Rarotonga Island Crossing

Rarotonga is the main island in the Cook Islands and where almost 90% of tourists spend their entire holiday. Rarotonga has lush tropical mountains, pretty coastal scenes, sandy beaches and a very slow pace of life. The island takes just 45 minutes to go around by bus. A much nicer way to get across the island is the cross island trek which is the most popular . The trail literally crosses from the north side of Rarotonga to the south side passing Te Rua Manga (or the 'Needle') at 413 metres. It's a fairly challenging trek through tropical rain forest but one that can quite easily be done on your own if you are a confident hiker and the rains haven't been heavy. The walk is best approached from the north coast from Avarua Town, which I found out only afterwards. The trek takes about 3 hours and finishes at Papua Waterfall where you can take a refreshing swim in season (waterfall usually dries out from July to October). If you want to visit the waterfall without doing the strenuous trek over the mountains, approach from the south side along a dirt trail for about half an hour.

The views near the needle are just magnificent and this trek definitely makes a very nice day away from the beaches.

Cook Islands

The Cook Islands (Cook Islands Māori: Kūki 'Āirani) are a self-governing parliamentary democracy in free association with New Zealand. The fifteen small islands in this South Pacific Ocean country have a total land area of 240 square kilometres (92.7 sq mi), but the Cook Islands Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers 1.8 million square kilometres (0.7 million sq mi) of ocean.

The main population centres are on the island of Rarotonga (c.10,000), where there is an international airport. There is also a much larger population of Cook Islanders in New Zealand, particularly the North Island; in the 2006 census, 58,008 self-identified as being of ethnic Cook Island Māori descent.

With over 90,000 visitors travelling to the islands in 2006, tourism is the country's number one industry, and the leading element of the economy, far ahead of offshore banking, pearls, marine and fruit exports.

Defence is the responsibility of New Zealand, in consultation with the Cook Islands and at its request. In recent times, the Cook Islands have adopted an increasingly independent foreign policy.