walking on makatea requires concentration. We were stepping over a fossilised coral reef, its rugged and undulating topography mirroring the choppy Pacific swell surging below us. Hardy plants such as ngau (Creeping half-flower, Scaevola paulayi) wedged their roots into the crevices, growing in wind-resistant mats and weathering the salt spray.
It wasn’t easy to picture the sharp crags of limestone that we were walking on as an undersea coral reef, millenia ago… Until I crouched down and looked closer, when an ancient tropical ocean landscape became revealed. I saw intricate patterns of many different coral species: hieroglyphics written in the skeletons of billions of long-dead coral polyps. There is always something mesmerising to me about being confronted with the geological evidence of deep time. Humanity takes itself and its everyday concerns so seriously… But really we’re just a recent blip on the evolutionary timeline. For some reason I find this weirdly comforting.
Driving soutthest took us along the coast road that runs all the way around Atiu, with its handy signs at intervals indicating the distance to landmarks in either direction. Our next stop was at Oneroa Beach, a beautiful little cove with pinkish coral sand used by Marshall and Jéanne’s family. The edge of the reef is very close here, the wild Pacific surf rolling just a few metres out.
After a brief but lovely wander along Oneroa Beach, we returned to the truck and drove on along the coast road to Takauroa Landing on the island’s southern edge. This was the scene of an epic battle between Atiu warriors and invaders from Tahiti. History tells of how a Tahitian traveller shipwrecked on Atiu was cared for and nursed back to health by Atiu folk, but then travelled back to Tahiti… Only to return to Atiu with two vaka (war canoes) loaded with two hundred Tahitian warriors! Fortunately for the locals they were able to ambush the Tahitian invaders as they tried to access the island’s interior through a narrow passage in the makatea: after a pitched battle the Atiuans won. The ungrateful Tahitian who’d led his fellows back to Atiu was reputedly hunted down, fought with by the ariki, and killed. (And allegedly eaten, which seems fair enough.) Two marae at Takaroa Landing mark the burial sites of all those warriors who fell in battle defending their island.
Here in the southern part of the island, the makatea is pretty impenetrable, with its combination of thick tangled undergrowth and forest on top of sharp craggy fossilised limestone. Marshall related how a local lawbreaker evaded arrest by local police for some time by hiding out in the makatea. After a few weeks however the wrongdoer turned himself in, finding living in the challenging landscape of the makatea too difficult!
A little further on into the coastal forest Marshall stopped the truck to show us a fruits from a boxfruit tree (Barringtonia asiatica or ‘utu). The seed from the centre of ‘utu fruits can be ground up or chopped to release a poison, which paralyses fish if the ground seeds are scattered into the sea. Formerly used for fishing in the coral lagoon, this is now illegal: a local man was recently caught using ‘utu poison in this way and fined $500 (after having been warned several times not to do this).
Heading now up the western side of the island we stopped at Taungaroro Beach, which like Oneroa was beautiful and deserted. Walking through the sand and looking out to the Pacific waves splashing against the coral reef, I felt a little like Robinson Crusoe (although hopefully without the white imperialist overtones).
It’s not just coral which makes up the pinkish sands fringeing these islands: billions of fragments of seashells too are rendered down by the action of waves and wind to create the lovely beaches that are such an iconic element of Pacific islands. I spent a happy half hour wandering and gathering seashells, including many cowries or pōre‘o. In many places in the world cowries have traditionally been used as currency: in the Cook Islands they were favoured more for jewellery, especially to convey status to the wearer.
Taungaroro was also the spot where we had a picnic lunch, to fortify us after our morning’s exploring. Banana muffins, fresh fruit salad with papaya and guava and pawpaw sprinkled with grated coconut, and a nice cup of tea to wash it all down: perfect.
After lunch I went wandering a little way into the coastal forest, to admire the tropical trees with their buttressed roots and epiphytic ferns growing in nooks amongst the branches. Atiu was a delight to a plant nerd like me: while my tropical botany knowledge wasn’t good enough for me to identify many species, I still felt happily at home in this green growing ecosystem, relatively unimpacted by tourism.
The plan was for us to continue on up the coastal road northwards to Oravaru landing – but our plans were temporarily foiled by a roadblock in the form of a fallen tree. We detoured via Ngatiarua village and back out to the coast by another route, finally reaching Oravaru on the west coast.
If you search on the internet for information about the Cook Islands’ colonial history, it describes how Spanish explorers sighted Pukapuka and Rakahanga (in the northern islands group) in 1595 and 1606; then Captain James Cook sighted other islands in the 1770s; followed by Captain William Bligh in 1789 (whose tyrannical captainship led to the mutiny on his ship the Bounty). The name ‘the Cook Islands’ was conferred by Russian navigator Adam Johann von Krusenstern in his 1823 Atlas de l’Ocean Pacifique, in honour of the surveying and mapping done by Captain James Cook: previously they were named the Hervey Islands after a British Lord of the Admiralty.
Ironically Cook himself never landed on Atiu during his voyage on the ship Resolution: instead one of his officers, Lieutenant John Gore went ashore in 1777, accompanied by the ship’s doctor, botanist and three boatloads of crew. They were met by some two thousand Atiuan warriors and people lining the clifftops, with full body tattoos and carrying spears – no doubt an intimidating sight. Bear in mind that on one of Cook’s previous expeditions to Tahiti, John Gore was the first person ever recorded to shoot and kill an indigenous Pacific Maori person, after an altercation over a piece of cloth. These were not casual explorers but the vanguard of a powerful military empire, intent on mapping and colonising what they regarded as ‘uncivilised’ territories, largely ignoring the rights of the indigenous people already living there.
Gore’s party were taken inland by the Atiuans to the Orongo marae and cave of the warriors, which would have been an impressive and unsettling sight. It’s said that the landing party’s Polynesian interpreter saw a prepared umu pit (earth oven) but no animal carcasses, and assumed that this meant that they were on the menu! This proved not to be the case however: after being ceremonially introduced to the ariki and being the subject of several hours of close curiosity from the Atiuans, the landing party was allowed to return to their ship.
Marshall told us of an ancient local tradition, that when a new baby boy was born the child was taken to the tribal priest at the Orongo marae, who would wrap the baby up in leaves and leave him on the marae altar overnight. In the morning if the baby had managed to break free of his leaf swaddling he would be raised as a warrior at the Orongo marae and taught how to fight. If the baby was still wrapped in the leaves, the child would be returned to his parents and grow up to be a fisherman or planter.
Orongo marae was also the final resting place of the skulls of the island’s ariki, as well as those of great and heroic warriors. It was and still is a sacred place. In the 1960s two Mormon missionaries visiting the island were disrespectful and foolish enough to remove a skull from the Orongo cave, intending to take it with them to Rarotonga… But the woman missionary died before they got there. The skull was swiftly returned and replaced at Orongo.
The archaeology and history of pre-colonial times in the Cook Islands was seemingly only just beginning to be shown the interest and respect it deserves, at the time of my visit in 2015. I was reminded of Ngaa’s determined labours on Aitutaki to preserve and pass on the culture and history of his people. Compare this with the wealth of research and fieldwork that has been done on ancient cultures such as Egypt, Greece and South America. I suspect that partly this is due to the legacy of colonialism, and the fact that we white Europeans are still reluctant to engage with the reality of our colonial history: a history that contains a great deal of brutality and exploitation, and which persists to this day in some people’s colonial or white supremacist mindset. Too often I’ve heard white people try to diminish the impact of colonialism by saying “Explorers then didn’t know any better”, or “Every European nation was doing the same thing”, or even “These cultures had plenty of their own problems before we came along – what about their inter-island wars and cannibalism?” These defensive responses are missing the point: white colonial powers invaded lands, imposed Christian religion (with all its guilt-ridden and problematic dogma), took whatever resources they fancied, and ruthlessly eradicated many indigenous people through military force and disease. If someone did that to Britain we’d call it an act of war.
When we returned to Marshall and Jéanne’s home, I found a wonderful book on their shelves: Akono’ango Maori: Cook Islands Culture, by Ron Crocombe. Browsing through it I came upon a remarkable photograph taken circa 1904, titled ‘Ngatiarua on Atiu in old time dress‘. The dignity and pride of these muscled men standing with their heavy spears, gazing directly into the camera lens, shone out of the page.
As a privileged white tourist in the South Pacific, I felt enormously grateful to have the opportunity to travel in these beautiful islands, and to meet the friendly and generous people who lived there. This friendliness and generosity is even more remarkable, given the explotiation of their lands and people ever since white colonisers first began occupying their territories. Writing this blog is my effort to show my gratitude to all the Cook Islands and South Pacific Maori and Polynesian people who welcomed me into their homes; and to raise awareness as far as I can of the destructive impact of European colonialism, and the importance of honouring South Pacific culture. It’s vital too that we take rapid steps to limit climate change caused by our industrialised nations, the latest colonial legacy to threaten the safety and future of Pacific island peoples.
I had only one more day to spend on Atiu. I could’ve happily spent another month there (and not just because of Marshall’s mouth-watering cooking!). I felt happily at home on this quiet little island with its rich history and diverse wildlife; its rugged makatea and green forest; and the shell-scattered beaches and sacred marae, freighted with memories and meaning.
As Rowanleaf I write, photograph, teach and sing about the world, for the world. If you enjoy my work and would like to help support me to keep on doing it, please consider buying me a coffee at KoFi, or making a regular donation via Patreon. The links are here below: much gratitude to all those who have encouraged and supported me thus far. <3
Rowanleaf on KoFi (one-off donations)
Rowanleaf on Patreon (monthly donations)
Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 9:
Aliens, natives, lorikeets, flycatchers and noddies: travels with Birdman George
in Enuamanu, Land of the Birds.
(For new readers: if you’re just discovering this blog and you would like to read about my South Pacific travels from the beginning, you can click on this link to go to the first chapter: Travels in the Cook Islands.)
I left Aitutaki on a Friday morning, driven to the airport by Tracey. En route we passed the motorcade procession of Miss Cook Islands, who had just arrived on an early plane and was standing up in the lead vehicle, waving and smiling to all and sundry. Her retinue comprised men on scooters and in cars and trucks, including what looked like most of the musicians from Island Night, playing and singing enthusiastically as they bowled along. Most of the locals had come out to greet her, standing outside their homes and Puffy’s Bar to wave at Miss Cook Islands as she cruised past. It seemed like a fittingly fun ending to my stay on this lovely island!
Arriving tourists at Aitutaki airport were being greeted with tiare leis (flower necklaces) as I walked to the tiny prop airplane that would carry me to Atiu. The pilot cheerfully greeted me on the tarmac, then hopped aboard as I and fellow tourists Donna and Mark from New Zealand took our seats. (Donna and Mark had also been staying on Aitutaki, having got married there the previous week.)
Once in the air I took a last look back at Aitutaki’s beautiful lagoon with its milky-white sandbars, before our plane headed southeastwards over the wide ultramarine blue of the Pacific. En route to our destination we flew over the island of Manuae: a small oval of green fringed with yellow beach and turquoise lagoon and surf-ringed reef; shallow sea falling away into the deep blue fathoms of the South Pacific ocean. It impressed me again how isolated these little islands are, in their thousands-of-miles-wide lapis lazuli sea: how remarkable it is that the people who populated them navigated this vast expanse of ocean.
Landing on Atiu’s small air strip was an interesting experience, as the island rears out of the ocean on fossil coral (makatea) cliffs several metres high. This produces violent updrafts and sidewinds which meant our plucky pilot had to bring us down pretty steeply and rapidly, the plane rolling and yawing as the wind buffeted it. But once our wheels thumped down onto the tiny crushed coral landing strip we all released the breath we’d been holding, and disembarked into the charming corrugated iron-roofed shed that is Atiu airport.
All three of us visitors were staying at Atiu Homestay, a bed and breakfast run by Marshall Humphreys and his wife Jéanne. Marshall met us at the airport and drove us to his home via some local places of interest. First stop was Taunganui Harbour, constructed out of concrete in the mid-1970s by New Zealand Army Engineers to enable ships to load and unload goods safely. Before it was constructed, accessing the island by boat or ship was a lot more perilous, especially in poor weather. The harbour had benefited local fishermen, many of whose boats we saw pulled high up in the scrub inland behind the harbour (to protect them from the same tsunami warning I’d received while on Aitutaki).
Our journey took us along a mostly single-track road through Teenui and Areora villages. In the settlements the roads were tarmac, but elsewhere we trundled along on crushed coral or packed dirt. I saw single storey houses built from breeze blocks and timber, corrugated iron roofs and louvred glass windows, painted in rainbows of colours.
When we reached Marshall and Jéanne’s house, it was raised up off the ground on stilts: a sensible precaution to allow cyclone winds to blow through. Set in a pretty garden in a quiet corner of the island, it was a lovely (and very comfortable) place to be staying. I was looking forward to a few days of comparative luxury, having my meals cooked for me!
Donna and Mark then displayed the typical generosity and friendliness I’d encountered in all the Kiwi tourists I’d met so far: on hearing that my digital camera had died on Aitutaki, they offered to lend me one of theirs for the duration of our stay on Atiu… Which is why I have actual photographs of this wonderful little island! Huge gratitude to both of them.
After dumping my backpack in my room, Marshall refreshed and refueled us with some chilled water and a snack of sundried banana, which he makes using a solar drier in his back garden. (The drier’s feet stand in tubs of water, to prevent ants and other minibeasties getting at the drying banana strips). I’d not previously been much of a fan of dried banana, finding it somewhat like chewing sweetened shoes, but Marshall’s was a treat: soft and succulent, and brimming with rich fruity flavour.
