Aitutaki 2025

We woke early for our last breakfast of cereal with pawpaw and banana. Then it was packing for our trip home. We don't fly out until 5pm today so plenty of time to explore the island one last time.  We collected the car key from Dylan and he said we might as well just pay $60 since we won't have it for a full day.  Even better, he suggested we just leave it at the airport for him to collect later. This was a great idea since we can load our luggage in the car instead of leaving it with him. It saves him having to take us to the airport. Unfortunately,  it being Sunday, we couldn't find anything open for morning coffee. The only option was the Koru Café so we did a slow drive around the island taking a few photos and arrived back where we started at 10am. Here's a rare picture of me looking a bit like Doc from Back To The Future. If I can get the car up to 88mph along the causeway we might manage a bit of time travel. Here are a few of the sights we saw on our drive: The...

Another relaxing day with a reasonable amount of wind and passing clouds. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs I tried a Paddle Board session but the wind when trying to go up the channel more-or-less stopped me from making any progress so I returned to base. We went for a swim and generally relaxed with the cat (we now know is called Scratch) for company. Not much company though since he mostly just sleeps but seems to love this particular unit! For lunch we headed back to the Koru Café where we both had a burger (mine was their daily special of beer battered fish while Miriam had chicken). Then it was back to the loungers for an afternoon sleep followed by a swim and I went for one last kayak paddle. When I got back from my paddling Miriam was in the pool chatting to a local woman who runs a business on Rarotonga and pops over to Aitutaki from time-to-time to get away from it all! We then had pre-dinner drinks with Pat (who arrived yesterday) and had our final meal here to try and fin...

Today we have decided to just chill out here at Ranginui's Retreat. Breakfast was a sausage, baked beans and a fried egg on toast washed down with a plunger of coffee while we did our daily puzzles. The rest of the day was spent kayaking, paddle boarding, swimming and reading our books. The weather is (as always) very warm but there were passing showers and a bit too breezy for long kayaking trips out into the lagoon. The only photo I took was of the amazing cumulus cloud building up just off the coast when were having dinner. We popped down to the Koru Café for a long black and a pastry later in the morning and bought another loaf of bread. This will get us through to Sunday. On our way back, Miriam stopped in at the Blue Lagoon to see about booking for dinner and to peruse the menu. She got a very cold reception from the staff on duty (they weren't actually open yet) and came back pretty pissed-off. She did however book us in for dinner tomorrow night because they had closed ...

Today we headed off for a snorkelling trip to the far side of the lagoon - near our favourite place, Honeymoon Island. This is where I spent two days on our first visit here in 2014 getting an idea how to Kite Surf (but not mastering it!). We opted to go with a new business set up by brothers Mike and Paul Lee called Aitutaki Coral Restoration ( Aitutaki Coral Restoration ). Mike is passionate about trying to restore the coral in one part of the lagoon where he 'plants' coral fragments which apparently grow at about the same rate as finger nails. We were booked for a 9am start but Mike rang and changed it to 1pm. Rather than get a taxi, we opted to hire a car from Dylan (our host) and make a day of it. We set off around 9:30 and drove around parts of the island we hadn't seen much of before and ate our (home made) egg sandwiches at a secluded picnic spot before heading off for the wharf in Arutanga. Along the way we stopped at Baxters Water World for a top-up on beer (just ...

With the weather forecast mentioning a chance of rain, and no transport, we opted for a quiet day here at Ranginui's. We started with a hearty breakfast of eggs, baked beans, and cheesy sausages. Just what you need when you aren't planning on doing anything adventurous. I have booked the car again for tomorrow and a snorkelling trip to the far side of the lagoon leaving at 1pm. More on that tomorrow assuming all goes to plan. Everything is pretty relaxed here so not all plans work out. We decided a short walk after breakfast would be good for us so did a loop around the end of the Ootu Peninsula to visit the place we stayed at in 2018. This has gone up-market now and is called Tai Roto Bay and looks like it thinks its an upmarket place but doesn't look much different (but is much more expensive). We prefer our cheap-and-cheerful Ranginui's Retreat. Dora The Explorer! Next stop was the Koru Café for a morning coffee and croissant (although Miriam opted for a Heineken). W...

After a hot night trying to sleep in 25C temperature without putting the aircon or the ceiling fan on I woke not long after 6am. We had to fill the car with petrol and return it by around 8:30am so set off to do that after a quick breakfast of cereal, banana and pawpaw. On the way back we grabbed a couple of Almond Croissants from the Koru Café to have with our morning coffee while we did our puzzles. We are now carless for few days but we may rent a scooter later on if we can get Miriam on the back. For a bit exercise I took one of the single kayaks out for a spin and decided to head across this section of the lagoon to see if I could spot a turtle. It's about 1km across towards the main part of the island and I did see one here back in 2022. This time I had my GoPro camera with me just in case. Amazingly, I did find one. When it saw me (from about 30 m away) it looked a bit startled and dived immediately. After quietly floating around for a while I saw it again a couple of times ...