Rarotonga really is a special place. It is one of the few places where you can be a tourist and be welcomed as family. For the last three weeks, the native maori have truly made us feel at home. Local children have joined us in our swims and on our walks. At this point there are not many resorts here and the land is pretty rugged. There is one television station and one radio station. There isn't any land nor houses for sale. The properties stay in the family from generation to generation. People live a simple life. We shop for fresh fish, vegetables and fruit on roadside stands and in local markets. Almost every night we hear singing in the churches in our area. Recently we had four days and four nights of torrential rain, unlike anything we have witnessed before. One of the pictures shows the trend I tried to establish on the island to deal with this situation. Soon after we arrived we wondered what we would do here for three weeks. Now we wish we could stay longer.

The Cook Islands are in the middle of the South Pacific, in line with Hawaii but about as far below the equator as Hawaii is above it. The local Maori are very similar to native Hawaiians and have a lot of interesting stories to share. They traditionally moved freely through the islands with canoes and suggest that their ancestors travelled to Hawaii from here. This is incredible considering the power of this Ocean. A typical day for us starts with a long walk on the beach. If we wanted to, we could walk right around the island, all 32 km of it. But an hour or two is generally enough. We then cool off with a swim, strap on the masks, snorkels and flippers, and explore the reefs in the lagoon behind our home here. We add to our "fish list" every day and lately the triggerfish are becoming very protective of their area and charging at us continuously. After the snorkelling we lounge and read. I go surf casting or trolling in the kayak. Another walk, a swim and then it's time to throw some fresh fish on the barby. We generally sit on the beach in the dark for awhile after supper listening to the distant crash of the surf on the outer reef, marvelling about how this scene has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. We need to break our cycle and explore some of the mountain trails and waterfalls. Maybe tomorrow. As always, click on the pictures to see them better.

If you haven't already, make sure you check out our south island update right below this one. I moved the October data to a new page to speed up page loading for our dial-up friends. The link is at the bottom of this page. If I was at home right now, I'd be fishing the Bronte Creek for the fall run of Rainbow Trout. Knowing that I would miss this time of year, I needed to find a substitute. I'm fishing the spring run of Rainbows in the Tongariro River - the trout fishing capital of the world. This river has an all natural poulation of trout. They do not stock fish here. What they do is forbid fishing at all times in the streams where the fish spawn. When the little fish outgrow the spawning stream, they move down to the main river. This means that there are no small fish in the main river, only ones that are three pounds or better. Our lodge has private access to the river, it's own tackle shop, excellent cooking and living facilities and unequalled fishing. Since only fly fishing is allowed I am glad that I packed (last minute) a set of fly gear. I hired (rented) a set of waders from the shop. The pictures below show the road sign, our lodge, the shop, and my tackle. The Rainbow trout shown are examples of wild trout - all the same species but note the colour and shape variance. Then there's one of the many that I caught tonight, and an example of what you can do with these tasty critters. As always, click on the pictures to see them better.

A good idea hit me, but it hit me too late to use it for this update. You see, a lot of postcards that you buy here are about 30 centimeters long, then fold out into 3 panels. This is the only way to show the panoramic views that abound in this country. So I thought that if we took six pictures or so of some amazing scenery in sequence and then combined them into a long image it would show more closely what it looks like here. The pictures in this update show the landscape and some of the wildlife that we have seen. Find the Kea (bird) on the roof of the car. We got really close to the Fox Glacier. The only thing that prevented me from touching it was the constant cracking noise and the large pieces of rock and ice falling on a regular basis. We walked the long deep valley that it has carved out since 1940, a stark example of the effects of global warming. Driving on the south island is challenging. The roads wind steeply in fish hooks through the mountains and we want to stop constantly to admire the scenery. Our southern road trip took us from the Picton ferry docks through Nelson and the gold sands of Abel Tasman National Park. We headed down the west coast and saw the pancake rocks and blow holes at Punakaiki with it's spectacular coastline. After our hikes to Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers we head east across Arthur's Pass and north through Kaikoura, home of whales and seals. Many of the bridges are single lane that cars share with trains. About all that we cover in a day is 300 kilometers. It is very quiet here. The large city of Christchurch only has a population of 300,000 people.

Well, we've been here less than a week and we could write a book, never mind an update. Things are very different here. It's spring in October, you go north to get warmer weather. When you drive you do so on the wrong side of the road, but it's made easy because you sit on the wrong side of the car. They talk about rugby instead of hockey. In four hours of driving between Auckland and Turangi, we saw the landscape change from icy slopes (the last week of ski season) to emerald fields, to steaming volcanic fissures, to cascading rivers and mountain lakes, and on and on. We are seeing many of the set locations from the Lord of the Rings movies. I fish the lakes in the morning and hit the Tongariro river behind our lodge with the fly rod for the evening bite. There are trout everywhere. Karen is eating fresh lamb cooked on the BBQ - already talking about retiring here. The pictures we have included fail to show how expansive this land is. The green rolling hills are crowded with sheep for as far as the eye can see. The local people are extremely friendly and curious when they hear our funny accents. When we mention the spectacular scenery, they say, "Wait till you see the South Island". We start driving there tomorrow. You can see water being boiled out of the ground by liquid magma by clicking here.(2.5 meg).

To see the places that we were in during the Month of October click here.