To truly appreciate the two most accessible Cook Islands, Rarotonga and Aitutaki, they should be visited together. Oliver Hall dives into the unique diversity the two islands offer for a holiday in paradise.
Aitutaki is truly the definition of an island paradise. Secluded, deserted but with exceptional 4G and a 24-hour grocery store. It is just so calming and decompressing – the ultimate wind down. Sure, you can book beautiful beach holidays in Asia, but seldom do they offer so few people and such a relaxed pace. You won’t find any overtourism here.
Aitutaki’s appeal is leading to some of the holidaymakers we meet bypassing Rarotonga and just heading straight to Aitutaki, but personally, I think that is a mistake.
Rarotonga features a buzz and atmosphere unique to the Cook Islands. From the nightlife, the roaming dogs and chickens, to the vast variety of activities on offer, Raro gives you the full picture of Cook Islands’ history, culture and soul, while Aitutaki provides the ultimate in romance, seclusion and escape. Experiencing both allows you to truly appreciate the unique magic of each.
Rarotonga:
Flying direct from Auckland on one of Jetstar’s great deals (jetstar.co.nz), heading to the Cook Islands is no more complicated than visiting the South Island. ‘Kia ora’ extends to local welcome ‘Kia Orana’, and our dollar is worth the same, so you know exactly what you’re paying.
We grab a rental car – to give us the luxury of convenience because there is so much we want to explore – and head to our first accommodation, Club Raro (clubraro.co.ck), a recently renovated adults-only resort, managed by the same people behind Rarotonga’s ever-popular family vacation hub, Egdewater.
It’s an effervescent welcome at Club Raro as joyful island music plays throughout reception as we arrive. Our garden room is clean, bright and spacious. A relaxed, quiet and affordable option for our first couple of nights, though poolside, ocean view and self-catering options are also available.
We head to dinner at Club Raro’s restaurant, Jalapeños, which is renowned for its menu (full of South Pacific flavours) and large, strong cocktails. We dine with Kiwi ex-pats who fill us in on island life, and dinner spills over into drinks at the poolside bar, all served in enormous glasses. From the cocktail list, the Raro Island Affair is a favourite, with pink gin, ginger beer, fresh lemon and basil, combined with the sound of the waves crashing against coral – you know you’re on holiday!
After a tropical breakfast at the resort, some wet weather sends us back to bed for a little ‘morning delight’ and an extra snooze before rays of sunshine reawaken us. We borrow snorkelling equipment from reception and head off for the island’s top spots.
Mist rises from the peaks of the mountains at the island’s centre as we cruise along. Outside the resorts, the island doesn’t feel like a tourist hub. We pass locals, their dogs and chickens, all living their real lives. It gives a lovely sense of community that makes you think, ’I could live here.’
You are spoilt for choice when it comes to snorkelling on Rarotonga. Our top picks are Aroa Lagoon Marine Reserve with coral reefs in electric turquoise water, and marine park Muri Lagoon, which attracts butterflyfish, parrotfish, angelfish and turtles. But my personal favourite is the mystical-feeling Black Rock. Local legends say Black Rock is where spirits of the deceased travel down from the mountains to depart to the sea, and it is often the calmest place to snorkel on the island due to the prevailing south-easterly winds.
That night, we dine at Muri Night Market (@_murinightmarket), one of two significant markets on the island. This is a great spot for people watching and buying cheap eats that supports local families. The other is Punanga Nui (@punanganuimarket) on Saturday mornings, which is a perfect place for picking up holiday souvenirs. Both have vibrant atmospheres full of friendly faces and good vibes.
The following morning we check in at Nautilus (nautklusresortrarotonga.com), the grandest accommodation of our trip, and, gurl, this one is worth every cent!
Passing through the property’s immaculately kept hedgerows of colourful plants, we are taken to our Garden Are’ (villa).
Inside, the are’ has a luxurious interior design language of creamy whites, woods, flaxes and natural earthy tones with surprisingly high, elevated ceilings. A four-poster bed accentuates the feeling of grander, and adjacent is a gorgeous ensuite with twin bucket sinks, a rain shower and a huge bathtub.