Atiu is a very small island (3.7 x 4.3 miles, or 6km x 7km): the current population is roughly 450 people, so it feels like a pretty quiet place. People live in the island’s interior here: a demographic shift that happened with the arrival of Christian missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century, who encouraged the population to relocate centrally, away from the makatea and swampy areas they were formerly living in. Jéanne and Marshall live in this central area of the island, not far from the village of Areora (you can see the red dot marking their house on the map of Atiu, pictured below).
Once we were watered and banana’d up, Marshall took us on an expedition to Anataktaki, the cave of the kōpeka or Atiu swiftlet, Aerodramus sawtelli. Jéanne is half Cook Islands Maori, and Anatakitaki is located within her family land: its name comes from the story of Tangaroa and Inutoto, which I set out here as Marshall related it to us.
Tangaroa was a skilful warrior, while Inutoto was a wonderful dancer. One full moon night – a good time for fishing, and for dancing – Tangaroa wanted to go fishing, but was worried that if Inutoto went dancing without him she would be too popular… So he asked her to wait at home until he returned. A group of Inutoto’s friends passed by her home and asked her to come dancing, but she told them she had to stay; then later a second group of friends came by, begging, Hey, we’ve waited a whole month to see your new dance, you have to come and dance with us! So eventually Inutoto was persuaded, and went dancing under the full moon.
Out on the reef the fish stopped biting: Tangaroa tried every trick his father and grandfather had taught him – different bait, different fishing spots on the reef – but to no avail. He gave up and returned home… to find Inutoto not there. Heading to the dancing area he found her dancing, the centre of attention and admiration. Becoming angry, Tangaroa spoke harshly to Inutoto: then each of them left the dancing ground, separately.
Though Tangaroa waited at home, Inutoto did not return. He assumed that she went to stay with cousins or other family or friends… But over the next day and night there was still no sign of her. No-one had seen Inutoto since they quarrelled on the night of the full moon dance. A search was carried out of the bush and makatea and swampland; a week went by, three weeks, and still no trace of Inutoto. People began to say that she must have had an accident and died somewhere on the island… But one day Tangaroa was working in his planting field when an ngōtare, a chattering kingfisher (Todiramphus tuta, pictured below in Jéanne and Marshall’s garden) began pestering him, diving down at him and pecking at his head, again and again. Rangaroa couldn’t drive it off: it seemed as though the bird was trying to tell him something.
When Tangaroa turned to the ngōtare it flew off a little way then back to him, as if trying to lead him in a particular direction. He followed the bird through the makatea and eventually he came to a cave where he found Inutoto, still alive. (‘Inutoto’ means ‘drinker of blood’ – according to the legend she survived by drinking her own blood!) So this story of jealousy and a lovers’ quarrel has a happy ending… And the helpful ngōtare who reunited Tangaroa and Inutoto gave the cave its name, Anatakitaki: ‘to the cave he brought him, he brought him’.
And indeed, ‘to the cave he took us, he took us’! But at the very start of our walk Marshall advised us all to take a sturdy walking stick, to keep us steadier on the journey. Our path lay across a stretch of makatea: the ancient fossilised coral that was formed around the island’s central raised volcanic core thousands of years ago when the island was lower than it is now; and raised up by tectonic plate action in the intervening centuries. (Hence the six metre-high makatea cliffs around the island’s periphery.) Makatea limestone is as jagged and sharp as the corals that it formed from, so falling onto it would be a painful experience.
The photo above shows a pretty typical stretch of the craggy makatea path we followed: like walking across a stony surf, with ferns and scrub growing out of every nook and cranny. The walking sticks were definitely necessary!
We’d only been walking a few minutes when I spotted a brightly-coloured spider on the path, which I pointed out to Marshall. He pronounced it a non-native invader – and he was right, because it was a female Asian spiny-backed spider (Gasteracantha mammosa), originally from India and Sri Lanka and introduced recently to the South Pacific. Further research once I was back in the UK yielded this entry on the Cook Islands biodiversity database: “Poisonous bite. Its spiky webs can be a residential nuisance; and it frequently bites people it comes into contact with. The bite is painful with localised swelling.” Marshall proceeded to squash the spider with the tip of his walking stick, which may sound harsh… But invasive non-native wildlife species are a serious threat to the biodiversity of these little island ecosystems, and Atiu takes protecting its native wildlife very seriously.
A little further on our journey we came upon a wonderful big old Polynesian mahogany tree or mastwood (Calophyllum inophyllum), locally named tamanu. Timber from tamanu trees was highly valued for shipbuilding by Polynesian and Maori peoples, much like oaks were valued in English culture for the same reasons. Sacred tamanu groves were planted at marae sites, considered the homes of spirits; and the wood was also used for carving tiki. Tamanu oil extracted from the ‘nuts’ of the tree is also important in Cook Islands Maori and Polynesian cultures, being used for medicinal and cosmetic purposes. Marshall explained that there were many of these huge tamanu trees hidden away in the makatea, because the inaccessibility of these areas keeps the trees safe from felling and logging.
Another thing I noticed along our route were the numerous empty coconut shells lying on the forest floor, with ragged frayed holes through the shell. Rather than being signs left by some giant tropical squirrel, Marshall explained that these were the remains of coconuts opened and eaten by the coconut crab or unga kaveu (Birgus latro). I’d encountered these largest of land crabs moving about nocturnally and climbing trees on Aitutaki: they can seem like fearsome critters at first sight.
These land-based crabs go to the sea to spawn, but after a while the young crabs migrate back to dry land, wearing borrowed seashells to protect their vulnerable soft hind parts. As they mature they develop hard shells and discard their armour, foraging for food using their acute sense of smell. Despite their name these kaveu eat a variety of foods including fruits, nuts, seeds and even carrion: they have the reputation of carrying off any food they find lying around, giving rise to their scientific alias – latro means ‘robber’. Astonishingly they typically live for 40 – 60 years… So although kaveu are highly-prized as food, their longevity makes them a vulnerable species for over-exploitation.
When we finally reached Anatakitaki the way in was to descend down a ladder below ground ground level. I’d done some potholing with friends in Derbyshire in my youth, so I was reasonably relaxed about the prospect of going into enclosed dark underground spaces. Anatakitaki is a karst cave: the calcium-rich makatea is dissolved by water, eroding into an undergound landscape of caves and fissures and chasms; minerals in solution then solidify again into diverse speleothems (stalactities, stalactites, limestone ‘curtains’ and pillars).
In practice, this means that travelling through Anatakitaki’s upper levels is not particularly claustrophobic, as there are many fissures and large holes which let in daylight. Having Marshall as our experienced guide obviously helped: he was able to share with us stories such as the tale of Inutoto and Tangaroa, as well as showing us Jéanne’s family monument within the cave. Each time a family member visits the monument (e.g. for special occasions) they can place a stone upon the pile. Somewhere buried underneath will be a carved seat, a carved bowl, and spears.
Caves of any sort are an unearthly landscape, but there was something particularly fantastical about this one. The caves I’d visited in the UK had been crawled all over by thousands of potholers, and in many cases their delicate limestone draperies and features had been eroded and broken… But here in Anatakitaki Cave, everything looked almost untouched by human hands.
The feeling of being in a lost mythical world was enhanced by the places where the cave has collapsed, creating openings looking out into the surrounding forest. It felt as if a dinosaur or a dragon could hove into view at any moment, lumbering through the coconut palms and ferns.
In places the makatea is thin enough that the roots of ava, Pacific banyan trees (Ficus prolixa) have grown through in striking curtains, following the rainwater that drips and filters down into the caves below.
Just beyond the banyan roots we descended into the deeper recesses of the inner cave where the object of our quest here lay: the nesting sites of the Atiu swiftlet, or kōpeka. We paused in the entrance of this inner chamber to watch and listen to the kōpeka swooping in and out. Whilst flying and feeding outside in the daylight they make a high twittering chreeee call: but as soon as they head into the cave’s darkness this changes to a rapid clicking sound, like someone swiftly clicking their tongue against the roof of their mouth. The birds are echolocating: navigating in darkness using these audible clicks, which increase in frequency as they approach objects. A wonderful example of parallel evolution: birds echolocating like bats!
Once inside the deeper recesses of the cave it quickly grew almost pitch dark, except for the headtorches that Marshall used to show us the space. We kept still, listening to the clicking of these weird little birds, as we tried to spot them roosting and nesting in the nooks and crevices in the limestone – no easy task. You’re basically trying to spot a small black bird in a large black cave, with the light of your head torch creating shadows everywhere it falls on the convoluted stone.
Eventually we began to pick out the slender forked-tail silhouettes of the kōpeka, clinging to their niches on the cave ceiling. Male and female birds build their nests out of strips of vine and plants and lichens gathered on the wing outside, fragile little circlets stuck together with their saliva. They lay 1 – 2 eggs which hatch after 18 – 20 days; sometimes eggs fall out of the fragile nests to smash on the cave floor. Both parents take it in turns to brood; and when the nestlings hatch the adults share the task of feeding their chicks on insects hunted outside in the forest. These insect food hauls are stored in special pouches within the bird’s cheeks, so that they can still make echolocating clicks with their mouth full!
Once kōpeka chicks are old enough to leave the nest the parents bring them to hang out on a section of cave wall or ceiling with other youngsters, still feeding them. After another week they encourage the young by withholding food until the chicks move a little further out of the recesses of the cave. This process continues until after three weeks the juvenile birds make their first flight out of the cave to find their own food… And then navigate back inside using their clicking echolocation for the first time.
Sitting in the darkness listening to the clicking of these dark-living little swiftlets felt enchanting. I’d been drawn to visit Atiu by its reputation of unspoiled wildness and rich biodiversity: very different from the tourist paradise of Aitutaki, or even the teeming undersea life of the coral reefs. Atiu felt ancient and alive: a beating heart of stone and water and green plants and living creatures, a precious little gem.
Before we left Anatakitaki Marshall had one last surprise for us: an underground swim. We clambered down a narrow passage to an artesian pool, which Marshall illuminated by lighting a couple of candles in the inky blackness. I was the only one who took the plunge, and it was gorgeous: pleasantly cool but not too cool, refreshing in the humid tropic air. As I swam gently in the blue water by candlelight, dozens of metres underground, thousands of years of fossilised coral reef above my head, I found myself laughing with sheer joy. The gift of this eerie, beautiful place, with its family history and its water-carved limestone sculptures. The shadowy flitting spirits of the kōpeka, their clicking percussion echoing from the stone. This wonderful, magical moment.
I write, photograph, teach and sing about the world, for the world. If you enjoy my work and would like to help support me to keep on doing it, please consider buying me a coffee at KoFi, or making a regular donation via Patreon. The links are here below: much gratitude to all those who have encouraged and supported me thus far. <3
Rowanleaf on KoFi (one-off donations)
Rowanleaf on Patreon (monthly donations)
Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 8:
Gods and government, proud warriors and foreign invaders: discovering the landscapes and history of Atiu.
(For new readers: if you’re just discovering this blog and you would like to read about my South Pacific travels from the beginning, you can click on this link to go to the first chapter: Travels in the Cook Islands.)
I’d got the hang of riding one of Matriki’s sturdy (albeit basic) bicycles, so on a hot and sunny Monday morning I ventured all the way to O’otu at the Aitutaki’s northeastern edge. I was tempted by the prospect of snorkeling in the gorgeous lagoon, but it was a sweltering day for cycling… And it turned out that visibility in the sandy waters at O’otu was limited at best. As if in sympathy with the murky visibility, the viewfinder of my underwater camera suddenly started to look a little foggy too… Before the camera gave up the ghost and stopped working.
Frantic efforts to revive the wretched gadget with freshwater rinsing, drying it, and then packing it in uncooked rice were totally unsuccessful. I contemplated spending the rest of my South Pacific travels unable to take photographs, which plunged me into a pit of despondency… My trip of a lifetime, and I wouldn’t be able to record any more of the amazing nature and landscapes and adventures I was encountering. (I know: first world problems, please don’t despise me.)
As I was sunk in angst, salvation came in the form of Trevor appearing at my beach hut to announce that he was heading out on a whale-spotting boat trip with a few of the Matriki guests that afternon, and did I want to come along? I stiffened my wobbly lip and replied in the affirmative, carpe-ing the diem as I realised for the umpteenth time that here I was in a gorgeous paradise with friendly folks and amazing wildlife, and a broken camera wasn’t the end of the world.
It’s only when we puttered out on Trevor’s little boat through Arutanga harbour and the reef passage into the open sea that the vastness of the South Pacific really hit me. As soon as you get outside the coral reef’s sheltering embrace, the ocean floor rapidly falls away to thousands of metres deep. My trip around the lagoon and motu with Puna a few days previously had been in sheltered shallow turquoise waters of five to ten metres: now we were bobbing over a Pacific swell, over midnight blue depths of over a thousand fathoms. Aitutaki dwindled and disappeared into the horizon, until all around us was nothing but ocean.
Trevor told us to keep our gaze trained on the surrounding seascape, to try to spot the spurt of exhaled breath or flick of tail flukes that would signal that humpback whales were in our vicinty. Although I’d heard reports from locals of occasional whale sightings offshore in the past few weeks, I was prepared for the disappointment of a no-show. Minutes stretched into nearly an hour with no sightings except a flying fish (local name māroro) Cheilopogon antoncichi – which was exciting enough to cheer me up!
