Tuesday 21st August

Rarotonga,
Cook Islands

21 12.295 S
159 47.091 W

We planned our day down to the finest detail as we had the car for just one more day; Abigail went off to get here tattoo done whilst Gerry and I went off to do some grocery shopping and a quick stop at the bottle shop, that just about took care of the morning. We transported everything back to the boat and unloaded it, finding space where none really existed. Abigail returned to the boat around 13.00hrs sporting a new tattoo on her right foot, it’s an original design and she is very pleased with it. As we had planned to see the rest of the island today we immediately took off in the car and made our way around the shore line road traveling anti clockwise. We made just two stops – first to book for the dinner show at one of the resorts and then at a beach side restaurant for mid afternoon tea / late lunch and coffee. The setting was magnificent and the food was pretty good too. We continued our tour, being a little disappointed with the lack of signposting for the places of interest but never the less we enjoyed the scenery making it back to the dock in time for a little siesta before getting ready to go out for dinner. We all dressed up in our finery to go to the resort for dinner, even if our clothes were a bit rumpled from being crushed into small spaces on the boat. The dinner show was a buffet meal followed by a professional drum and dance group. The food was very good for buffet style and there was plenty of it; the show began at around 20.30hrs and was very entertaining with singing, drumming and island style dace demonstrations. The troupe performing have been international winners of some big events and were consummate professionals. Having seen the dancers in Nuku Hiva though I have to say that I thought it was a little too wooden and practiced for my liking, the Nuku Hiva dancers were more spontaneous.
That’s not to say they weren’t good or that I didn’t enjoy the show – it was awesome. It was the first time Abigail had seen such a show and she was duly impressed and took a heap of photos and some video clips. I thought the stars of the show were the little girls who opened the show – they were about 6years old and could swing their hips like you wouldn’t believe. Once the show was over we drove home, and were soon in bed sleeping.