Manuia Beach Resort (October 20 - 23)

Day 7 (cont): The final destination

The day began with a classic (slightly average, dry and undersized) breakfast at Sanctuary, then we hopped on the Clockwise bus to make our way to our last resort. I have circled in red where we stayed during our trip on the map below.

Note that the airport is at the north of the island. From our arrival here, we travelled clockwise around the island - firstly staying three nights at Muri Beach, secondly three nights at Sanctuary on Aroa beach, and now, we were heading to our last destination for the final three nights on the west coast.

A map showing Rarotonga. The centre of the island is mountainous so everyone lives in a ring on the flat land near the coast. The main township (Avarua) is along the north side. Muri Beach is the main tourist area, along the south coast are mostly private houses, and the west coast has a few resorts.

There were large variations between the different places we stayed. Muri Beach is the most popular tourist spot, which can be a good thing (lots of restaurants handy) but also a bad thing if you don't want to be around a lot of people. The lagoon here is very shallow, which theoretically is good for swimming - however, the population of sea slugs was so out of control when we went that I didn't even go in the water here! 

On the other hand, Aroa Beach, where we stayed at Sanctuary, turned out to be much more pleasant than I expected - this is a relatively deep part of the lagoon and the snorkelling straight off the beach was simply amazing. I think if I came back to Rarotonga and could only stay in one place, this is where I would return to.

By contrast, off the coast at Manuia turned out to be very shallow, muddy and rocky. We tried snorkelling but there were few fish and many slugs, and our stomachs were almost scraping the bottom, so it was a brief attempt! The beach was very nice for lying on, but if you want to do any swimming in Rarotonga, this is not the spot I would recommend.

We arrived a bit early at Manuia, so left our bags at reception and went to chill out on the beach. It was very pleasant. I was feeling a bit blue about missing out on the whalewatching, as everything else we had planned had been so fun. However, to my amazement, as we were lying on the beach looking at the sea, a whale popped up right in front of us and sprayed out of its blowhole!!

 

A whale popped up just past where the waves are breaking on the reef!

It was a really special moment, and from then onwards I was always scanning the sea to try and spot more whales - but it was a one off. However I feel very lucky to have seen a whale in spite of not being able to go on our whalewatching tour!

 Some poser on the beach.

Once check-in was open, we had a look at our room. Adam thought it wasn't flash enough since this was meant to be our nicest place (it was a 4 star whereas the others were 3). However I thought it was nice enough - very spacious, with a modern bathroom and tropical outdoor shower.

 

The room, ensuite and attached outdoor shower.

 We had individual "garden villas". The hotel was very nicely landscaped with lush planting and sandy paths.

A fateful meeting.

After setting up our room, we headed back to the beach to contemplate what to do for lunch. Adam patted this dog on the head at that moment, and from that point on, she was Adam's best friend for the day. She followed us right down the beach to check out the nearby pier with us, stayed with us while we had lunch at a very nice and surprisingly well-priced cafe/restaurant by the beach, and followed us all the way back home.

Adam and his dog friend.

Dog friend has trouble distinguishing between friendly and stalkerish.

We thought we had finally lost the dog when she stopped at the beach outside our hotel, but she soon came sniffing her way back to our room and then waited outside in the bushes. By this point Adam was quite freaked out and hid away in our room until she left.

We chilled out in our new room for a while since it was so hot walking in the sun, then went for a dip in the infinity pool and spent sunset on the beach. The sun was setting about 6pm each day. True to our hopes of staying on the west coast, the sunsets were beautiful!

Adam being a showoff and me being sensible, as usual.

 

So beautiful!

We splashed out on a delicious dinner at the restaurant at our hotel. The food was amazing and it was such a nice tropical ambiance. The food was quite expensive but you don't go to Rarotonga every day, right? (This is how we justified ourselves at the time)

So delicious. Adam had king prawns and I had a melt in the mouth lamb chop, then for dessert we shared this amazing apple tart.

On our way back we discovered a strange phenomenon... the hotel grounds were bustling with another kind of guest - there were hermit crabs everywhere! It was quite entertaining following their tracks to hunt them down but also slightly unnerving once we realised we were truly surrounded by them.

An important hermit crab meeting we stumbled across at the base of a tree.

