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On to Auckland I got up on Friday morning at 5:00 a.m. (with help from the crowing roosters nearby) and snagged a ride to the airport from Ben, a mellow, dreadlocked Islander surfer dude who works at Vara's and handles transfers. While standing at the check-in line at the airport, I noticed a gorgeous young woman who was working at the terminal and thought she looked familiar. I was trying to figure out where I had seen her during my five-day stay in the Cook Islands but couldn't remember. As I got up to the counter and started checking in my bags, she came over to ask someone a question, saw me, and said with a smile, "Hi Del." This really dumbfounded me because beautiful young women typically don't come up to me and say hi. Like, never.
For the next 20 minutes I tried to figure out who she was. Then it hit me – she was the receptionist at Vara's (apparently she did double-duty with Air New Zealand). In fact, she was Vara's daughter and, as someone told me, she had recently won the "Miss Rarotonga" beauty pageant. At least I hadn't said anything stupid to her, which for me is unusual when I'm around beautiful women.
I got on the jet bound for Auckland and we took off around 8 a.m. Shortly after leaving Raro, the plane crossed the International Date Line and consequently, I totally missed Friday, December 14, 2001. If anything important happened on that day, please let me know.
Four hours later, and now Saturday, our plane cut through the thick clouds over Auckland and landed at the airport. This was my first trip overseas and I had heard lots of horror stories about going through customs and getting hassled by the officers, but fortunately everything went smoothly. I've learned on this trip that it's much easier to travel overseas than I had thought. Even something like finances is easy to deal with, as I've learned from the PBS master traveler, Rick Steves. Rick suggests getting cash at the ATMs in the airports and not fuss with going to banks and cashing in Travelers Checks (or Traveler's "Cheeks," as they call them in New Zealand), which is good advice. By the way, getting cash from an ATM is easy in New Zealand because this country has more ATMs per capita than any country in the world.
A month earlier when I was back in Bellingham and planning my visit to New Zealand, I'd thought about transportation and how I was going to get around the country. There are several hop-and-ride buses designed for tourists, as I learned, which circulate through the country, dropping passengers off at hostels every evening. It's a good way to meet fellow travelers but I wanted more flexibility, so I thought about buying a pickup truck. I was hoping to buy a truck in Auckland after I arrived and then sell it two months later before I left for Australia.
I wanted to buy something like what I had in the U.S., a single-cab pickup with a camper shell and a long bed to sleep in at night. I've driven that truck all over America during the past 16 years (see My Toyota Pickup) and it's the ideal vehicle for a camper/traveler like myself, because I can throw a foam pad in the back and sleep on it at night.
However, from Internet research that I'd done in the U.S., I learned that single-cab pickups with six-foot beds weren't common in New Zealand, which surprised me considering how ubiquitous they are in the U.S. As I discovered, and for reasons I don't understand, dual-cab pickups – meaning no long bed in the back where you can sleep – were a lot more popular in New Zealand than single-cab pickups, which are virtually unknown. The truck option was out, so instead I'd decided to rent a car in New Zealand and had made the arrangements over the Internet for a long-term car rental from a small firm in Auckland.
After clearing customs, I called my car rental company, Easy Rentals, and picked up my car from the proprietors, a nice gentleman named Sigit and his kind wife, Nelly. It was a six-year old white Toyota Corolla that rented for about US$15 a day, which I thought was a good deal considering that this is the summer peak season. If was about half the rate of renting a newer car from Hertz or Avis. You can also rent campervans over here but they cost upwards of US$50 a day, which is quite a ways beyond my rather shoestring budget.
Above left: A sunrise photo – a rarity for me – in Rarotonga. Above right: After spending five days in the Cook Islands it was time to leave (although not by choice). This is checking in at the Rarotonga Air Terminal. Sorry, you can't see Miss Rarotonga in this photo.
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