Suddenly Nick, the thirteen year-old son of Kiwi tourists Tanya and Alex, shouted that he’d spotted something: Trevor affirmed the sighting and put the boat on a heading towards the far blue distance. And within half a minute all of us on the boat could see it too: the flick of a mighty tail as a whale dived towards the deeps.
As soon as we were at a cautious but close enough distance, Trevor killed the boat engine and there was a frenzied flurry amongst some of us on board to scramble into mask and fins and slip over the side into the sea. As soon as I submerged into the water I could see two sub-adult humpbacks and a calf, gliding through the infinite blue sea-space with slow undulations of their tailfins. I was overwhelmed: feelings of awe, joy, nervousness, wonder. Swimming with humpbacks hadn’t been on my South Pacific wishlist yet here I was, sharing this underwater world with three massive marine kin.
Known locally as to‘orā, the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) is an uncommon migrant species which in 2008 was downlisted from ‘Vulnerable’ to ‘Least concern’ in conservation status by the IUCN. Estimated global population is 80,000 whales (just under two-thirds of the 125,000 humpbacks thought to have existed before commercial whaling began). The whales I was watching in the waters off Aitutaki weren’t feeding: they were living off body fat accumulated in their summer harvest of krill and small fish in the frigid but fertile waters of Antarctica. The calf with them would still be suckling milk and learning how to swim. As I hung below the surface of the Pacific I could hear the songs of the males, squeaks and whoops and long hoots that echoed through the aquamarine depths. (You can listen to them too in these two short film clips, recorded by German tourist Frank and kindly shared with me afterwards: a whale singing and two whales swimming and singing.) Only the male whales sing: and the whale songs here at Aitutaki are different to those sung at Tonga or elsewhere.
Two days after my magical visitation with the humpback whales I had another wonderful gift of a day. It began with Trevor and Tracey generously lending me a digital camera for my Punarei Aitutaki Cultural Tour; which then meant that I could take photos to record all the amazing things shared by local historian, archaeologist and champion of Aitutaki traditional culture, Ngaa (full name Ngaakaara Kita Taria Pureariki).
I liked Ngaa from the moment I met him, with his infectious enthusiasm, warm smile and determination to honour the rich heritage of his island’s history and people. Astonishingly, in the Cook Islands school history curriculum there is nothing about Cook Islands Maori culture, with the only history taught starting in the post-colonial era. Ngaa himself is working largely without support, to preserve and promote traditional Aitutaki culture. In a nation where the Christian church is central to most people’s lives and also to political and civic society, celebrating traditional culture is often seen as pagan, anti-Christian and wrong. Ngaa told me that sometimes he felt lonely in his work… But he knows he was born to do it.
The day’s experience was hands-on, with Ngaa teaching us to make cooking mats and food bowls from woven coconut leaves; and how to cook our lunch in an umu (earth oven, with leaf-wrapped food cooked on fire-heated stones). On his family land at Punarei, Ngaa has recreated traditional Aitutaki houses with their steep pitched roofs (more cyclone-proof than modern dwellings).
The settlement of Polynesia and the Cook Islands is an evolving archaeological science, but it’s thought that from 1500 BC onwards the Lapita (early ancestors of Maori and Polynesians) travelled east and south from Papua New Guinea to populate what is now known as Polynesia. Over millenia the eastward migration continued, until the first peoples are believed to have settled on Aitutaki around 800-900 AD. Ngaa related how there are now twelve tribes on the island, with twelve sacred sites. Their history was kept alive by oral tradition, with women being the storytellers (possibly because the men were warriors who often died young).
When white Christian missionaries arrived on Aitutaki in the early 1800s they brought conveniences such as iron tools, sugar and kerosene… But they also forbade and devalued local culture, knowledge and traditions, systematically dismantling Aitutaki life. The colonisers carried infectious diseases with them such as leprosy and measles, to which the local people had little or no resistance.
When these white Christian missionaries arrived in the Cook Islands, they regarded tiki – wood or stone carvings in humanoid form – as pagan idols, to be removed or destroyed. On other islands many were burned, but by chance a white trader saw the potential to make a quick profit and sold many Aitutaki tiki to collectors overseas. Thirty-one tiki figures were taken from Aitutaki in the 1820s, ending up in European collections. Ngaa has carved tiki inspired by these original Aitutaki pieces, which he has managed to track down in museums all over the world.
When I met Ngaa in autumn 2015 he had just returned from visiting museums in Munich, Barcelona and Cambridge to view these Aitutakian artefacts… Including tiki such as the tattooed female figure of a high-ranking founding ancestor of Aitutaki, which was displayed in the ‘Treasures Of Oceania’ exhibition in the Royal Academy in London in 2018.
It was obvious that having seen these artefacts from his own culture meant a great deal to Ngaa: but when I asked him if he wanted them to be returned to the Cook Islands he sadly replied that there seemed to be little political will to bring such cultural treasures home and conserve them properly. All the more impressive that Ngaa and his family (such as mother, pictured below teaching us how to weave the palm-leaf roofing used on huts) are doing such important and vital work, bringing their culture and history alive and passing on its creativity, strength and stories to the next generation.
Despite a lack of official support, Ngaa is working hard to bring Aitutaki’s history and culture to the schoolchildren and young people of the island, as well as sharing it with visiting tourists. He hopes to continue excavating local sites, researching artefacts taken into private collections, and collecting and singing the ancient chants and songs that form the oral history of his people. (There were at least three hundred chants, for everything from harvesting and cooking to gardening and hunting.) The language spoken on Aitutaki is unique, as on other islands: there are 15 different island languages in this South Pacific nation. I learned a few phrases: Po’ pongi (Good morning, “sun rise”); Ae’ i au (Good afternoon, “sun dimming”); and Pae’ ae koe (How are you).
I found Ngaa’s knowledge fascinating, his intentions inspiring, and his passion infectious. As someone who works in oral tradition (leading community choir singing) and outdoor teaching with children and young folks, my heart really warmed to him. I hope that his work continues to develop successfully, and his mission to keep his people’s culture alive flourishes. And if you want to support his work, he will shortly be publishing a book about Aitutaki’s history (working title: Food For Flame), which I will include a link for here as soon as it becomes available.
Back at Matriki that evening I celebrated my lovely day by joining Trevor and Tracey and some other tourist visitors for a shared meal on the beach. The conversation took an unexpected turn, when someone mentioned that there was a tsunami warning for the South Pacific region, after a big earthquake that day in Chile. Tracey confirmed she’d received several email tsunami alerts, though to put it in context Trevor told us they receive one every few weeks on average. In the resort next door the guests had apparently been freaking out and had to be reassured by the resort manager going round to calm things down… But at Matriki there was a pretty laid-back attitude, with discussion of a possible six-foot wave arriving between midnight and 1.00 AM (to put this in context, Tracey did point out that this would mean the beach huts would be in the sea!).
Conversation turned to folkloric natural signs of impending tsunami: the sea drawing back, banana tree shoots bending over, crabs heading inland or climbing up trees. Suddenly we all got very interested in knowing where the Matriki cats were; but it turned out that Tuxi was perched contentedly on a chair, Bubbles was sat on the beach gazing out to sea, and Marmalade was fast asleep in a flowerbed. Finding this weirdly reassuring, we all agreed to adjourn to bed. Tracey said that if any of us heard anything (i.e. the roar of an approaching tsunami) to yell and alert everybody else and then head straight to the house: from where she and Trevor would put us in the pick-up and drive to a high point (the Piraki viewpoint).
It felt surreal to be going to bed, with the knowledge that a tsunami was possibly rolling across the Pacific Ocean towards us. In our dinner table conversation we’d all studiously avoided mentioning the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, which killed an estimated 228,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean… But I’m pretty sure that more than one of us was thinking about it. All those ‘Tsunami Evacuation Route’ signs I’d seen on Rarotonga didn’t seem funny any more.
As so often happens in times of stress, my sensible head switched itself on: I filled my backpack with essentials, ready to be grabbed should I need to evacuate in a hurry. Obvious stuff like water, snacks, first aid kit, medicines, lighter, penknife, headtorch, mobile phone, passport and wallet all went in… Plus my journal, a carved stone heart, and a copy of Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh. I curled up in bed dressed for action and lay there in the dark listening intently to the sound of the sea breaking on the reef, and wondering if the waves sounded like they were getting bigger. But the human mind is good at accommodating what it can’t do anything about: I trusted in the good folks of Matriki and my preparations, sent a metta prayer out into the universe, and fell asleep…
…And woke the next morning to a beach undisturbed by giant waves, where the cats rolled in the warm sand and stalked fish in the shallows. My last full day on Aitutaki, which I commemorated by going for a farewell snorkel in the lagoon to say goodbye to all the little fishies and corals. As evening fell I watched another glorious sunset, before going to watch a resort Island Night from the beach nearby. Lots of drumming and singing and fire staff dancing, completely inauthentic (most of the this entertainment style is imported from Hawaii) but lots of enthusiasm. I enjoyed it, but found myself thinking of Ngaa and his mission to keep the authentic culture of his people on Aitutaki alive.
I know that I would be leaving Aitutaki the following morning, to continue on my travels to the smaller island of Atiu… And I wondered if I would ever return to this beautiful, complex, diverse place; to its warm, friendly, proud, intelligent people. I hope that the future for Aitutaki holds safe and sustainable lives, not so dependent on tourist cash; safety from cyclone and tsunami and climate change; and deep connection with the rich legacy of their past and their culture. Kia manuia!
I write, photograph, teach and sing about the world, for the world. If you enjoy my work and would like to help support me to keep on doing it, please consider buying me a coffee at KoFi, or making a regular donation via Patreon. The links are here below: much gratitude to all those who have encouraged and supported me thus far. <3
Rowanleaf on KoFi (one-off donations)
Rowanleaf on Patreon (monthly donations)
Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 7:
Ancient coral cliffs and dodgy landings; swimming in caves and spotting birds that live in the dark: exploring Atiu, wild little gem of the Cook Islands.
Matriki’s motto, ‘Just casual’, applies to everyone who stays here… Even Matriki’s cats! Marmalade (pictured above) especially liked a regular snooze on the porch of my beach hut, giving an excellent example of how to kick back and chill out tropical-style.
Eleven days into my South Pacific travels and with three weeks to go, time felt like it was passing far too quickly. I was beginning to settle into Aitutaki’s laid-back atmosphere: wandering along the beach or swimming in the turquoise sea to cool off in the midday heat; enjoying the marine life of the coral reef; talking with other tourists and local folks about Aitutaki culture, wildlife and history.
I was learning a lot about the ways in which Cook Islanders use natural resources, such as plants. At dusk if I walked along the beach, the sand along the treeline was scattered with the fallen blooms of beach hibiscus (Hibiscus tiliaceus), called ‘Au or String Tree in local parlance. Strips of this tree’s inner bark are soaked in the lagoon for three weeks before being dried for twenty-four hours in the sun: these prepared fibre strips (called kiri’au) are then bleached or dyed and made into the so-called ‘grass skirts’ and leggings used as dance costumes for performances on Island Nights.
The sustainable use of local resources is important on an island where even things such as soil and fresh water are in limited supply and many consumables are imported. Talking over lunch at Tauono’s (a local organic gardening project with a cafe) with a Kiwi traveller called Tim, I learned that the huge container ship that visits Aitutaki regularly to bring in supplies cannot enter the harbour at Arutanga – the ship being simply too big to pass through the channel in the reef. Instead a cargo barge chugs out to the ship and brings in containers of goods, at a cost of $3,500 per trip! Small wonder then that even simple groceries like bread, cheese and tinned goods are expensive to buy on Aitutaki.
Expensive or not, I needed some basic supplies: so I set out on the two-mile walk along Aitutaki’s main road from Matriki to the downtown metropolis of Arutanga. I’d only been walking ten minutes when with typical Cook Islands generosity a friendly local offered me a ride there in his pick-up. I pottered about in Arutanga shopping for essentials (bread, cheese, fresh veg, beer) before strolling back home to Matriki. As there was virtually no traffic and I’m insatiably nosy curious about my surroundings, I enjoyed my walk, taking in the sights… Including a big mama pig and her brood of tiny wee piglets snuffling about at the side of the road.
Pigs are an important domestic animal in the Cook Islands: along with chickens you see them almost everywhere, usually roaming semi-free range. Typically they’re big and furry and more like wild boar than the blobby farm-pigs we’re more familiar with in the UK. Think Were-pig and you’re in the right area. I felt inclined to treat them with respect and give them plenty of space, especially big mamas like this one. (Her spotty little piglets were über cute, though!)
While I was in an exploring mood, I decided to go for a walk northwards and inland, to climb up Aitutaki’s highest point: the hill called Maunga Pu . At 124 metres high it wasn’t exactly Alpine, but I felt like stretching my legs and getting a bit of an overview of the landscape. Maungu Pu means “top of the mountain”: Cook Islands legend tells of how the hill was actually the summit of a high mountain called Maru on Rarotonga, which Aitutaki warriors stole and brought back to their own island!
The route to the top of Maunga Pu was easy to find and follow, starting out as a decent road that led through groves of pawpaw trees (Asimina triloba, or vīnītā). I’d already eaten plenty of pawpaw fruits since arriving in the Cook Islands: they’re creamy and sweetly-scented when ripe (similar to a mango), and work well in salads and desserts… But eating too many can have a laxative effect!