Day 8: Doing absolutely nothing

Finally... what you're meant to do on a holiday to a tropical island!

This day more than any other day is the one where we lay around, read books, drank cocktails, swam in the pool, had food brought to us on our loungers, and generally embraced the blobbiness of being on holiday in paradise. In fact this was the general idea of the last three days at Manuia - we had done our best to do interesting activities the other places we stayed, this was our chance to relax!

 Selfie opportunities abound, whether in beanbags by the pool, or on loungers on the beach.

Some shots of the beachfront with loungers, hammocks, pool and restaurant/bar.

Another gorgeous sunset!

We were lucky because the forecast from today onwards had consistently predicted a "tropical downpour" would arrive by the next morning - so we thought each sunny day and lovely sunset would be our last - but fortunately for us the storm never arrived!

The most adventurous thing we did this day was wander back along the beach to the yummy restaurant where we had lunch the previous day (sans dog friend this time). Yesterday Adam had glanced upwards and noticed a giant dead spider hanging above him by a thread, so there was a bit of nervous checking of our surroundings this time (there were many suspicious spiderwebs, but also several geckos roaming about which I assume kept the spider population under control).

Me with a giant plate of curry and rice, Adam furtively checking for wildlife overhead. 

We wandered back and hung out (no pun intended... yikes) on the hammock for a while, then decided we hadn't been piggy enough already today, so visited the restaurant at our hotel for some yummy shared dessert.

The restaurant and pool at night. It was lovely to be able to sit outside at night and still feel very warm.

Day 9: Relaxed to the max

This day had very similar themes to the previous one - lying around and eating - with the addition of a 50 minute couples massage at the fancy Crown Beach Resort & Spa just up the road. It was an extremely relaxing start to the day and really made us feel like we hadn't a care in the world!

Afterwards we headed to the restaurant at Crown Beach just to try something different. There weren't too many options on this side of the island so it was nice to branch out.

 What you see on my plate are banana and chocolate crispy wontons... they were absolutely delicious!!

 Our table was beside this pretty pond.

 Oh dear.

During lunch I went to put my sunglasses on and the arm snapped straight off. It was turning into a bit of an unfortunate saga, as I had bought some new sunglasses the week before we left New Zealand (mostly in preparation for this trip), and proceeded to leave them at the bus station outside Muri Beachcomber when we moved across to Sanctuary. I then purchased this pair at Sanctuary... but they didn't even last til the end of the trip!

 Adam squinting past through the glare after lending me his sunglasses.

The winner out of many "candid" beach shots Adam was forced to take on the walk home... and I'm still wearing his sunnies. Life is tough when you have a high maintenance girlfriend.

 We had our final dinner of the trip at the restaurant at our resort. Dinner consisted of a yummy shared entree, a delicious sushi and sashimi platter on my part, followed by that apple tart we ordered previously (Adam tried the meringue for dessert which was also very good). It was a lovely way to end our trip.

Day 10: Homeward bound

These little guys left these tracks absolutely everywhere all over the hotel grounds.

Finally, it was time to go. By the time we woke up on the 23rd, having arrived on the 14th, we felt like we were ready. Due to the magic of crossing the dateline, we left on Sunday 23rd at 2pm, and arrived on Monday 24th at 7pm - after a mere 4 hour flight!

Ten days really was the perfect length of stay - long enough that we felt refreshed and ready to face returning to our regular lives, but not so long that we became bored and started taking it for granted.

Rarotonga really was a lovely place to stay, I would highly recommend it. It was particularly fun going on the adventures with Adam, Emily and Seb. I am looking forward very much to the possibility of more trips overseas in the future... the only question is where to begin!

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Sanctuary Rarotonga (October 17 - 20)

Day 4 (cont): Arrival at Sanctuary

After the buggy tours, we jumped on the bus (still all muddy) to travel around the island to the southwest corner, to our next place - Sanctuary Rarotonga on the Beach, which is the kid-free add-on to the larger resort, the Rarotongan. We were all pretty exhausted from a day out in the sun and mud, so first things first, we went to check out our rooms and have a nap. The rooms were very nice and had that classic tropical resort feeling.

Our room with shutters opening into the bathroom.

Views to the beach from the balcony. 