While it might seem natural to opt for one of Nautilus’ sort-after oceanview villas, the garden are’ offer an unsurpassed level of privacy from both within the villa and your private courtyard.
The courtyard is the already exceptional are’s crowning glory. It features a 1.8 metre deep, saltwater plunge pool – perfect for hot days – and canopied day beds for outdoor lounging that are perfectly designed to shield you from tropical downpours and midday sun. The courtyard’s surrounding plants and fruit trees attract birds, and you can lie in your bathing suit or birthday suit and watch fat pigeons swallowing enormous berries while the state-of-the-art sound system connects to your tunes.
Should you be able to face leaving your are’s private paradise, Nautilus is perfectly placed on one of the island’s most beautiful stretches of beach, and walks can include cocktail stops at neighbouring resorts along the sand.
The next day, the spirit of adventure lures us out. TVK Water Sports (tvkwatersports.com) is run by local couple Marama and Liana Nicholas and has been in business for just under two years. They offer jet skiing tours, including one-hour tours that cover about half the island or two-hour trips that take you right around. Couples can choose whether to have their own jet ski or share.
These tours take you out beyond Rarotonga’s famed coral reef barrier and into the deep blue yonder, which can be a glistening mill pond on calm days and an exciting ride on more choppy ones.
Marama leads us on his own jet ski, and on our trip, we see a whale calf breach the surface, a bale of turtles and even a hammerhead shark swimming by us! We arrive back a little sunburnt and in need of a nap, but exhilarated by this must-do adventure.
Our adrenaline now dumped, a quiet dinner at Nautilus calls. Their beachside restaurant, which also overlooks their infinity pool, is a special spot, and I would recommend stopping here for both lunch and dinner due to how this enchanting setting adapts from day to night. At lunch, don’t go past their perfect take on a Pad Ka Pow, complete with a crispy fried egg, and at dinner, the seasonal fish curry – often on the specials menu – should not be missed.
Due to my aforementioned sunburn, we missed doing ‘Pa’s Cross Island Trek’ (maungatours.com), which we had planned for the next day. This is a guided tour of the island’s most famous hike through its central mountains to Te Manga, the highest mountain peak, with commentary from local tour guide Bruce. The walk requires good shoes, a reasonable level of fitness and is safest to experience with a guide due to the terrain.
Instead, we remain at Nautilus, only moving from the plunge pool to the cabana, enjoying lunch and a good book before what turns out to be a genuinely heartwarming dinner experience.
The Progressive Dinner (cookislandstours.co.ck) gives international guests the opportunity to eat three different courses at the houses of three different local families. As a group, you are taken around their gardens, sit on their decks and enjoy their food while learning about the island’s customs and history. The true magic of this experience is the warm community spirit it brings out in everyone. When we were first picked up from our resort, our guide told us, “You will begin as strangers and leave as family,” and internally, I scoffed! However, as we all got to know each other better, bonding over food and shared travel experiences while musical members of the local family serenaded us, we really did feel that special connection. We were some of the youngest on the tour and the only gay couple, and perhaps that made our warm welcome feel all the more important. While many tours can leave you thinking it would be nicer with just the two of you, this experience was enhanced by the sense of community and camaraderie.
Early the next morning, we drag ourselves out of bed for Rarotonga’s iconic Mud Buggy Tour (rarobuggytours.com). Having seen friends post pictures of themselves on social media coated in mud, we were keen to experience it for ourselves, and (just like my exes would describe me) it was exhilarating, messy, back-to-basics fun.
You begin by driving your buggy around the dry slopes, which leave you spotted with mud, before switching on to more gonzo-looking machines (ours had to be hot-wired) that you drive on the wet track. Here is where you become drenched from head to toe in mud.
Caked in earth that even a shower won’t shift, our tour group is taken in the back of a ute down to the beach to wash off, with enthusiastic local dogs following us down for a dip. Cleansed by the salt water, we enjoy complimentary smoothies as our guide fills us in on the cursed history of the failed Sheraton resort that looms vacated and ghostly down the street. His tale reminds us that the Cook Islands have never embraced international chains and are all the better for it.