As I walked higher up the track became rougher and the views greener. As soon as you get into Aitutaki’s interior you realise how undeveloped it is. The coastal fringes are dotted with resorts and tourist accommodation, but inland is pretty much left to the locals. There’s some farming and a few access roads; two or three water tanks and some hamlets and scattered houses; and the island’s other high viewpoint, Piraki lookout.
Trevor and Tracey (Matriki’s resident caretakers and hosts) had told me that there had been a bush fire up on Maunga Pu not so long ago, so I wasn’t surprised to see signs of burned palm trees and blackened ground as I climbed higher up the path. Vegetation dried by fierce tropical sun mean that a fire can get hold quickly, and strong winds on this exposed island can sweep flames over a large area.
Luckily a lot of local plant species are evolved to survive in tough conditions, so most things appeared to be growing back.
Reaching the (slightly singed) heights meant that I was able to get stunning views over the whole of Aitutaki. Looking eastwards towards O’otu, the contrast between the shallow turquoise waters of the island’s coral lagoon and the Prussian blue of the deep Pacific Ocean beyond was striking
Looking south I could see Vaipae wharf on the island’s east coast, and in the distance the motu of Aitutaki’s lagoon where I’d travelled by boat with Puna only a couple of days earlier. Standing atop Maunga Pu you really get a sense of how small Aitutaki is… and how breathtakingly beautiful. These small islands in the South Pacific are absolute gems, and it’s small wonder that tourists come here for a taste of paradise.
Being tiny and relatively low-lying, however – and with the majority of their population living on or near the shoreline – the Cook Islands are incredibly vulnerable to climate change. The coral reefs are being bleached by increased UV radiation and all marine life is adversely affected by water pollution and ocean acidification. Tropical cyclones are becoming more violent, which when coupled with rising sea levels could produce potentially catastrophic flooding and loss of life.
Small wonder then that local communities are getting organised to take action and campaign for policy changes to halt climate change. Grassroots networks like 350 Pacific are working with communities across 15 Pacific Island nations to highlight the vulnerabilities of these countries, while using their strength and resilience – along with local networks and partner organisations – to challenge politicians and corporate interests. Kia manuia!
Looking westwards I could see out over the coral lagoon, narrower on this side of Aitutaki. When swimming offshore at Matriki and Vaikoa I was very focused on the marine life in the shallow waters, and didn’t tend to venture near the reef’s seaward edge. There can be tricky currents there and locals warn tourists against getting too close: but looking down on Amuri’s coast I got a tantalising view of the wide blue South Pacific beyond the reef.
On Maunga Pu’s summit there is a nice folksy piece of local history, in the form of an inscribed concrete marker celebrating a Boys’ Brigade Battalion camp up there in the early 1970s. I suspect that camping up on top of the hill must have been on the breezy side.
After sitting for a while on the summit to enjoy the gorgeous views and fresh breeze, I descended along the track and headed homewards to Matriki. Along the way a few plants caught my eye, including the Tahitian Gardenia (Gardenia taitensis, or tiare Māori). This ubiquitous and lovely flower is synonymous with the South Pacific, being used as a garden shrub and for scenting soap and coconut oil… yet it’s non-native to the Cook Islands. Ironically, it’s not native to Tahiti either – the plant was introduced there too, from its native range of Vanuatu, Tonga and Samoa.
I also spotted another showy non-native that I saw in several places on my travels: the bright orange flowers of the African Tulip Tree (Spathodea campanulata). The local name for it is kō‘ī‘ī, which means “to squirt” – apparently the buds can be used to squirt water!
The tropical climate of Aitutaki means that plants flourish, which can be problematic if the plants in question are non-native invasive species like the tulip tree. Tackling these troublesome invaders is another environmental headache for local communities, with little funding available for remedial measures such as biological control.
On the plus side though, nature can swiftly cover up what man has discarded: I found a rotting jeep that was being slowly carpeted with moss and ferns. Give it a few years, and it’ll probably be rusting down and buried under a flourishing green tide.
After a day of exploring on foot, the siren call of the warm tropical sea drew me back to my ideal beach bum life: snorkelling, sunbathing and strolling. The southwesterly winds which had blown in at the end of my lagoon tour with Puna a few days ago had raised a swell, stirring up the lagoon’s sandy bottom and making poor visibility for taking photographs. But the following day after my walk up Maunga Pu the weather had calmed, so I donned mask and snorkel and rash vest (to protect my healing sunburned back) and went to hang out with my fishy friends.
As soon as I waded into the shallows I was surrounded by teeming schools of tiddlers darting between the coral and around my legs, like green pullers Chromis viridis (local name katoti), pictured above.
In amongst the green pullers were their katoti cousins humbug damselfish (Dascyllus aruanus), stroppy little black-and-white striped fish who often came close enough to nibble investigatively at my skin.
I saw an incredible variety of colourful butterflyfish (called taputapu by locals) on my snorkeling explorations around the reef. There were many different species, such as this redfin butterflyfish (Chaetodon lunulatus), pictured above…
…Bennett’s butterflyfish, Chaetodon bennetti…
…Racoon butterflyfish, Chaetodon lunula…
…And threadfin butterflyfish (Chaetodon auriga). The somewhat homely creature lying on the sandy bottom in this photo is a sea cucumber (Holothuroidea).
Known locally as rori – and as bêche-de-mer in French Polynesia – these cousins of the sea urchin can be found lying all over the sea bottom. Some tourists gripe about their presence, but without the sea cucumbers Aitutaki’s sands would not be as clean as they are: the rori feed by slowly ingesting the sediments of the sea bottom, sifting through it for organic matter. They are basically biological hoovers – and are also exported as food to Asian markets.
Snorkelling around coral bommies in the shallow water was like being on an underwater treasure hunt. Every new nook yielded some different marine creature to be amazed by, like this cute little yellow boxfish (Ostracion cubicus, or moamoa po’aki).
As the little boxfish disappeared the next stylish reef inhabitants that swam into view were a pair of smartly polka-dotted honeycomb toby or spotted pufferfish (Canthigaster janthinoptera, or ‘ue ‘ue).
What’s amazing about this undersea world is that so many species forsake camouflage as a survival strategy and blazon forth in every hue of the rainbow. This lemon peel angelfish (Centropyge flavissima or katoti) sported such lurid blue eye-shadow that I named it ‘Barbara Cartland fish’.
Swimming around another block of coral, I found a floral Maori wrasse (Cheilinus clorourus or kōpiropiro), displaying the amazing cryptic colouration that helps it to blend into the mosaic of bright coral and shadowy crevasses of its undersea environment.
An even more striking camouflage outfit is sported by the honeycomb grouper (Epinephulus merra or taraoa), which I spotted lurking on the sea floor under the edge of a large coral bommie. The pattern of hexagonal spots on this handsome fish make it look like a creature designed by CGI. I love finding mathematical patterns in nature, for me it’s a constant reminder that science and ecology and art are all interlinked.
Much smaller but even more eye-catching were the little blue devil damselfish (Chrysiptera cyanea), which like the green pullers were everywhere in the shallows, darting in and out of the cover of seaweed or coral outcrops. These electric blue tiddlers were smaller than my thumb, but what they lack in size they make up for in attitude: they’re fiercely territorial and often darted out to chase me away if I got too close to their home turf.
The reef is obviously a challenging place to live, with plenty of predators (not to mention human hunters). Fight, flight or hide are the strategies its inhabitants can select, but luckily I didn’t encounter anything which chose the first option. Most fish kept a watchful eye on me and when I came too close for comfort either zipped away into the blue or disappeared into nooks and crannies in the coral (like these clearfin and bloodspot squirrelfish, Neoniphon argenteus and N. sammara, or kūkū).
Of course, fight, flight or hide isn’t an option for all the reef’s creatures. Hard corals such as this lesser brain coral (Leptoria phrygia) are free-swimming in their larval stage, but once they settle on the seabed and develop into a polyp and eventually a colony, their destiny is fixed: at the mercy of sea currents, waves and storms, pollution, temperatures and pH. The calcium carbonate walls which each coral polyp fortifies itself within – and which form the beautiful and fragile sculptures that make up coral reefs – will dissolve if the pH of the ocean around them falls too low and grows acid.
A study published in Science magazine in 2018 predicts that ocean acidification (largely caused by increased amounts of carbon dioxide dissolving into our oceans, as a result of climate change) will reach a point by 2080 when coral reefs are dissolving faster than they can rebuild themselves. This is on top of warmer ocean temperatures causing coral bleaching, when corals expel the algae living symbiotically in their tissues. Bleached corals lose their brilliant colours and are functionally ‘sick’: not only does a bleached reef look a sad sight, but the coral will probably be unable to reproduce and will eventually die if sea temperatures do not reduce back to tolerable levels.
Wildlife like this pink Acropora digitifera coral and plants such as spiny-leaf seaweed (Turbinaria ornata or rimu taratara) not only create gorgeous places to snorkel round and explore, they are vital wildlife ecosystems in our planetary environment. They provide ecosystem services to humans too: sources of food for local people, and protective physical barriers around low-lying islands against cyclones and flooding. Some of the scuba divers whom I met while staying on Aitutaki spoke of how the coral reef around the island looked to them to be suffering from bleaching, as well as from physical damage caused by tourists and boat anchors. It made me feel doubly privileged – and careful of my impact – while snorkeling around these underwater treasure-troves.
The vivid blue starfish (Linckia laevigata or ‘etū-tai) creeping slowly over the brain coral was doing it no harm; its larger cousin the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci or taramea) is a different matter. I found these spiky behemoths several times when I was out snorkelling: they feed on the coral polyps, digesting their living tissues and leaving the white calcium skeleton structure behind. A single crown-of-thorns can consume up to six square metres (sixty-five square feet) of living coral in a year.
They are native predators and as such can actually promote structural and species diversity in coral reefs; but if they’re present in great numbers (a so-called ‘crown-of-thorns plague’) they can cause widespread destruction to a coral reef habitat. For that reason, many divers and fishermen dislike them and will kill them on sight. One recommended method I was told about is to chop the starfish up with a big knife or machete. As these beasties are well-armed with poisonous spines which will break off in your flesh, I didn’t feel remotely tempted to try it. The asterosaponin toxins which the spines contain cause stinging, swelling, bleeding and nausea: definitely a marine creature to be given a respectful distance.
One fish which I was ridiculously excited to find (and when I get ridiculously excited when snorkeling I make noises like a baby whale with ADHD) was the fabulous Moorish idol (Zanclus cornutus or rere’au). This beauty was gliding around the coral like a piece of fine ceramic art, but put on an impressive turn of speed when I tried to get closer for a photo. I’m not someone who gets excited by celebrities, but remembering this fish as Gill in Finding Nemo, I stalked it for ten minutes until it finally got tired of my adoration and huffed off with a flick of its elegant long dorsal fin.
I could probably have spent most of my stay on Aitutaki in the sea, captivated by the ever-changing artistry of the marine world. As mentioned earlier in this blog, when I was a kid I was enamoured by the TV cartoon Marine Boy, the first ever Japanese colour anime to be shown on UK television. Basically I wanted to be Marine Boy: I coveted his red wetsuit, his oxy-gum (which when chewed enabled him to breathe underwater), his dolphin sidekick and his mermaid friend (whose modesty was always miraculously concealed by strategically-draped hair). My obsession with this cartoon knew no bounds: I was once hauled out of the bottom of a swimming pool by a lifeguard, whilst sitting underwater attempting to breathe as if I had oxy-gum.
I never magically gained the ability to breathe like a fish, but the clunky yet charming animated undersea world of Marine Boy permeated my psyche and remains there to this day. When I’m swimming in the sea (or traveling across it on a boat) I am probably the happiest I ever get.
I stayed snorkeling in the lagoon till evening sank the sun into the sea. When I walked out onto the still-warm sand of Matriki’s beach, the ocean had become a great calm mirror, holding onto the sky’s fading light. For another day’s stay on this beautiful South Pacific island, I gave thanks. Meitaki atupaka.
Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 6:
Camera disaster; swimming with humpback whales; learning about Aitutaki’s history; and how we survived a tsunami warning.
…And if you’d like to read about my South Pacific travels from the beginning, go to the first chapter: Travels in the Cook Islands.
The sun smiled on Martin and myself as we headed off on our Sunday-afternoon scooter tour of Aitutaki. We passed very few other people on our circuit of the island: Sunday is very much a day of rest here, so apart from the odd local going fishing everyone seemed to be either in church or relaxing with family at home.
Our first port of call was the Aitutaki Marine Research Centre at the northern tip of the island. This sounds impressive, although once you get there it’s basically some big round tanks full of seawater under a netting canopy, which are full of native clams Tridacna maxima (called pāua in Cook Islands Maori).
Aka the ‘small giant clam’, these pāua have been classified as a conservation-dependent species; which basically means that they will probably be wiped out by over-collecting and pollution, unless their long term future is safeguarded by active conservation measures. On Aitutaki, this takes the form of cultivating baby clams in these tanks, on square slabs on concrete. Once the clams are big enough, these slabs are taken out to sea and placed in a ‘clam nursery’ in the island’s lagoon.
These clams do not rival their bigger cousins, the introduced species of giant clam Tridacna gigas, also found in the surrounding ocean: typically pāua grow to a maximum size of 20 centimetres. But they have traditionally been a much-prized food source to locals, and lately have also become the target of the aquarium trade, because of their gorgeously-coloured and patterned mantles. This amazing colouration is caused by the presence of tiny single-celled algae in the clam’s mantle – plants which produce food by photosynthesis, supplementing the clam’s filter feeding process.