The logical thing to do for dinner was head down the road to Coco-putt, which offered a great dinner + golf deal - a burger plus a round of 18-hole minigolf. After what felt like a surprisingly long walk along the very poorly lit street, we finally made it to Coco-putt and enjoyed a round of minigolf. While the conditions were a little challenging at times (seeing where you were meant to be aiming, for example), it was a lot more enjoyable playing minigolf in the evening rather than out in the blazing sun!

Seb tackling his turn at golf, while Emily watches.

The entrance to the Rarotongan, complete with flaming torches.

Day 5: Te Vara Nui Cultural Tour + Show 

 

Emily sheltering from the sun.

  

The day started like any other - moving shortly after breakfast to the pool for lounging, reading, eating yum food, and sampling the various cocktails on offer. We also had a great time snorkelling straight off the beach. In the afternoon we were picked up and taken back around to Muri Beach, to Te Vara Nui cultural village. The four of us had signed up for the cultural tour plus over-water dancing show extravaganza!

The garden and lagoon setting was beautiful.

The tour consisted of moving through various huts/halls set up with displays of different aspects of Cook Island culture - weaving and clothing, fishing, and sailing - and hearing different people talk about the history and culture. We also visited a marae, which in the Cook Islands is not a building, but a designated sacred outdoor area, with rocks representing different families.

 

Display of the waka (or "vaka" in Cook Islands Maori) which set sail for NZ

Something that I thought was really interesting was that there are records of twenty vaka leaving the Cook Islands to migrate to 'the new land'; and the names of seven of these match up with the seven most well-known waka of the 'great fleet' which arrived in New Zealand. Cook Island Maori language is certainly almost identical to New Zealand Maori - the greeting here is "Kia orana" rather than "Kia ora", and "w"s are replaced with "v"s (for example "vaka" instead of "waka", "vahine" instead of "wahine"), but many things seem recognisable.

The concept of Hawaiki, or the ancestral land of the Polynesian people, is also an interesting thing that was discussed. It seems that throughout Polynesia it appears in various forms - Hawaiki in Maori, Havaiki in Cook Island Maori and Tahitian, Savai'i in Samoa, and Hawai'i. NZ Maori are said to have sailed from Hawaiki, but our guide explained that this should be interpreted more as the origin of their ancestors, and those of the Polynesian peoples throughout the Pacific.

After the cultural tour, it was time for the buffet. Buffets are Adam's favourite as he can eat as much as he wants! There was a delicious selection of food to try, including our favourite local food - ika mata! Ika mata is like the Pacific island version of sashimi - raw fish, but in a delicious mix of coconut cream and herby sauce. Afterwards we all felt slightly stuffed.

Finally, it was time for the show. It was amazing seeing the performance out over the pool of water. The dancing was beautiful and the drums sounded great - it was all very well put together with great lighting, music and even fire dancing! The story was about the origins of the Cook Islands, how two peoples became one (their ancestors arrived from Samoa and Tonga).

Day 6: Last day at Sanctuary!

This was a bit of a weird day, as we had scheduled a whalewatching tour - however, there was a criminal who had escaped from prison on the loose, and he had killed his ex-partner and her new partner, and there was a bit of a police chase going on - extremely unusual for such a peaceful little island! We were told to stay in the resort for our safety and so as not to get in the way of the police hunt. In any case it was a bit too windy for the whalewatching anyway, and it seemed like the weather was only going to get worse - so unfortunately we had to cancel. I was really looking forward to seeing those whales!

However the day ended up being very peaceful and relaxing for us, as we generally took it easy, and had another great snorkel. This part of the island was my absolute favourite for snorkelling - it was just amazing what you could see straight off the beach. I really felt like I was in an aquarium! We even saw a massive shoal of these little fish absolutely covering the sea floor feeding, it was amazing:

Again... photo from Google!

That evening we had our final dinner at the resort restaurant with Seb and Emily. They had arrived in Rarotonga two days or so before us, and so were heading back a bit earlier too.

The last sunset at The Rarotongan/Sanctuary.

At night we all had one last round of cocktails together. It was a bit sad after Emily and Seb left as we had had such a good time together. I'm really glad we coordinated this holiday together!

The reception/bar area - with swim-up bar seats!

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