Length: If you count the flight there - 4 1/2+ hours from New Zealand, or 20 minutes by bus from Avarua (main centre on Rarotonga)
Hidden: 22 October 2004
Status: unable to be found (December 05)
Rarotonga is encircled by a coastal road approximately 32km long. Therefore, there are really only two directions to travel in: clockwise and anti-clockwise. To find this box you will need to travel clockwise from Avarua - you can catch the bus, or hire a scooter (most people do) , or from where we were staying (Avana Lagoon Cottage -highly recommended), you can bike, or walk (athough that would technically be travelling anti-clockwise, as we were staying a little bit further up the road).
Once you pass Tokerau Jim's (sells black pearls and other such jewellery), you need to take the next road on the left, which does not have a name, but there should be signs pointing to the Avana Condos and Avana Nui Gallery (we recommend stopping to look here, we got a great artwork of some tipani/frangipani).
Follow the road until you see the turtle, and look for a rectangular coral formation nearby. Enter the formation through the most obvious entrance point, and take 5 paces to the right. Your quarry is hidden in the wall at this point, and there may even still be a X to mark the spot. As always, be discreet, as people do live around this area, and please please re-hide the box well. Once you have watched some Rarotongan TV you will appreciate the CITC shopping bag we have wrapped the box in. Watch out for centipedes and millipedes - they are not poisonous but we were told a bite would sting.
If you keep going past where the box is hidden to the point, you can see one of the few places on the island where you can take a boat through the reef. This is the point where legend has it that the canoes left Rarotonga and set out for New Zealand. It still looks a bit choppy to be messing about in a canoe in that water!
We look forward to receiving postcards from the first three finders, and hopefully returning to a few more boxes nearby when we go back to check on this one. Please email us if the box needs attention.
How to get to Rarotonga and where to stay
Update December 05
During the many cyclones in January the area where our box was hidden was devasted and many trees were blown over. One wall of the coral formation has been dumped up against the other by the sea, meaning that the box is now even more deeply buried under more rock and sand. We had a dig around but could not retrieve the box. We believe it is still in there as the wall underneath is more or less intact (aside from being buried) so give it a go if you want and let us know how you get on.