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Homeward Fri 10th Jan

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Today was our last day in Rarotonga. We were lucky enough to have a late checkout, which allowed us to make the most of our day before heading to the airport for a (supposedly) 9pm flight. We had a couple of things on our "not-yet-done" list, as well as one "must-do-again" on some individual lists.  First stop was the Cook Islands National Museum, which is a wonderful collection of cultural and historic artefacts. Most have little descriptions explaining what they are and where they came from and they make an interesting collection. We agreed that a combination of the words-heavy Te Ara Museum, and the artefacts-heavy National Museum would be pretty much ideal. Between the two, we certainly gained an interesting education about the history of the Islands. We then popped in one last time to Te Aponga Uira (Cook Islands Electricity Company) to try to touch base with the daughter of a school friend of my dad, who we had been trying to track down. Unfortunately she wasn...
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Captain Tama in the rain Thu 9th Jan

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This morning it rained and rained and rained. I checked my email frequently but there was definitely no cancellation notification for Captain Tama's Lagoon Cruise that we had planned to do today. At the appointed time we set out in the van to the drop off point. There was no parking right there, just people trying to squeeze under the verandah, so Peter took the hit and went to park it on the street while the rest of us squeezed under the verandah too. He arrived a few minutes later looking like he'd already had a quick dip. We were a little uncertain about how the day would go, with the weather being pretty miserable (and in fact it barely stopped raining all day) but we all agreed at the end that it was a really fun activity that may well have been the highlight of the week if the weather had been slightly kinder. Our 'captains' included Captain Smack Sparrow, Captain Tarzan, Captain Smoothie, Captain Absolut (like the vodka), and a couple of others... perhaps those w...
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Kittens Wed 8th Jan

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Today was something of a rest day as the weather was forecast to really pack in, so our planned dive experiences had all been cancelled earlier in the week. We made a list of things we each thought we'd like to do while we were here and tried to get through them (didn't quite, but it was a decent attempt!) First stop was the shop / workshop for skincare brand Rito. This is another example of cottage industry in Rarotonga, and is very professionally run. The products are made at the home, and the shop/workshop includes all the owner's measuring bowls and weighing machines etc. Coconuts are sourced from local farmers and the owner husks them and extracts the coconut flesh. There is a big stainless steel bench with a fire inside to dry the coconut, which is then pressed to deliver coconut oil. The rounds of pressed coconut are returned to the coconut farmer for feeding to the pigs and the husks are used by locals for garden mulch or firewood. The business is run very sustainab...
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