We have arrived in Rarotonga on an overnight flight from Sydney, the trip is really quite short, barely time to get a meal and sleep then breakfast and land. The Rarotonga airport is very relaxed with everything in one room, immigration, customs, baggage collection, and a bloke playing island music. As we left the customs the guy doing the transfers met us, as he greeted Al he put a Lai or whatever the Rarotongan equivalent is, around her neck. Nice touch.

Our accommodation is a self-contained unit, at the end of a block, and is right on the end of the beach, there is a five metre drop between us and the lagoon sand, Lining the edge of the small cliff under the coconut palms is a canter levered wooden deck, furnished with large tables, lounges and chairs. This structure offers the most magnificent vantage point to watch the activity calm clear waters of the Muri Beach lagoon, Saturday is sailing day, next door to our hotel is the sailing club, this morning the kids were out sailing and this afternoon the view is the adults racing some very different narrow sailing vessels, with outriggersJust a wonderful first days introduction. The white sand beach runs at least a couple of kilometres long the lagoon, there are three small islands at one end that give the placed and adventurous feel about it. It conjures up dreams of Kayak trips out to the deserted islands to discover the undiscovered, except that might be hard on the middle island that appears to have a small resort on it.

Its Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and the Cook Islands are supporters of the All Blacks as one, our Motel had a wide-screen in the lounge with the rugby world cup times on the table and various hotels and pubs advertising the games. One of the hotels up the road had put up a Marquee with a wide-screen at one end and stadium style seating up the back and called it the Muri Stadium, with tickets for non residents of $10 a go.

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