Cooks an island treasure like no other
They say the romance of air travel ended with the Coral Route which finished in September 1960. The island hopping service connecting Tahiti to Auckland was operated by the predecessor of Air New Zealand, Tasman Empire Airways Ltd (Teal).
The Short Solvent flying boats carried 34 privileged passengers. Women came aboard wearing furs and men their ties – John Wayne, Cary Grant and Marlon Brando amongst them.
A dedicated chef cooked dishes from the menu upon request. It was all silver service and starched tablecloths, there was even a powder room for the ladies.
Passengers were advised to pack their bathing togs, the only such advisory ever issued by a commercial airline.
After their translucent lagoon swim off the flying boat island of Akaiami Island in Aitutaki Lagoon, passengers could partake of the showers which were rigged up for them under the coconut trees, cucumber sandwiches and tropical fruits served to them.
Nothing like that has ever happened since or will again, but you can still get some sense of it in this part of the big blue Pacific by hopping on Air Rarotonga flights around the 15 far flung specks of land which make up the Cook Islands.
Spread over 2 million square kilometres of ocean, diversity is what typifies these islands.
A lucky few wanderers make it to the Northern Group, but there’s never any guarantee when you’ll make it back exactly.
Planes to Pukapuka leave only every couple of weeks, you put yourself on the wait list and when your plane is full they ring you and it leaves.
As with the flying boats, it is not cheap either, over NZ$3000 one way these days Rarotonga to Pukapuka. As they say up here – It’s far cheaper to fly to London than it is to get to Pukapuka.
Every island has its flavour. All the 60 or so residents of Palmerston Atoll, 500km northwest of Rarotonga, are descended from one man – prolific Englishman William Masters, a ships carpenter who settled here with two Polynesian wives in 1863 before he added a third.
Today his descendants here still speak with a thick Gloucester accent and greet you with a hearty ‘Ahoy’. The only way to get to the Cook’s only true atoll is by freighter or private yacht.
The island of Atiu makes the perfect triangle with Aitutaki and Rarotonga, with encouraging threeisland fares too.
Landing on the coral airstrip at Atiu is like going back in time. Three small-plane flights a week bring a steady trickle of tourists.
Five separate villages (total population 470) occupy the top of this well wooded and verdant island only 27km sq in area.
Leafy tracks lead down to some 27 well-spaced sandy coves. Each one is special and a joy to explore, like Orovavu Beach where Captain Cook came ashore in 1777. You can still follow the same paved trail taken by the crew and Omai, Cook’s Tahitian guide, to the main village of Orongo, with signs of the old village by Orongo marae.
Along the south coast, the shallow lagoon platform out from Maitai Landing to Takaroa drains out through sinkholes leaving fish in the ‘coral garden’ which is a natural aquarium full of tropical fish and fabulous to snorkel in.
On the western side of the island, NZ Army 1FD Squadron engineers built the heavy concrete enclosed breakwater of Taunganui Harbour over 1975/6 to assist with the export of pineapple and tomatoes.
The harbour with its little barge is still used to unload ships which pull up offshore here.
Nowadays it would be fair to say tourism brings in the only real steady money to Atiu. Even coffee production is fairly minimal.
Kiwi expat Roger Malcolm and his Atiuan wife Kura run Atiu Villas and offer island style rooms in a fabulous garden setting.
Their effort over the last 35 years milling timber to build the place as they went is now rewarded by hosting many of the tourists who come here.
Eiree Anataketake cave is worth seeing, billed as Atiu’s most spectacular cave, a multichambered cavern surrounded by bayan rots and thick jungle. It’s also home to the rare kopeka or Atiuan swiftlet.
News is getting out about the place. In the last few years ‘Birdman George’ Mateariki has became famous for his back-of-thetruck bird tours.
Another is the affable Beckham, who works for Air Raro by day checking tourists in at the little airport, now earns some of his income most evenings shuffling tourists in his red zebra striped Land Rover to the Tumunu or bush beer drinking club.
Early whalers taught the islanders to make the fermented orange beverage as a substitute for kava. The missionaries who followed promptly banned the beer only to have it come back into open fashion during the 1980s.
The barman who passes around the cup requires great skill, for its his job to make sure everyone gets drunk at the same rate. Five bucks on the table gets you a seat and as many little cups as you can drink.
Plans get made, people get cared for, things get amiably settled. Going to the Tumunu was the highlight of my stay on Atiu, and I went away thinking every community should have one!
It is good to see old traditions like Tumunu revive from the stranglehold of religion.
Call me a heathen, but I have always thought Pacific peoples have laboured far too heavily under the influence of churches.
On Atiu there are five separate churches for under 500 people, and the generous and gracious locals do not hesitate to give their all to whichever one they belong too.
One local church member complained to me in private that every adult Protestant parishioner on Atiu is expected to raise $700 towards the event, also every household has to billet in at three attendee ministers, on proper beds ‘with legs’ (which most people don’t have), but also they have to make each of their guests a ‘Tivaevae’ or painstakingly-made embroidered bedspread which the guest will take home.
These sought-after gifts are an integral part of special occasions and can take months to make.
‘‘It annoys me,’’ the local complained to me. ‘‘It is asking too much of the people, and for what benefit?
‘‘After a week all the church ministers and delegates will be gone and we will be a little poorer. Some older folk will give up their pensions to help.
‘‘We are told it will bring us great esteem, but sometimes I think we are still back in the days of the missionaries.’’