Pāua were once abundant in the reefs and lagoons of the Cook Islands. Nowadays, if you want to find these little clams offshore around the more populated and tourist-visited islands such as Rarotonga and Aitutaki you have to look very hard. I did discover one whilst swimming off the beach at Vaikoa (see photo below)… But when I reported this back to Mama she said that she and her family would go fishing for the pāua if they knew it was there! Mama originally came to Aitutaki from Kiribati (a group of Pacific islands which were a UK colony until 1979). Her husband chose the land at Vaikoa and taught her to fish, because he said he wanted her to be able to survive in old age from being able to find her own food. I sympathise with this: as ever, it’s the complicated issue of the needs of local people being balanced against the ability of the local ecosystem to tolerate the demands being placed upon it. As a wildlife conservationist I was firmly in the little clam’s corner, but I think local people should be involved in decision-making about how marine ecosystems are managed and used; and they should also be paid to carry out the conservation work to preserve these beautiful creatures.
After seeing the clams we continued our tour: via Vaipeka to view the ginormous fig tree that spans across the road (see my photo at the end of the last chapter of this blog); past Neibaa’s grocery store (the only one on the island which stays open on Sundays); and on down to Vaipae wharf, where Martin sets out for his lagoon fishing trips with local friend Itu.
This eastern shore of the mainland of Aitutaki is very different to the western side where I was staying at Vaikoa. A mud and sand beach stretches out shallowly into the lagoon, looking across towards the islets that fringe it and the island’s popular northeastern-most finger of land, O’otu. In Cook islands Maori, o’otu means “to burn” or “to cook”: I wondered wryly if all the tourists sunbathing on the gorgeous white sand lagoon beaches there knew that. Martin commented that he rarely goes to that part of Aitutaki, because it harbours legions of mosquitoes. (The insects breed in the little pools of water trapped in the leaves of pandanus trees Pandanus arapepe, which grow in that part of the island.)
A sign on some trees at Vaipae gave me the chance to have another local language lesson. Meitaki is Cook Islands generic Maori for “Thank you”, but each island has its own language variant for “Thank you very much”: here in Aitutaki it is meitaki atupaka. I loved the sound of Maori and did my best to learn a few phrases beyond the ubiquitous kia orana (“May you live long”, the Cook Islands equivalent to “Hi there, cool to see ya”)… But it’s definitely a language that takes time and much practice to acquire. I’m of the opinion that if you travel in other people’s home countries it’s both respectful and fun to try to communicate with the locals at least a little in their own language. Whether I actually make myself understood or just make them laugh isn’t really a big deal.
All over the beach at Vaipae there were little tracks and spherical balls of sand, interspersed with small round holes tunneling down into the ground. These it turned out had been made by Narrow-fronted fiddler crabs (Uca tetragonon), local name koro’iti. The males of this characterful little crab species sport a garish large pink claw which they flourish to impress their lady-crab friends. Allegedly. Personally I think any male waving something that flamboyantly pink around might be secretly getting in touch with his own feminine side, which can only be a good thing.
We concluded our clockwise island scooter tour by swinging by Tautu wharf and back through Arutanga and past Ziona Tapu church, on so onward back home to Vaikoa… Where Mama kindly greeted us with a cup of tea and some banana cake, to celebrate Father’s Day, for Martin! Later we made sure we also observed the important ritual of Beer O’Clock on Martin’s beach hut verandah, where a typically stunning sunset put the finishing touch on what had been a wonderful Sunday.
After my day of rest, it was high time I did something useful: so on the following day Martin gave me a lesson in the art of coconut husking and making coconut cream. Firstly, you find a ripe coconut (or ariki). This is never difficult as they are lying on the ground all over the place, and no-one minds if you help yourself to one. Next, you use a metal or wooden spike that’s firmly fixed in the ground to prise off the coconut’s hairy brown husk.
Once husked, you pierce the coconut through two or three of its eyes (using that otherwise pointless sharp poky tool thing on your trusty Swiss army knife), and upend it over a glass to drain out the coconut’s sweet fruity water. Drink this yummy juice (with or without the addition of rum).
Take a machete that Crocodile Dundee would approve of, and very carefully use the back of it (i.e. the blunt edge) to strike the coconut smartly on its equator. A few hits like this, rotating the coconut between each blow, will crack it more or less neatly in half.
The next bit of hi-tech you’ll need is a coconut grater: traditionally they are made from sea shell, but this recycled door hinge screwed onto a bit of plank does the job.
Grate the coconut’s flesh from the shell, starting at the coconut’s top outer edge, then working your way gradually round and into the shell until you’re nearly down to the husk (when you’re done you can ingratiate yourself with the local chickens by giving the husk to them to feast on). Collect the grated coconut flesh in a clean cloth placed below.
Once you’ve filled your clean cloth with grated coconut, you simply twist it up to squeeze out the coconut cream.
Coconut cream is yummy and unctuous and all things good. It goes beautifully with banana, pawpaw, pineapple, mango or other tropical fruits; or added to curries and stews. The leftover grated coconut is nice with your breakfast cereal – or in jam sandwiches!
Sadly Martin left Aitutaki the following morning (although with the typical generosity of everyone I met while travelling, he insisted on leaving all his leftover food provisions with me). I serenaded him on his way with a traditional Celtic blessing song; then after breakfast it was time to head off on a long-anticipated lagoon trip.
I joined six other tourists (five Kiwis and a German lady) on the funky little Aitutaki Adventures boat, whose skipper is Puna: an enthusiastic and upbeat local whose knowledge of Aitutaki and its marine wildlife is excellent.
Travelling in a boat at sea always gives me a buzz, so I was already feeling uplifted as we headed out from Tautu wharf into the lagoon… But once we got a little way out to sea I was pretty much blubbing over how beautiful the lagoon was. Imagine the bluest thing you’ve ever seen, then times that by a thousand. Absolutely stunning.
Puna motored out to close by the motu named Maina, where we jumped over the side of the boat for our first bit of lagoon snorkelling. Our first marine wildlife encounter was with a giant trevally (Caranx ignobilis), a fish that was approximately as long as me. It swam around the boat and those of us snorkelling in the water for quite some time, occasionally eyeing us in a manner that suggested it was assessing our edibility. This seemed only fair: many of these magnificent fish are caught by tourists and end up as someone’s dinner. 
Being large was a bit of a theme here: I also swam over some giant clams (the non-native species, Tridacna gigas), which were similarly gargantuan. The ones in the photo above were around a metre across. These mighty molluscs have an average lifespan of 100 years; and like their smaller cousins are vulnerable to overexploitation by humans for food and the aquarium trade.
Right next to Maina is a beautiful sandbar which has been named (rather unoriginally) ‘Honeymoon Island’ by tourists. Its pink-white sand and turquoise sea are stunning to look at though.
It’s not just fish that use the lagoon: we saw turtles as we travelled out from the mainland, and here on the sandbank many birds use it and Maina as a refuge. I walked past a couple of ngōio, black noddies (Anous minutus) who seemed pretty unruffled by a handful of trespassing tourists. This motu is also home to the rare Red-tailed tropicbird or tavake (Phaethon rubricauda), and we saw a few of these flying with terns.
Beautiful though Aitutaki lagoon is, you realise as soon as you visit these little motu up close what a difficult environment it is for wildlife to survive in. The sand was almost too hot to walk on barefoot; there is no fresh water (other than rainfall), and tropical storms can whip the sea over these low-lying islands and snap off coconut palms.
No Pacific ocean voyage though would be complete without being marooned on a desert island… So before Puna headed further across the lagoon he left those of us who were up for the challenge on a sandbar: from there we walked and waded through the shallow warm lagoon waters to Tapuaeta’i (One Foot Island), our lunch time stop.
Tapuaeta’i is the motu that all tourist lagoon trips go to (and you can even get a foot-shaped stamp in your passport there), but Puna’s trips in his small boat mean you get a bit of space to yourself. You also get a mouth-wateringly delicious lunch, which was waiting for us on a nice secluded and shady deck. I unashamedly gorged myself: four kinds of salads; pawpaw; fried aubergine, onion, pumpkin and courgette; savoury rice with carrots and beans; and grilled mahi mahi fish (dorado, Coryphaena hippurus) which literally melted in my mouth. I should also mention that before this paradisical feast, there were fresh bananas and watermelons and doughnuts served out to us on the boat after we’d been snorkelling… Presumably in case we grew faint from hunger before our sumptuous lunch! And all washed down with Puna’s chilled ‘fruit squash’ made from fresh lemons, a glorious citrusy zingy hit.
After lunch Puna entertained us by relating stories of the time the TV series Survivor! was being filmed on Aitutaki’s lagoon motu in 2006. The TV crew took over all accommodation on the island for three months, created a new channel at Tautu wharf, and generally made a good impression on the locals. Puna got a chopper ride over Aitutaki’s lagoon which he loved, and spent a lot of time with the series producer, who was very interested in local history and culture.
Puna himself is a cool dude. He spent five years working up on the island of Manihiki in the northern group of the Cook Islands. Manihiki, also known as ‘island of pearls’, is over eight hundred miles north of Rarotonga: about as remote as you can get in the South Pacific. Puna said five years was as long as he could cope with living there, working on the pearl trade. Most of the technicians there are Japanese, some from as young twelve years old learning the delicate science of seeding pearls in oysters. This craft is passed on within families and not shared with outsiders. Apparently these Japanese pearl technicians can tell what type of pearl an oyster will produce simply by looking at its shell – i.e. black, green, white, gold… Manihiki pearls are often black or green.
After we’d digested lunch Puna took us in the boat to another area of the lagoon to get a last bit of snorkelling in, before the dark rain clouds which a north-westerly wind had fetched on the horizon reached us. All kinds of brightly-coloured fish darted about over the coral: wrasse, butterfly fish, the inevitable Picasso triggerfish and humbug damsels, and the electric blue starfish that were a common coral reef denizen here.
Another creature caught my eye, lurking under the edge of one of the coral bommies we were snorkelling around. I swam down for a closer look, then put on the brakes: it was a giant moray eel (Gymnothorax javanicus). Torn between wanting to ogle this amazing predatory fish up close, and vaguely remembering that moray eels are reputed to be somewhat grumpy, I hovered a couple of feet from it… Whereupon it slowly turned its head and gazed steadily at me like a malignant marine sock puppet. Unlike a sock puppet however it appeared to be armed with a mouthful of stubby sharp fangs. I considered my options, and decided to give the moray some space. Subsequent research confirmed that I made the right decision: the giant moray grows to three metres long, and most definitely does not fall into the cuddly sock puppet category. (Wikipedia helpfully comments, “This species may be hazardous to people… It has been implicated in provoked and unprovoked attacks on scuba divers.”)
Surviving unscathed from my moray encounter, I returned to the boat… and Puna delivered us all safely back to the mainland. The threatening clouds dispersed and I was able to enjoy another lovely evening back at Vaikoa, watching the sun slide into the sea.
All good things must come to an end: and sadly it was time to move on from Vaikoa, with the lovely Mama, Junior, Terangi and Joel. I packed up my bags and walked the short distance northwards along the road, to my next temporary home: Matriki Beach Huts.
I’d found Matriki’s website while researching lower-budget places to stay on Aitutaki, and immediately liked the sound of it: and from the moment I walked along the sandy drive I knew I was going to have a great time there. The accommodation is basic but stunningly located right on the beach: wooden beach huts with funky painted murals and little verandahs looking out over the beachfront.
I’d booked a week’s stay in the ‘Beach Hut’, which was as Robinson Crusoe as it sounds. Well kitted out (fridge, cooker, mosquito-netted comfy bed, electric lights, outdoor shower) and cosy, it was just what I’d hoped for: a basic (i.e. affordable) but stunningly-situated little shed by the sea. Not being a fan of luxury resorts (or being able to afford them either), I’d chosen to stay at Matriki because of all the nice things previous travellers said about it… And they were absolutely right.
I wasn’t the only guest at Matriki: there are two other beachfront huts (and also an option to stay in a self-contained garden unit attached to the house), but everyone has a bit of space. If you wanted to hang out with folks and barbecue or share food on the big picnic table that was an option… Or you could just chill on your deck and gaze at the sunset. I sat on my deck for a while and just drank in the view. Not for the first time, I felt incredibly fortunate and full of gratitude to be in such a beautiful place.
Matriki was quiet and peaceful, my first evening there. I spent the afternoon snorkelling, then had a (sun-warmed!) outdoor shower, before wandering along the beach. I didn’t pass a single soul: just a reef heron picking its long-legged way along the sea’s edge. The ever-present soft roar of surf against Aitutaki’s fringing reef underscored other sounds: mynah birds chirping and squawking; a gecko ticking; a cockerel crowing; a riffle of small fishes hurling themselves airborne as they were chased into the shallows by something bigger. I could just see the surf breaking on the reef, a rolling line of white forever uncurling on the coral’s encircling edge… And beyond, the wild indigo blue of the Pacific.
The sand still felt warm at sunset, giving softly under my feet. Scents of sea and bonfire smoke and evening cooking drifted past: frying onions, mosquito coils, something sweet. As the sun sank into low cloud it found a chink and lit up a golden path on the sea, which the heron followed as it fished in the shallows. Just eight more days, to enjoy Aitutaki.
Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 5:
Cat therapy; climbing the hill that was once a mountain;
and how a Japanese anime made me an underwater geek.
…And if you’d like to read about my South Pacific travels from the beginning, go to the first chapter: Travels in the Cook Islands.
