Wednesday is very sore day, after our scramble over the island the mission accomplished, today’s  objective is trying to get the body convinced it can do simple things like walk.  We  went to town to buy groceries and find somewhere nice for lunch. That’s the plan. Because we could, we decided to go around the island in the opposite direction, that is anti clockwise and to mix it right up by taking the inner road and not the outer road. The ride was wonderful, and much more peaceful down the back road, not that the front road is a traffic hell or anything. Just almost nobody on the back road, so much so that we came to a point where a huge articulated low tray truck was simply stopped in the road while some guys off loaded some kind of front end digger. Fortunately us scooters riders could get past, but those in cars had to just sit and wait.

I spent a lazy afternoon even sleeping some of it, on the lagoon the usual array of sailing craft were out as the local kids received sailing lessons, this seemed to happen most days and regattas take place on Saturday.

This evening was very special, it was the another birthday among our group with dinner at tables in the sand booked at one of the local resorts, about 100 meters further up the beach. The birthday boys wife was born in Rarotonga and her cousin Bernie and Bernie’s husband Tu and family came to dinner with us the night before and they were coming to the restaurant tonight for dinner. We all lined up for group photos first and after these proceedings finished presentations we made of shell necklaces with a very special set for the birthday boy and his wife. We were given pareu’s which are clothes to wear around your waist, as well as garlands of gardenia or neck ei’s (lei in Hawaiian speak). We found out later that Bernie had picked the flowers and made the ei’s herself. The making took her a couple of hours amazing when you think there were 14 of us and  special ones made for our birthday boy.

Dinner on the beach featured an Island band with a sensational singer with a voice like that of Tom Jones. In the middle of dinner we had Bernie’s eldest daughter performed a Cook Island Hura dance for us, she is about sixteen and dances three nights a week in a dance group. She is very beautiful and her dancing was fantastic and very much appreciated. What a wonderful night out, we finished it off with a few speeches on the deck back at the Muri Beach Comber before a few drinks and bed.

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