Dinner takes us back to the island’s premier dining spot, Antipodes (antipodesrarotonga.com), and you can trust a restaurant run by lesbians to make you feel like a goddess! From our seats on the expansive patio, we enjoy sweeping views over Black Rock and the sea beyond, where we watch whales playing, while we feast on tuna sashimi and seared venison tataki starters before sharing their epic seafood platter for our main.
Antipodes’ owners are South African, so the portion size is generous, and the quality is exquisite. The sashimi is some of the best I’ve ever had. The flavour combination of the venison with a dukkar crust and zingy plum sauce, with the earthiness of walnuts and creamy mild goat’s cheese, is a taste sensation, best combined with a naughty treat from their cocktail list.
The next day, we check out places we haven’t made it to on previous trips. This includes the exhibitions at the exceptional Bergman Gallery (bergmangallery.com) and having a bite to eat at the popular brunch establishment, Beluga (@belugararotonga), which has bottles of Moet on the menu, alongside some yummy local fish dishes. Some say Beluga has the best coffee on the island, but we preferred Love Cafe’s epic iced mochas (@lovecaferarotonga). Our favourite drink, however, is discovered by following a colourful sign down a dirt road to @StevieWunderJuice. Stevie is a quiet character who splits and presses sugar cane in front of you to produce a surprisingly pink juice, which he preserves with a little lime while giving us a rundown of the drink’s health benefits. Delicious!
For dinner, we head to Te Vara Nui cultural village to check out their famed Over Water Night Show & Buffet Dinner (tevaranui.co.ck). Attracting all walks of life, this has to be one of the island’s most popular tourist attractions. Set around a beautiful waterfall, lagoon and gardens, after our buffet, we are encouraged to swing our legs over the edge of the deck and dangle our feet over the eel-filled lagoon to take in the show. Dancers and musicians perform by flaming torchlight on floating and fixed stages, sharing the culture and history of the Cook Islands Māori people by telling the story of the ‘Legend of Tongaiti’ through vibrant fire dances.
We get chatting to a couple (both Auckland-based police officers) about our mutual fascination with Philip Pulkinghorn’s trial and decide to carry on our banter into the evening at nightlife hotspots, On The Rocks (@otrcookislands) and Rehab (rehabraro.com). These are the two venues that young Cook Islanders highly recommend, and I can see why. Once we manoeuvred up the rickety staircase to On The Rocks, early 2000s R&B tunes kept the party pumping as the visible takataapui and fafafine community struck a pose. As we enter warehouse club Rehab next door, a chorus of at least 100 people are on the dance floor singing every word to ‘Party in the USA’. It’s uninhibited, unabashed fun that confirms Cook Islanders know how to party!
Aitutaki:
Finishing our trip with Aitutaki ensures we will have had the ultimate island holiday, and we can’t quite believe our eyes when the option of swimming with whales is presented as our first excursion with Bubbles Below (whaleswim.com).
‘We’ll probably just watch from the boat’, we initially think, feeling somewhat nervous as we arrive at the Dive Aitutaki check-in. After signing various liability forms (which probably cover us being eaten), our hulking guide takes us round the back to be fitted for fins and snorkels. ‘Everyone calls me Big T,’ he tells us, extending the most enormous hand I’ve ever seen and beaming a handsome, bright smile. It takes all the energy I can muster to not melt into the very ground then and there.
On the boat, we get to know our intimate group, who are all friendly and fun. They include a couple of teenage Mormons who have been posted to Aitutaki for a year (“We’re truly blessed,” they assure) and a couple of Americans who are nervously awaiting their election result… spoiler alert – they weren’t happy!
When our captain spots a whale off the bow, we find ourselves not even hesitating to jump in with the rest of our group and, through goggles, watch the whales dance around under the water. It’s thrilling, and this encounter takes place within half an hour of leaving shore. The whales let us watch them for about 10 minutes before departing, and we climb back on the boat to excitedly discuss our experience.
More whales appear within an hour, and I immediately follow Big T into the water. We come as close to the majestic mammals as I would be comfortable with. It’s an awe-inspiring sight as they swing their tales and surround us with bubbles. I find it unbelievable that this is an activity available to anyone other than Hollywood A-listers or tech billionaires. Be sure to put swimming with whales in Aitutaki at the top of your bucket list. It was an experience beyond my wildest dreams.