I had just two more days on Rarotonga before I moved on to my next island destination, so I made the most of my time by doing some more exploring on foot and in the sea. Just up the road north from Aremango is the small harbour of Avana, with The Mooring Café which serves awesome fish sandwiches and fresh fruit smoothies. On the way back to Aremango I bought some oranges and postcards, then wrote my cards to folks back home whilst sitting in my little garden courtyard, watching small lizards skittering about on the fence and decking and climbing from leaf to leaf, tongues flickering in and out. That left some of the evening for hammock time, watching moths fluttering about the plants, while listening to cicadas and the occasional shrill whine of a mosquito.
The next day the weather had turned a bit unpredictable: clouds and light rain alternating with the blue skies and tropical temperatures of before. But I was determined to explore the coral lagoon and reef near Aremango, and once you’re in the sea it doesn’t really matter if it’s raining. Just offshore is the small volcanic islet or motu Taaoka: ‘taoka’ means ‘treasure’ in Maori, so this motu could be translated as ‘Treasure Island’!
The real treasure of the lagoon is to be found beneath the waves, of course. Despite the more choppy weather stirring up the sand and visibility not being as good as it was a couple of days ago, I’m soon face down taking my new mask and snorkel for their maiden voyage, bobbing around coral outcrops and bubbling “Oooh!” and “Aahhh!” at every new tropical marine creature I encounter. White, yellow and black threadfin butterfly fish; gaudy fat-lipped Picasso triggerfish; silver and black-striped convict surgeonfish; and of course millions of warty brown sea cucumbers littering the ocean floor, patiently sucking in and filtering food particles from the sand and excreting it in pristine whiteness.
Closer to Taaoka the currents get interesting: I’m reminded of the warnings I’ve read about how dangerous it can be to swim near a reef pass (opening or gap in the reef), where water flows in from and out to the open ocean. Later on I discover that two tourists died last year swimming near Avaavaroa Passage a little further southwest. I’m not wearing fins, just reef shoes, so my ability to swim well in currents is limited: at low tide it’s shallow enough to stand in places between the shore and the motu, but the currents still pull me about. I’m determined to reach the motu though, and I finally clamber ashore.
With a pale sandy beach strewn with lava rocks and leaning palm trees, Taaoka feels satisfyingly like somewhere you might get stranded. I alternate between whistling the theme from Robinson Crusoe and Desert Island Discs, as I clamber over boulders and peer into the motu’s small scrub-covered interior.
You wouldn’t have to survive for very long if you were washed up on Taaoka, unless you were a non-swimmer: Muri’s main shore is a short swim (or wade at low tide) away. It was a satisfying exploration though; and the reef fish were bigger and more numerous out by the motu than they were close in by the main shore. I stepped back into the sea and snorkelled until my fingers went wrinkled, incidentally managing to give my back a stonking dose of sunburn (one of the not-unusual hazards of snorkelling). I should’ve known better and worn a rash vest, but I was lulled into a false sense of security by the patchy cloud and relatively cooler temperatures. The moral of this story is: the Tropics are the Tropics, and tropical sun is not to be trifled with. Cover up or suffer the consequences!
The next day dawned sunny and saw me catching a plane from Rarotonga airport to my next destination: Aitutaki, the northernmost of the Cook Islands Southern Group. Aitutaki had a reputation as something of a tropical paradise, and can be reached by a 45-minute flight from Raro. You can even day-trip Aitutaki if you wish, flying over in the morning and returning in the evening: but I had planned to spend a whole fortnight there. I liked the sound of the island: less developed for tourism than Raro, a simpler and slower pace of life, and plenty of good coral reefs and lagoon to snorkel in. Not to mention it was further north… so even warmer!
As the little twin-prop aircraft made its approach to Aitutaki, I got a glimpse of the island’s famed turquoise-blue lagoon. Once on the ground I was met by the family who I would be staying with for my first week on Aitutaki, at Vaikoa Units on Tamanu Beach: Terangi and Junior Tamati and their teenaged son Joel, who took me in their pick-up back to Vaikoa. It was a very short journey, as Aitutaki is not a big island: just over four and a half miles (seven and a half kilometres) in length. You can trace my journey from the airport to Vaikoa on the map below (the lower of the two red dots on the island’s northwestern coast).
After unloading my rucksack Terangi then kindly ferried me on the back of her scooter down to the nearest food shop to buy some essentials like bread and cheese: on returning to the little garden unit which I was staying in, it was to find finger bananas and passion fruit freshly-picked by Mama (Terangi’s mother) in a bowl on the table. Plenty of drinking water too: rainwater stored in butts, which I could boil and then chill in my fridge!
I liked my room at Vaikoa: a nice big comfy double bed, a clean shower and loo, a little kitchenette with a cooker and fridge and table for meals, and a nice through breeze if desired (with mosquito coils burning to discourage the biting critters).
Inevitably when I opened my kitchen door there were chickens outside, poised to eagerly investigate any edible scraps I might want to fling in their direction. As on Rarotonga, chickens are endemic on Aitutaki: happily scuffling about everywhere, wary of humans but susceptible to being lured with coconut. I tried a spot of chicken whispering, but this proved less successful. Coconut appears to be the secret of chicken friendship.
My priority after getting the basics of food and water sorted was of course to investigate the beach, a mere 30-second stroll away. It was heart-stoppingly beautiful: bright white sand, coconut palms and blue blue water. I sat down and gazed at it and almost burst into tears at how lovely it all was. Which may sound lame but I was starting to feel slightly overwhelmed by how incredibly fortunate I felt to be halfway around the world sitting on this utterly gorgeous tropical island.
Fortunately before I actually started blubbing I was hailed from the deck of a nearby beach house, and invited to take part in the important traditional ritual of Beer O’Clock by friendly Kiwi traveller Martin. As we sipped two cold ones and kept the mossies at bay, he regaled me with tales of his visits to Vaikoa (he’s been visiting and staying with Mama, Terangi, Junior and Joel for years). Back in New Zealand he volunteers on a bird conservation project at Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre. Like everyone I’d met so far on my travels, Martin was warm and sociable and happy to share tips about exploring the island. Before I left the UK I had a few people express concern and even discouragement about my plan to travel alone: but what I actually found was that travelling alone means that the people you meet tend to open up to you and take you under their wing.
The next morning I was back at the beach after breakfast. Vaikoa means ‘clear water’, and by wading only a few steps into the warm sea I was surrounded by corals and sea cucumbers and darting little fish.
Bright Blue devil damselfish and black-and-white striped humbug damselfish drifted in small shoals around the coral, flitting away when I got too close. Wrasse and triggerfish and inevitable herds of sea cucumbers, long-spined sea urchins which I swam past carefully. I was still a little wary of this undersea world, having read my copy of The Snorkeller’s Guide To The Coral Reef carefully, especially the sections about the multitude of venomous life which can be found in coral reefs. There seem to be an awful lot of sea creatures which can bite, sting, puncture and otherwise mangle you: there are even corals which can make you sting and burn if you’re unlucky enough to brush up against them. Not to mention that treading on or knocking against corals is likely to damage the corals themselves… So a rule of thumb whilst snorkelling coral reefs is look, don’t touch.
Looking is fabulous though. I grew up on TV programmes like The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, with the voyages on their boat Calypso to explore the wonders of tropical oceans. I was also an avid fan of the children’s Japanese TV anime Marine Boy (Kaitei Shōnen Marin), spending quite a lot of time sitting on the bottom of our local swimming pool longing for the ability to breathe underwater conferred upon the eponymous hero by chewing his ‘oxy-gum’… So to be floating about in the Pacific actually looking at a coral reef was definitely a dream come true.
All this swimming gave me an appetite, which Martin helped me remedy that evening by ferrying me on the back of a scooter to the nearby Puffy’s eatery, where we ate some of the best fish and chips and salad I’m ever likely to enjoy in this lifetime. The fish was buttery and succulent and moreover went by the name of wahoo, which has to be the funkiest fish title on a menu ever. I felt as though I was in a Dr Seuss book.
“I went for a snorkel and saw fish quite a few:
And later I ate one, it was called Wahoo.”
The next day was Sunday and Mama had arranged to take me off to church with her and Martin. I was keen to go because I’d read great things about the singing that happens in Cook Islands church congregations… Plus I was genuinely curious as to what the Christian faith meant to the locals. Mama turned up bright and early at my door in her Sunday best, and brought a hat for me to wear too.
Feeling a little like Pollyanna I held onto my hat as Mama drove us on her scooter into Arutanga, to the CICC (Cook Islands Christian Church).
Built in 1828 (and carefully restored in 2010 by locals), the CICC is the oldest Christian church in the Cook Islands. It stands near the centre of Arutanga, Aitutaki’s main village and administrative centre (it has a bank, a post office, a harbour, and a couple of stores). More metaphorically speaking, the church also stands at the centre of island life: from speaking with Mama and other locals, I gathered that the church plays a large part in most people’s lives, and has a big influence locally.
The devoutness of some of the locals is evidenced by roadside signs denouncing the flying in of tourists to the island on Sundays: apparently Sunday flights are even sometimes picketed by locals on arrival. Coming from a largely non-religious family background, I had no particular stance on this, other than feeling the locals should have the ultimate say over what happens on their island. Organised religion is really not my thing: if I feel inclined to do stuff on a Sunday, I wouldn’t let dogma deter me. But when in Rome etc… I’m respectful of local culture, so if Aitutakians would like visiting tourists to observe their sabbath then maybe that’s what we should be doing.
Inside the church was shady and peaceful, with light falling through the mellow stained glass and a slight breeze blowing through the open windows. Usually tourists have to sit towards the back, but I was privileged to sit with Mama and Martin in the area reserved for locals from the Amuri area of the island (people sit in church according to what part of the island they hail from). The church soon filled up and the lengthy service began, with singing that was haunting and lovely in equal parts. Cook Islands Maori is rich in vowel sounds and not easy to follow or learn: Martin shared a Maori hymn book with me and I took my cue from Mama as to what harmonies I should be singing, but sometimes I just listened. Many of the hymns had a call and response pattern, with the song flowing back and forth between women and men, rising up to the white-painted ceiling with its ancient ship’s anchor.
Although there was a cemetery at the church most Cook Islanders usually bury their dead on family land, often close to their homes. Family graves are tended lovingly and carefully, much like the gardens themselves. Some people might find this morbid but I actually thought it was a touching custom: keeping those who’d gone close by, rather than exiling them to some fenced-off graveyard.
After many hymns and a long sermon in Maori (during which I was entertained by watching local youngsters play pranks on each other, fidgeting about on the pews) it was time to head back out into the sunshine. Mama stayed to talk with friends and relatives, but Martin and I had other plans: a Sunday afternoon scooter ride round the island, to see some of the local sights. After a quick detour back to Vaikoa to change out of my church frock and into some shorts, we set off. I wasn’t sure whether the prohibition on Sunday flights also applied to scooter rides, but as many locals were still motoring about, it seemed unlikely. Suitably attired in yet another hat and carrying my camera, we hit the open road.
Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 4:
Clams fit for a king; how to say thank you on Aitutaki; coconut cookery school; and a taste of paradise. The end of my stay at Vaikoa… and moving to Matriki!
…And if you’d like to read about my South Pacific travels from the beginning, go to the first chapter: Travels in the Cook Islands.
There were very few activities or trips I booked in advance of arriving in the South Pacific, preferring to take advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves rather than being tied down to a schedule. The one exception was booking a place on a Storytellers Eco Cycle Tour on Rarotonga, for the morning after I arrived on the island. My logic for this was that (a) I like cycling, (b) it sounded like a good way to explore the island and get an introduction to Cook Islands culture and (c) when you’re travelling solo somewhere ten thousand miles away from home, it’s quite nice to have at least one planned thing to give you a bit of structure.
Getting up at seven a.m. bleary-eyed with jet lag was a bit painful, but several mugs of tea helped revive me (as did the morning chorus provided by Rarotonga’s several million chickens). I was picked up from Aremango Guesthouse by Dave from Storytellers, who cheerily ferried me and half a dozen other tourists staying at various points around the island to the start of our tour. There we were kitted out with helmets and sturdy bikes, before getting a safety talk and introduction from tour guides Natavia and Jimmy to our 4-hour cycle trip which would take in Rarotongan agriculture, traditional uses of plants, and some Cook Islands Maori history and culture.
Many Rarotongans still grow a lot of their own food (this is called ‘planting’ rather than ‘farming’). Growing plots have been cleared from the bush inland for planting vegetables and fruit, with the odd grazing animal such as goats and horses (and of course, chickens). Our first stop was by a taro patch: taro being a tropical plant in the Araceae family and one of the staple crops grown by Cook Islanders (it’s also used in Africa and southern India). Typically the starchy roots are boiled and used like potato; the leaves are also cooked with coconut milk to make the local dish called rukau.
Taro is a versatile crop, growing both in waterlogged swampy soils and in dry ones (although our local guide Jimmy explained that dry taro is not as tasty). A sackful of taro roots could be sold for NZ$100 – 120 and a good taro patch will yield 60 – 70 sackfuls. But cultivating taro is heavy work: first the soil in the taro patch must be dug over with a long-handled shovel, then a giant wooden ‘dibber’ (weighing 30 – 40 kg) is used to make holes for each individual taro plant. In a tropical climate weeds grow fast, so locals mulch their taro patches to prevent this. Formerly black polythene was used, but environmental concerns have led to people reverting to using biodegradable materials such as old cardboard with rito (coconut leaves) laid on top… Which looks far nicer than plastic.
