Cook Islands

The trip over with overnighter in AKL

We left Sydney on a 9am flight to AKL on Air New Zealand where we had to overnight before catching our connecting 4+ hour flight to Rarotonga with an onward connection to Aitutaki. Since you cross the dateline when travelling from AKL to RAR we left AKL on July 16 and arrived in RAR on July 15 which meant I had 2 birthdays.

One week at Pacific Resort.

We arrived at the Pacific Resort around 5pm on July 15 so we just had enough time to unpack and shower before rushing off to dinner. The resort is billed as boutique 5* - but is fairly old so while in good condition the decor was a bit dated. We had a lovely 2 room suite overlooking the beach/lagoon.
The food (a la carte) was a bit of a disappointment on the first night but subsequent nights we fared a bit better once we figured out the best dishes to order. The resort had a nice pool area also overlooking the lagoon and plenty of kayaks. You could snorkel right off the beach but it was very tidal - you really need to go out +/- 1 or 2 hours from high tide. We took an all day snorkelling and atoll hopping boat trip where we did a lot of snorkelling and visited several atolls - one of which had many red-tailed Tropicbirds nesting - probably the highlight of the day for us.
Another day we hired a car and drove around to the various points of interest including a scenic lookout. We had a nice lunch at another resort right on the lagoon.
We managed to fill our other days with long beach walks, swimming, kayaking and of course eating and drinking.

5 nights at Te Manava Luxury Villas

After 7 nights on Aitutaki we flew back to Rarotonga - 45 minutes away - for 5 nights. The local airline claims to be the smallest in the world - it flies around the islands which are very spread out - it had an "old" world feeling - no security checks!! We had booked a villa which is part of the Pacific Resort (on Rarotonga) some 1.2 K's away. The villa was really amazing - looked new with a full kitchen, separate living area, and private pool - all right on the beach. The villas (about 10 of them) did not have their own restaurant but there was an on-demand shuttle to the Pacific Resort so you could use all their facilities and of course have meals there. We did this a couple of nights but also scraped together sufficient groceries so we could make our own breakfast and sandwiches on 2 evenings.
As everything is spread out on Rarotonga we figured out pretty quickly you really need a hire car the whole time - so we immediately rented one for about $50 per day.
Again you could kayak and snorkel right off the beach but this was also tidal. One of the highlights was a turtle snorkelling tour with underwater scooters - lots of fun.

Back home with another overnighter in AKL
Our trip home was uneventful - it also involved an overnight stay at AKL - we stayed at the Pullman, a 3 minute walk from the terminal. We simply crashed then left early the following morning for the final leg to Sydney.