That night we stay at family-owned Tamanu Beach Resort (tamanubeach.com), a great spot for snorkelling, where we can stumble just a few feet from our bungalow into the sea each morning. Tamanu Beach boasts a beautiful beachfront restaurant that offers fabulous BBQ nights with live music and a warm, joyful atmosphere that is curated by Tamanu Beach General Manager Nick Henry.
We opt for the adults-only ‘Purotu’ side of the resort in one of 23 bungalows, all just a stone’s throw from the white sand, palm tree-laden beaches. Each bungalow features a king-size bed, modern wet room bathrooms, private outdoor showers, plus essentials like a bar fridge, capsule espresso machines, hairdryers and ironing facilities.
At that night’s BBQ dinner, we get to know other guests, and a lovely Malaysian woman quickly confesses to us that she has a girlfriend but none of her family knows, reminding us how, just by being visible as a gay couple, you can inspire others to be themselves.
Tamanu’s ala carte breakfast the next morning is excellent, and we borrow some of the resort’s complimentary bicycles to explore. It’s my birthday, and we have brought a bottle of champagne from NZ to take on our next, very special, outing, a Champagne Sunset boat trip with Teking Tours (tekingtours.com). Our friendly water chauffeur gives us the option of going wherever we like, from snorkelling at the shipwreck to checking out the tiny one-foot island or, our pick, the gorgeous Honeymoon Island.
Surrounded by a crushed coral sand beach, Honeymoon Island acquired its name from locals after multiple couples selected its ambient shores for their wedding ceremonies.
As we head over, our skipper says he will drop us off and pick us up at 6 pm so we can enjoy the sunset coming back. He suggests we will be the only people on the whole island(!), which I initially imagine to be an exaggeration. It turns out, I was wrong!
Armed with two bottles of bubbly (one provided by the tour and another we’ve smuggled in), we have an entire dessert island to ourselves, with not another soul as far as the eye can see!
Wearing very little clothing, we stomp the shores, skinny dip, sip champagne and soak in the azure waters of Honeymoon Island without anyone else to disturb us. Thanks to the unmanned base of wakeboarding company ‘Wet n Wild’ being located there, the island even has picnic tables, hammocks and a toilet, not to mention an emergency phone. It’s an unforgettable two hours in the most romantic, isolated setting that feels like the rest of the world and its worries have disappeared. We feel unbelievably lucky as we return to Aitutaki under the golden glow of sunset.
That night for dinner, we head up to Avatea (avateacafe.com), an independent, fairy-light-lit restaurant run by a local family. Blessed with a unique outdoor-indoor flow and a menu forged from locally foraged ingredients, Avatea feels special. We feast on buttery lemongrass coconut fish, refreshing Ika Mata, a spicy miso garlic prawn bruschetta and the restaurant’s signature dish – mouth-watering fish tacos!
Aitutaki’s once-limited restaurant options have now boomed, and its great selection includes a variety from the humble and tasty Boat Shed to Amuri Pacific Resort’s luxurious Sandals.
It is with a sad sigh that we embark on our journey back home the following day, stopping in Rarotonga for just a few hours. The perfect spot to kill some time before your flight is The Islander Hotel (islanderhotel.co.ck), where you can even rent half-day rooms that are bright and modern with very comfy beds.
We chose to eat at their restaurant, which has a great reputation with locals thanks to its kaupapa of big, affordable, tasty meals and rejection of ‘exclusive resort’ attitudes.
This is the perfect spot to give yourself the farewell you deserve with a final holiday nightcap. We watch a whale splash near the coral as we snack on garlic butter lobster, along with cocktails that dull the pain of departing.
We leave the Cook Islands slightly sunburnt, a little hungover but enormously satisfied, utterly loved-up and immensely grateful that this paradise is just a four-hour flight from Auckland.
This trip was supported by Cook Islands Tourism. For more information on visiting the Cook Islands, visit cookislands.travel
Photos | Kieran Scott and David Kirkland, Alexandra Adoncello, Ine Sosene, Turama Photography, Charlotte Piho, Melanie Cooper.
