Cook Islands, New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade tells us, is made up of 15 islands, and shelters a population of around 17,500. It is a self-governing entity, in "free association" with New Zealand. What that means is that it administers its own affairs, but the islands are part of the "Realm of New Zealand", and Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens who are free to live and work in Aotearoa (in fact, more than 60,000 Cook Island Maori do exactly that).

They've been thinking about changing their name, apparently. You can understand why. Not only is the famous navigator's legacy a highly ambivalent one, but he didn't even have much to do with this set of islands. He never even sighted the largest one, Rarotonga.

That was the island we visited, all those years ago.

We went for just over a week, in November. We had two Thursdays, as Cook Islands lies east of the date line, and is therefore almost a day adrift from New Zealand. By way of payback, we had pretty much no Friday in the second week, and landed back in Auckland early on Saturday morning. I'd worry now about flying 3.5 hours each way for just a week. But -- to my great discredit -- I didn't worry then. We were exceptionally time-poor, and we seized whatever opportunities came our way for a change of scene.

That was the era when Nigel's frequent-flyer status rapidly racked him up free flights, access to lounges, and upgrades (we flew business class on the way back). They were halcyon days in some ways, but it's hard not to feel, with hindsight, a certain embarrassment about our unsustainable practices.

There was a lot that was somewhat farcical about this trip. I was deep in the throes of my Master's at the time, and was finalizing and posting a big research exercise just hours before we left. There was zero time to think about packing. So we just shoved everything we thought we might possibly need into two enormous suitcases. The owners of the accommodation we'd booked met us at the airport, and assumed we were on the first leg of a round-the-world trip, rather than on a week's holiday from New Zealand...

This was our second Pacific-island trip, and on the previous one, we'd decided that high-end resorts were not really our thing. So, in one of our early and highly infrequent forays into internet travel bookings, we'd found some simpler lodgings. Perhaps we went a little too far in the other direction... But for a week, it didn't matter much.

My top ten goes like this:

1. Scooting

We hired a little bike from a local dealer, and the first thing we needed to do was scoot into Avarua to obtain the requisite licence. Once Nigel had proved to the examining policemen that he could start and stop the scooter, drive in a straight line, turn corners, and not fall off, we were all legal, and good to go. It was a fun way to get around.



2. Sightseeing

Rarotonga is beautiful. A line of jagged crests marks the top of the mountains. The land between the sea and the mountains is lush farmland (coconuts, taro, arrowroot, bananas, a few pigs and goats, lots of chickens), and alive with plants (fluffy kapok trees, bougainvillea, hibiscus, frangipani...). All the beauty of a tropical climate.







Mostly we did our sightseeing by scooter. You have to go round the island, of course, pausing at Avatiu Harbour; the very beautiful Matavere Church (coral -- but being beautifully reclaimed by nature, and looking almost organic); Muri Beach; Titikaveka, where the sandy beach really lives up to its reputation; the Tinomana Palace...







Another day we scooted out to Maire Nui botanical gardens, sauntered round the garden, and then sprawled on the terrace to enjoy a cold drink. (The locals said it was unseasonably hot while we were on Rarotonga, but we seem to hear this every time we go anywhere...)

At one point, we joined a little trip in a 4WD, just to see a bit more of the mountainous interior. We started off at the Papua waterfall, and then climbed to a viewpoint overlooking the Muri Beach lagoon and the little islands. We called in at Ngatangiia Harbour, the historic departure point of canoes for New Zealand, and Arai-Te-Tonga, an ancient meeting place and sacred site. We headed up the steep, lush Avatiu Valley, for views of The Needle (Te Rua Manga), Rarotonga's highly distinctive, 413-metre volcanic plug. One last climb took us up past the loftily situated hospital for a good view over the west coast.