Only locals can own land in the Cook Islands, and land is passed down within families. If a favourite son is getting married, a father will plant a taro patch for their wedding. Jimmy explained that many people do their own planting on Rarotonga but not everyone: if someone was to steal crops from another person’s taro patch it would not be regarded too severely, provided the thief was taking it for food and not to sell. He told us that if he spotted someone raiding his patch he would duck down out of sight so they didn’t realise that they had been seen… And then he would casually say to them a few days later, “Hey, how’d you like the taro?”
There is a general atmosphere of trust on Rarotonga and little crime, except for occasional opportunistic theft from tourists careless enough to leave valuables temptingly on display at the beach. Drink driving is also regarded more leniently than in other countries: police who stop drunk drivers will generally just confiscate their car or motorbike, telling them to walk home and retrieve their vehicle once they’ve sobered up. Recently however a local youth had died in a drink-driving accident, so there was a move towards trying to better educate people about the dangers of drink driving. I personally found cycling on the Ara Tapu pretty pleasant, as the vast majority of locals pootle along at an average speed of fifteen miles per hour… Very civilized.
The next staple crop we saw was cassava (aka maniota, arrowroot or tapioca). The advantage of cassava is that it is relative easy to propagate: you just chop the stem into short lengths and shove them into the soil. The disadvantage is that in its unprocessed raw state it contains cyanide, which makes you wonder who got the bright idea of eating it in the first place. To render cassava edible it has to be soaked for twenty-four hours and cooked. You can boil and then fry it to make tasty chips, or grate it and mix it with coconut cream and ripe bananas to make the yummy local dish known as poke.
As well as starchy root crops we saw plenty of fruit being grown as well, including pineapples. Natavia explained that two main varieties are grown on Rarotonga: the smooth-leaved pineapple and the spiky-leaved variety. The latter was introduced more recently and only produces for fruit for 2 – 3 years before you have to replant it; whereas the smooth-leaved pineapple is a perennial that keeps on producing for a longer period (and apparently yields sweeter-tasting fruits, too).
Bananas are another staple food here, usually grown on 3-stemmed plants. Natavia explained that once a few rows of bananas have started to form, the purplish-red flower is removed so that more energy will go into plumping up the fruits. As it was technically only early spring on Rarotonga, some of the banana plants still wore large plastic mesh bags covering their fruits and flowers, to shield them from low nighttime temperatures.
For the more carnivorous side of things, most households on Rarotonga keep a few pigs. These are typically kept penned or tied to a halter, so that they can’t wreak havoc on growing crops (a single pig can push over and destroy several banana plants in a single night, to get at the fruits and juicy water-filled stems). They are fed on coconut and usually end up being slow-baked in a traditional umu ground-oven, perhaps as part of a family celebration – or a meal for tourists!
It’s not just the pigs who have coconut on the menu, though. Jimmy described it as the tree of life: a plant from which people can get most of their needs, including food, clothing, timber and roofing material. He showed us the three different stages of a coconut: the immature young nu or green coconut (which largely contains coconut water with a little jelly-like flesh); the mature akari coconut (the one we’re most familiar with, with its brown outer husk and solid layer of white inner flesh); and the sprouting uto coconut (where the creamy white interior has become mostly dry and fibrous, with a texture like marshmallow).
Jimmy demonstrated how to strip off the husk and open each of the three different coconut types, so we all got to try the different stages. I personally liked akari the best, maybe because that was what I’m most familiar with. The fresh sweet juice of nu was deliciously refreshing, but I couldn’t help thinking it would be even better with rum added to it. Nu are the coconuts which fetch the best price when sold locally to tourists. As a rule of thumb, if a coconut is lying on the ground it’s yours to eat: nobody gets possessive about the fruits because there are quite a lot of them about.
Coconuts are not just yummy and nourishing, the flesh can be grated and squeezed to make coconut cream (more of this in a later chapter). The oil is wonderful for treating burns, eczema and dry skin. Jimmy described how his relatives make monoi, a scented oil for use on hair and skin, by fermenting chopped coconut flesh with the leaves of the cinnamon tree. Monoi scented with different herbs and flowers is used across the South Pacific, and I can vouch for the fact that it’s wonderfully soothing.
After our introduction to coconuts we cycled onwards, following inland tracks that threaded between planting fields and the occasional grassy pasture where goats or horses grazed. Rarotonga’s volcanic origins mean that as soon as you head inland the terrain gets hilly. Jimmy explained that before European missionaries arrived in the Cook Islands, the majority of people lived up in the highlands, to be safe from possible raiding parties arriving by sea. The Christian missionaries somehow persuaded folks to descend from the heights, and now the lowland areas near the coast are where everyone makes their home.
We stopped to look at a Rarotongan marae, a hundred yards or so from the track. A marae is a meeting ground or sacred place, usually a rectangular cleared area of land (sometimes slightly raised), bordered by stones or wooden posts. Jimmy described how a marae is traditionally where a chief, tribal leader or elders pass judgements, settle disputes or have discussions to sort out tribal affairs. This marae had three stone seats: the central one for the tribal chief, the other two for the chief’s advisors. Marae must be treated with respect and no-one should set foot on one, unless invited by the appropriate tribal representative. In the past, women were not allowed onto marae at all, but this is one of the things that has changed over time: some tribes now have a woman chief. Marae used to be located high up in the hills, but most have been relocated to the lowlands so that local people don’t have to walk long distances when they need something resolved.
Our next stop was a grove of noni trees. Noni, which also goes by the charming names of Indian mulberry, cheese fruit or vomit fruit, is regarded as something of a panacea. It is claimed to have antioxidant, anti-ageing and even anti-cancer properties, although to date there are no scientific studies confirming this. Anecdotally, Natavia said she drank a small amount of noni juice (made by fermenting and pressing ripe fruits) every day, and has found that it cures sore throats and protects her from viruses. Jimmy also related how he had cured himself from a bad case of ciguatera (a thoroughly nasty and painful type of food poisoning caused by eating certain types of fish) by drinking a herbal cure made from noni leaves, so the plant evidently has some benefits.
Natavia found some ripe fruits on the ground and split them open, inviting us to have a smell. It immediately became obvious how noni got some of its alternative monikers: the other tourists on our cycle trip recoiled with noises of disgust, while to my perhaps hardier nose the fruit had a strong smell of blue cheese. Drinking a glassful of noni juice every day suddenly seemed less appealing, despite its promised health benefits.
Cycling further into the bush, we next encountered some of the wild plants used locally for medicine and first aid. Yellow hibiscus or ‘au grows everywhere in the Cook Islands: its seeds can survive for months in salt water, colonising new islands, and the ‘au tree is hardy enough to grow even along sandy beaches.
Jimmy demonstrated why locals never carry a first aid kit with them when planting or working in the bush: cutting a branch from an ‘au, he proceeded to peel it and then strip out the soft inner bark, to show how it could be used as a bandage. Scraping the peeled branch produced a juicy pith which he said was used to pack cuts and wounds, over which the inner bark strips would be wrapped and tied, the bark tightening as it dries to keep the wound clean and prevent infection.
Doctors at the local hospital are happy for people to use this natural remedy which is very efficacious… And it’s why all a local will take with them when working in the bush is a machete or knife for gathering the necessary plants.
Two more plants which can be useful are miri (or tree basil) and mile-a-minute vine (or American rope). Both of these are alien plant species, accidentally introduced and now ramping away to the detriment of native Cook Island plants and habitats.
Miri comes in handy when there are mosquitoes about, which is pretty much all the time when you’re inland away from sea breezes. Simply scrunching up the leaves and rubbing the brownish juice on your skin makes an effective insect repellent, and one which I used more than once in my travels. A single leaf placed in a bottle of water flavours it nicely, too.
Mile-a-minute vine as its name suggest grows prolifically: sometimes as much as nine centimetres a day. Like the ‘au, it is very good for healing cuts, wounds and sores: the leaves are scrunched up to make a pulp and then applied to cover the injury. Natavia related how she had sustained a nasty wound after a fall from her cycle, which she applied this magical herb to: not only did her injuries heal quickly, but with virtually no scarring.
The next leg of our cycle tour took us to the site of the notorious Hilton Rarotonga Resort Spa. This ghost hotel was originally launched as a project back in 1990, when the Cook Islands government teamed up with an Italian bank and the Sheraton hotel chain to build Rarotonga’s first 5-star luxury hotel development. Unfortunately much of the NZ$52 million loan needed to make it happen allegedly disappeared into the pockets of the Mafia and other dubious parties, resulting in the hotel project being abandoned after a few years, despite construction being 80% completed.
Various attempts have been made over the years to relaunch the project, most recently a bid by two New Zealand companies in 2014, but to date nothing has got off the ground. Some believe that this is because Vaimaanga, the site on which the hotel stands, is said to have a tapu upon it. In 1910 the land’s owner, More Uriatua, was shot dead during an argument with New Zealander William John Wigmore who leased some of the land for his copra plantation. More Uriatua’s daughter Metua placed a curse on the land, dooming any business upon it to failure. Wigmore’s copra plantation was the first to go under; followed by unsuccessful pineapple growing, a failed plant nursery, and a doomed citrus farm.
Vaimaanga does have an eerie feel to it. Some of the site’s fixtures and materials have been recycled by locals, and the crumbling buildings are now host only to paint balling and wildlife. It’s a great shame that the project has left the Cook Islands government with a mountainous debt and an unattractive derelict site, but as the original project included plans to blast channels through Rarotonga’s coral reef and build an exclusive private beach and marina on what is otherwise a totally free public access coastline, I personally felt inclined to side with Metua and let the land revert back to wilderness.
Coasting downhill from Vaimaanga led us past a large candlenut tree or tuitui. The large walnut-like fruits contain oil-rich nuts which were used, as the name suggests, as a source of light: several nuts would be threaded onto a thin spike and burned like small candles. Soot produced from burning candlenuts was also used in traditional tattooing methods. Like British conkers, candlenuts are high in saponins so should not be eaten raw… Unaware of this I sampled one. I don’t recommend you follow my example.
Luckily the lunch that was waiting for us at the end of our cycle ride was a lot tastier. Dave greeted us at a beachside picnic table spread with a proper feast: fresh tuna steaks, taro and cassava chips, macaroni cheese, salad with lettuce and tomato and pawpaw, and oranges and bananas for dessert. After four hours of off-road cycling I was ready to refuel, and tucked in with enthusiasm. It was the perfect end to a fascinating and entertaining morning: I would recommend the Storytellers cycle tour to anyone visiting Rarotonga, and Natavia and Jimmy and Dave are all lovely folks to boot.
Back at Aremango Guesthouse I took a remedial stroll along the beach to help my enormous lunch go down, followed by a remedial nap in one of the hammocks in the garden to deal with the return of my let lag. After this I wrote up my travel journal, and mused upon the fact that I had only two more days’ stay on Rarotonga before heading northwards to the smaller islands of Aitutaki and ‘Atiu. Two days wasn’t long enough to do this friendly and diverse place justice, but it would have to do. Tomorrow I decided to explore on foot and do some snorkelling, feeling that it was high time I tested out my new mask and waterproof camera. As the mosquitoes began to rally their forces I retreated inside for supper and bed, leaving the tropical night to the cicadas, accompanied by the ever-present opera of chickens.
Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 3:
A desert island just the right size; undersea explorations; and getting scrubbed up for church on Sunday. I say goodbye to Rarotonga… and hello to Aitutaki.
…And if you’d like to read about my South Pacific travels from the beginning, go to the first chapter: Travels in the Cook Islands.
In September 2015 I went on an awfully big adventure. I flew halfway around the world, to go traveling for five weeks in the South Pacific. As I had never been traveling before, this was something of a departure from my normal routine, to say the least.
In the months before I set off, an oft-repeated question directed at me by curious folks was, “Why the South Pacific?” My answers varied depending on the mood I was in, but usually comprised some or all of the following: (1) good snorkelling, (2) friendly and safe for a lone woman traveller, (3) desert islands, palm trees, sunshine, lagoons, coral reefs… And (4) as a child I got more than slightly obsessed with the South Pacific as a result of reading three books: Let’s See If The World Is Round (Hakon Mielche), South Sea Adventure (Willard Price), and The Kon-Tiki Expedition (Thor Heyerdahl).
From my childhood reading (blissfully oblivious of the rampant colonialism in all three books) I received the impression that the South Pacific was a magical and exciting place, teeming with wildlife, populated by quirky and amiable locals, and rich in natural beauty and ancient culture. Here was a place where you could swim with sharks, lie under palm trees listening to ukulele music beneath the stars, see stunning lagoons and coral reefs, and live a simple life in a tropical paradise.
So: off to the South Pacific I went. And for the next few installments of this blog, I will be recounting my traveller’s tales. For the record (spoiler alert), my expectations were exceeded. Coral reefs and lagoons are indeed heart-stoppingly beautiful. I inadvertently swam with sharks several times, as well as with humpback whales and manta rays. There was a lot of ukulele music but don’t ever lie under a coconut palm to listen to it unless you’re wearing a suit of armour. And the South Pacific may look like paradise, but living there requires hard work, ingenuity, strong community and – in the face of climate change and seismic unpredictability – large amounts of luck.
