Raro day 4: bikes, beaches & bubbles

Another relaxed morning in the tropics turned into a comparatively busy afternoon. The newlyweds were hosting a drop-in at their house and we had a bit of a quandary which I lazily pondered: how would we get there?

It was Sunday which meant a reduced bus service and an inconvenient one at that. It was too far to walk. Didn’t want to hire a car. We were saving a scooter rental until our last day. That left one cunning plan: bicycles. Mike was keen and there was a rental depot a) just over the road; and b) open – so off we went.

There was a little surprise in store for us. Push bikes actually transpired to be hybrid electric bikes. We initially weren’t sure about this but figured ‘what the hey’ and shelled out the $19 each for these power assisted pedalling machines.

Side note: no one wears helmets here. There are a ton of scooters (though nothing like the congested cities of Vietnam etc) and 99% of riders are lidless. If you wear a helmet you can ride 10kph faster – up to the speed limit of 50kph – but the preference far and away seems to be for the cooling effect of the wind through one’s hair…

So we declined the extra $1 for a helmet and got going. It was great! We fair zipped along with the battery adding a lot more momentum than if was just our own pedal power. The hot walk to the supermarket yesterday took only about 10 minutes on the bikes.

About the same distance again brought us to the beachfront house that Sally and Michael were renting where, in our perspiring glory, we joined the few people already gathered.

During our few days in Rarotonga I marvelled at the lack of bugs and nasty things. Didn’t even really get bitten. BUT since getting back home I have learned that Raro has its fair share! Oh yes, and particularly nightmare-inducing are the huntsman spiders and coconut crabs. Omg. I am so glad I was blissfully ignorant about these beforehand. Outside of the ‘sanitised’ resort I would probably have been paranoid visiting a private house as we did this day!

We partook of a sausage, checked out the beach and gawked at the lady exercising her arms while walking along the sand with her dogs. There are a lot of dogs here, some mangy but some lovely ones too. One of the girls was determined to open a coconut but eventually conceded defeat. It began to rain and we all scuttled under cover. It continued to rain, a respectable tropical downpour.

It cleared and the afternoon was marching on so we said our goodbyes and mounted our metal steeds for the brisk return trip. We wound them up to warp speed 5, about 30kph, so not too shabby. Back at the resort we squeezed them into a parking space amongst the hoards of fully motorised two wheelers.

It’s easy to cool down with the lagoon all around. I didn’t swim as such but at least got in the water. There was time before the activities hut closed for the day so Mike grabbed some snorkelling gear while I supervised from my lounger.

We had a couple of appointments to keep that evening. Sunset watch, ultimately futile, but accompanied by one of our duty free bottles of bubbly. Bubbles at the beach is one of life’s simple indulgences. With not much happening in the evening sky we headed along to the resort’s buffet roast night. We ate our money’s worth while the solo entertainer crooned along with his backing tracks.

Resort life winds down early so with full tums we retired for another dose of sitcom repeats.

The resort parking bay, scooters galore and two electric bikes

Out for a stroll in the lagoon

A sea slug - yickkkh

Snorkelers in front of the reef

Their turn today; our turn tomorrow

On sunset watch in between twilight bubbly and tottering off to dinner

Though this was about as good as the sunset got