3. Walking the beach

We did this daily. Towards sunset, lots of locals would be out foraging. You'd see people strolling by with three octopuses, or a long eel. There were loads of sea cucumbers, which to my towny eyes seemed pretty gross. The Black Rock, about 1.5 miles from our residence, was a good place to watch the sun go down, but we'd often just pause by the sea as we scooted home, and find a place to perch for a while. And a beach in the dark is always good value, as the moon comes and goes behind the clouds, and the surf on the reef grins whitely against the dark lagoon.





4. Encountering another slice of Polynesian culture

You don't even scratch the surface in a week, of course. But the Cultural Centre makes for a good starting-point. It's a pleasant site in itself, with beautiful gardens, and views up to the mountains, and it offers plenty of opportunities to learn about traditional lifestyles. We had lunch there too, and watched the dancing and drumming afterwards.

At the museum in Avarua we saw an exhibition of tivaevae. These are a very impressive type of quilt. They're bold, bright, imaginative, and the product of infinite patience.

5. Enjoying the food...

Just listen to these descriptions from my diary:

-- baked taro; pounded taro in a coconut sauce; taro leaves...

-- broadbill, on rice cooked with coriander and coconut, served with pawpaw salsa...

-- pear and pawpaw crumble, with sweet coffee ice-cream...

-- wahoo sashimi

-- a salad with snake beans, crispy kumara pieces, and seared pieces of broadbill...

Such a pity I didn't do food photos in those days.

6. Tasting the beer

For health reasons we were quite abstemious on this holiday, but I did, according to my diary, sample the "local beer" which I pronounced "very good". I regret my lack of precision. But I did note that the place where I indulged was Sails Restaurant, Muri Beach, which closed down earlier this year after 32 years of operations.

7. City-slicking in the capital

Avarua was very pleasant. Definitely more sophisticated than Nuku'alofa, the only other small-Pacific-island capital we were in a position to compare it with at that point. There's lots in my diary about cafes and terraces and smoothies and coffee. There's a nice seafront, where you can sit under a casuarina tree, enjoy the breeze, and marvel at the number of shades of blue/grey/green the sea can do in just half an hour or so. And back then, there was a group of seven coconut trees that tradition said all originated from the same coconut. (They were, it seems, cut down in 2015, at the grand old age of 118...)



8. Going to church

I went to the service at the blue-and-white local church on the Sunday we were there. The singing was spectacular. It was a nice friendly service, partly in English, and there were some wonderful straw hats on display.

From a local book shop, I acquired "Mission Life in the Islands of the Pacific, being A Narrative of the Life and Labours of the Rev. A. Buzacott, Missionary of Rarotonga, for some time co-worker with the Rev. John Williams, Martyr of Erromanga". Very much a work of its time, but not uninteresting.

Inspired by the book, we went one morning to look at the churchyard in Avarua. I didn't work out whether this same church is "Mr Buzacott's church in Avarua", but it seems likely it is.







9. Shopping

We're not enthusiastic shoppers, but you can't go past the colourful sarongs that are on offer at the market, or products like banana and pawpaw jam or pawpaw and mango chutney... A tie-dyed bedsheet made its way into our home-bound luggage as well.

10. Kayaking

We didn't snorkel while we were on Rarotonga. But one day we went back to Muri Beach, and hired a kayak for three hours. We enjoyed the colours of the lagoon, the views back onto the island (some surely unchanged since Buzacott's time), glimpses of many brightly decorated fish, and a route that wove around the four islands that characterize this part of the coast. Despite the sun-cream, I burnt my legs. Every holiday in those days involved some kind of burning episode with me...



We did on Rarotonga pretty much what everyone does on Rarotonga... We went for a week, and we've not yet had the opportunity to return. Looking back, part of me is confirmed in the idea that I don't want to do that kind of tourism any more. You're in; you're out; you're gone.

But then another part of me remembers how much good that week did us, coming, as it did, at the end of an incredibly hard year, which had involved an enormous amount of work, no small amount of illness, and the always uncomfortable feeling that things were not as they should be. The problems didn't end after Rarotonga by any means. But at least we'd had a wonderful bit of respite. It was nothing if not therapeutic. And for that, almost 19 years later, I'm grateful.