To get to the South Pacific from the UK requires a very long plane journey, whether you fly east via Singapore, or west via Los Angeles. I opted for the latter, with a purgatorial six-hour layover in LA airport. US immigration officials have had their sense of humour surgically removed, and the queues were epic. Quite why our American cousins think anyone is desperately keen to sneak into their gun- and God-infested country is anyone’s guess, but Uncle Sam’s guardians were scrupulous in grilling every sleep-deprived traveller over the minutiae of their journey plans. I caused them no small consternation by wearing glasses, as in my passport photo I don’t have them on. Once we’d established that I was actually me (by the simple act of removing my glasses), I was allowed through to a deserted chilly air-conditioned barn of a boarding gate waiting area. I curled up on the carpet with my back against a wall and cat-napped for a few hours, lulled by announcements at regular intervals inviting US servicemen and their families to make full use of the exclusive airport facilities for serving personnel.
I’d opted for a direct flight to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, rather than going via New Zealand, so twenty-six hours after I’d left the UK I was seeing my first South Pacific sunrise from the window of my plane. It looked very beautiful. And once my plane had landed at Rarotonga airport and I’d been ferried by minibus taxi with a bunch of other bleary-eyed travellers to Aremango Guesthouse where I was staying, I lost no time in going exploring. First project: catch the island bus into Avarua, the main town on Rarotonga, to buy some food.
Rarotonga, like many South Pacific islands, has a mountainous (volcanic) interior, fringed by coral reef and lagoon. The only flat bits of land are largely along the coast, so the Ara Tapu (main road) runs all the way round the edge of the island (as does the older Ara Metua, which runs just inland of the Ara Tapu). As the road goes in a circle, this means there are only two bus routes to keep track of: clockwise and anticlockwise. The whole circumference is only twenty miles, so you can trundle round it in an hour or so on the bus (or less if you go by car or scooter). The buses are battered but comfy old single deckers that appear to have made in China, if the interior is anything to go by.
The bus drivers are an entertaining bunch: my personal favourite was Mr Hopeless, who keeps a running commentary going for the entire journey about landmarks, local politics, tourists and his family and neighbours. When he runs out of things to say, he sings. I feel all British bus drivers should be sent on sabbaticals to Rarotonga, where they will learn from Mr Hopeless that keeping your passengers entertained is far more important than sticking slavishly to a timetable.
By the time I’d returned back from Avarua with the basics (bread, cheese, tea and beer) it was afternoon and time to investigate the beach. A hundred yard walk through some gardens and there I was: standing on coral sands, looking out over a turquoise lagoon. It was warm and there was the sound of surf breaking on the reef; and despite acute sleep deprivation, I suddenly felt intensely blessed to be there. Halfway around the world from where I lived, in the South Pacific at last.
I explored westwards along the beach, past the little motu (islet) called Taaoka, which lies just offshore. Aremango is on south Muri beach, an area of Rarotonga popular with visitors. So popular in fact that sewerage run-off into the sea from tourist accommodation is causing environmental problems, with increased nitrogen levels resulting in algal blooms hazardous to marine life and human health. The problem has been acknowledged and some measures (e.g. improving septic tank sewer systems) have been put into place, but much more work still needs to be done.
On my first day there I was unaware of this issue, and you certainly couldn’t tell from looking at the lagoon that there was a problem. But a couple of days later I found the information display pictured above, and it was a timely reminder that those of us who are wealthy enough to travel and holiday in other people’s countries are responsible for the impact our stay has there, whether that be on the local environment, the economy or the culture. Flying over ten thousand miles to the Cook Islands is no small carbon footprint, so I was keen to stay in simple accommodation and to explore and enjoy the islands by as environmentally-friendly means as possible… Which on Rarotonga meant getting about by three of my favourite methods: bus, cycle and on foot.
As well as trying to address the sewerage pollution issue, there are other initiatives being enforced on Rarotonga to conserve the environment and wildlife. One of these is the designation of ra’ui: a ban on fishing or harvesting foods either in a specific area, or of a specific animal or plant species.
Ra’ui (or rāhui) are a traditional part of Maori culture, whereby a tapu (spiritual edict or prohibition) is placed restricting use of or access to a place, e.g. for gathering food. In the Cook Islands the ra’ui concept was revived in the late 1990s, to protect the island’s lagoon habitat. The Aronga Mana (traditional tribal councils) have placed ra’ui on several areas around Rarotonga’s lagoon. These ra’ui are not enforced through legal channels but instead rely on respect for traditional authority, with infringement dealt with by “rebuke and community pressure”.
The other initiative that seeks to protect the marine environment in Rarotonga and elsewhere in the Cook Islands is the designation of a Marine Park. Although it was formally announced as policy by Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna in 2013, the Marae Moana marine park has yet to be set up. As ever, funding and fishing interests are in the mix… Hopefully these won’t prove insurmountable obstacles for this project, because the lagoon surrounding Rarotonga certainly deserves protection of the highest standard and is a beautiful and diverse environment… As my photo below of threadfin butterfly fish, taken whilst snorkelling, shows.
As well as the occasional ra’ui notice, there were other signs repeated at regular intervals along the Ara Tapu that certainly caught my notice. You know you’re in a interesting part of the world when roadside signs inform you not of speed limits or dual carriageways, but instead tell you which way to run in the event of a tsunami. This disconcerted me at first, but the rather jolly signs are reassuring in a low-tech sort of way. The knowledge that you’re in a place where seismic activity occasionally means that very big waves come ashore is a bit worrying… But no need to panic, there is a plan to cope with this: i.e. run fairly smartly up the nearest hill that presents itself. Which given that Rarotonga just inland of the Ara Tapu is all hill, doesn’t prove too difficult. 
Whether or not I needed to make use of a tsunami evacuation route during my five weeks of travelling in the South Pacific will be revealed in a later chapter of this blog. In the meantime, I knew that I needed a good night’s kip because tomorrow I was going to be up early to head out on a cycle tour to explore Rarotonga’s interior. I had reached the end of my first day in the South Pacific: happy, hallucinating slightly from lack of sleep, stuffed with bread and cheese and beer and bananas, I fell asleep to the sound of the island’s three billion chickens serenading the sunset. Sweet dreams.
Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 2:
Off-road cycling; bush medicine and plant First Aid; everything you ever wanted to know about coconuts; and why building a hotel on cursed land is not a good idea, even if you’re the Mafia. Plus chickens. Lot of chickens.
At the time of writing this blog entry, I am in sinister mode… In the sense that I am largely left-handed, owing to having fractured my right wrist! This was something of a surprise to me, because I actually did the damage at the end of December (when I elegantly toppled sideways off my bicycle on an icy towpath during a frosty winter ride). Being an old school stiff-upper-lip British stoic, at the time I sprang nimbly back to my feet and cycled on homewards, with only an aching shoulder for a few days afterwards as a memento. But while driving to teach at a London school three weeks later, my right wrist started to ache. Luckily I have a GP who is excellent at injuries and it took him all of two seconds of prodding to diagnose a suspected fracture of the scaphoid bone… Which an x-ray at Newbury hospital later confirmed.
Having not even heard of the scaphoid bone before, I was somewhat dubious about the need for wearing a splint, particularly as I’d been carrying on as normal for the best part of a month after my bike accident. But it turns out that this little cashew nut-shaped bone (located at the base of the thumb where it joins the wrist) is annoyingly tricky to heal once you’ve damaged it. Hence the fetching velcro and metal splint which I currently have to wear all day. If all goes well I should be healed and splint-free within a few weeks: in the meantime as I can neither cycle nor drive, I’m doing a lot of walking. I’m keeping my fingers crossed (on my left hand, anyway) that there will be no complications, so I can return to normal functioning by the time my busy teaching season starts in early March.
Fortunately I’ve had good things happening in January too. I belong to the Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network, an organisation for singing teachers, choir leaders and voice workers. In early January the NVPN holds its annual gathering, which usually takes place at Wortley Hall near Sheffield (see one of my earlier blog posts, Digging ponds and singing songs for an account of my visit to Wortley Hall in 2013). However, the NVPN membership has grown in recent years to such an extent that the main gathering was oversubscribed and a ‘mini gathering’ was organised for those of us who left it too late to book for Wortley. The venue for this smaller gathering was the beautiful Elizabethan Kinnersley Castle in Herefordshire.
Kinnersley Castle is still a family home, which can be hired as a venue for events. It is full of character – I was chuffed on reaching my room to find I would be sleeping in a four-poster bed! Our meals were home-cooked and plentiful, and the hospitality from hostess and NVPN member Katherina Garratt-Adams was warm and welcoming. The space that we used for our singing workshops and group sessions had a huge fireplace with a log fire that we all took turns toasting ourselves in front of (including Coco, Katherina’s friendly black labrador).
I always get a huge amount from these NVPN gatherings: not just song material for teaching with Sing The World, the Newbury-based choir that I co-lead, but also lots of useful ideas and guidance for all the issues involved in being a singing teacher. Having suffered from laryngitis and lost my voice completely back in September, I found the sessions on looking after our voices and developing our singing range particularly helpful. The NVPN largely follows a community of practice model for sharing expertise, which is an extremely effective way to support our professional development.
Staying at Kinnersley Castle was a fantastic experience and a great way to ease back into the working year after the festive break. It’s a venue with tons of character and welcoming hosts (including the lovely Katherina and Caius, pictured above).
Chilly winter weather doesn’t generally stop me from going exploring. We’ve had some glorious bright sunny midwinter days and I took advantage of one to go for a walk with my friend Will along the downs in the Vale of Pewsey. It was a route we hadn’t done before, up onto the Tan Hill Way and then round Gopher Wood and Oare Hill, finishing with a loop over Giant’s Grave, an Iron Age hillfort and settlement.
We were glad that we had done our route in a clockwise direction, as the final descent from Giant’s Grave down into the village of Oare was precipitous enough that I had to run down it with my arms outstretched and making whooping noises. (A vital strategy for obtaining maximum speed with the minimum of risk to myself or other walkers coming from the opposite direction.)
There is something about sunshine in the depths of winter that is particularly restorative, even in the Arctic winds that were blowing that day. And the landscape of chalk downland always holds a special magic for me, growing up as I did in the Chilterns. The walk route around Oare is one I will definitely revisit, perhaps in early summer when orchids may be about. Even in early January it was beautiful, with red kites and buzzards wheeling on the wind currents high above the hills.
Winter can feel like a bit of a miserable time, especially if the weather is wet and grey. Fortunately there are opportunities to dispel the darkness: Newbury hosts an annual Festival Of Light, a midwinter celebration where locals make lanterns from willow and tissue before joining together in a parade through the town. There were lanterns of all shapes and designs, including stars, fish, boats, spaceships and even a dalek and a Darth Vader! At the end of the parade there were hot chestnut sellers, brightly-burning braziers to warm your hands at and a lively band to keep everyone warm. There was a great energy there, definitely an inspired way to ward off the winter blues.
Another winter event which got people together was the Thousand Voices evening. Local choirs (including Wacapella, our Sing The World performance group) sang separately at various locations across Newbury town centre, before joining together by the Christmas tree in the market place for a mass sing. It was great fun to take part… I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard The Twelve Days Of Christmas sung quite so loudly before!
In contrast to the gloomy and soggy winter of 2013/2014, December and January have brought a good share of bright days, perfect for getting out and about in. In mid-January I went for a walk across Snelsmore Common, a nature reserve on the edge of Newbury now managed by local wildlife trust BBOWT. This is a site both popular with locals and rich in wildlife and interesting habitats (including bogs with carnivorous plants known as sundews). Going back over a decade, I lived up a tree at Snelsmore for a short time, along with a host of other hardy souls seeking to prevent the dreaded Newbury Bypass from being constructed. The Newbury Bypass protest is well remembered by locals, whether or not they were involved in either the activism or the road building. I lost my heart to this lovely stretch of ancient woodland and like many of my friends it was gut-wrenching to be there when the bailiffs and bulldozers finally rolled in and destroyed a swathe of this amazing place forever.
Happily, activism and opposition to environmental destruction and social injustice is still going strong in the UK. As the media and political parties crank up their apparatus for the General Election campaigning season we’ll no doubt have more coverage than we want of democracy in action… But mindful of what’s going down in other areas of the world (Ukraine and Russia, for instance) it’s a good time to remember that we’re lucky to have a democratic system at all, flawed though it is. Being something of an anarchist/libertarian I’m not a huge fan of our current set-up, but I’ll certainly be voting on election day. The good news is that the Green Party is fielding candidates in every ward of Berkshire, which at least gives me an opportunity to vote for someone whose politics reflect my own interests. And for those who say that voting for the Green Party is a wasted vote because it will allow the Tories back in, my considered response is: thhhbbppppt. *blows raspberry*
There is a lot of brouhaha written and said these days about non-participation in democracy. Personally I think there is just as much radicalism and engagement as there ever was; it’s just that people have many more ways to express how they wish their locality and country should be run. Also the majority of us seem to be utterly unimpressed by the posturing of politicians and the ponderous workings of government, which these days looks increasingly like an old boys’ club of ex-Eton pupils.
If as some pundits seem to think our political system is in the throes of change, it may not be a bad thing. (It’s worrying that a few folks seem to think that UKIP is an answer, but I suppose all those sulking ex-Tories had to go somewhere.) My response to all of this is to get back into activism, so I will be going to the Time To Act climate change march in London on Saturday 7th March. The climate change debate continues but it’s evident that we can’t go on living as if we had a spare planet as well as this one, so why not come along too and make some noise in London this spring – if only to communicate to those currently hitting the political campaign trail that the environment is not only the concern of a minority bunch of tree huggers.
Rather than finish on a strident note, I will end this blog entry with a photo of a particularly magnificent winter sunrise. I never stop being grateful for this world in which I live… That’s kind of why I feel compelled to look after it.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed the day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
– ‘What A Wonderful World’
Bob Thiele & George David Weiss