We slept last night. Sue made coffee. Breakfast was papaya, bananas, and yoghurt. The temperature was okay until about ten o’clock when it started to warm up again. We sat outside on our deck. It was quiet today – very quiet. Everyone in Rarotonga goes to church on Sunday, so there was little traffic.
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- Blue skies over ‘our mountain’ this morning.
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- Coconut trees in our front yard.
Sue had lunch ready at 12 noon. I had a few naps, interrupted only for an occasional hydration break.
At 3 o’clock we put on our swimsuits, lotioned up our noses, and walked to the beach at Black Rock. The streets were quiet. The beach was quiet. Oh, there were some folks having a bit of a family gathering under the shade of the palms here and there, but even the beach bars were closed. We left our stuff at a beach table and walked into the water. There’s a breakwater that protects the beach from the surf. We walked a LONG way in but the water barely reached the bottom of my shorts. Hmmm… Not gonna swim here. We walked back to the beach and sat at ‘our table’. At least the breeze here felt comfortable.
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- Along the road we passed the Parliament of the Cook Islands, which looked more like a low-budget motel than the centre of government.
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- The water was too warm to really cool us off.
We continued walking farther, past the airport, just to see what lay ahead. More of the same. We turned around and went back to our place. The villas around ours are all vacant, and even the owners of the villas, who live in the first house on our ‘bay’ appeared to be gone for the day. It’s quiet. It’s a day of rest.
The most excitement I had today was when I was trying to take a photo of one of the hens that wanders across our yard with her chicks. I was crouching down, trying to get a close-up without scaring her away. But instead of running away, she looked interested and started coming towards me. I guess she thought I might offer her some food. And then another chicken came up behind me, and when I turned around, a HUGE FLOCK of chickens were heading my way! Wow! I didn’t know there were that many chickens in our area. Sue brought me a piece of bread and I started throwing crumbs at the chickens. Yikes! Now I’m feeling a bit like my sister-in-law, Angie, who dotes on a dozen or so chickens of her own. I hope I haven’t started something I’ll be sorry for tomorrow, when I might be created by a flock of chickens waiting for breakfast at our front door.
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- From far and wide, the word went out that there was free food at the Nikkels’.
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- Rudy’s making friends with the locals. (Smoke in the distance is from people burning dead palm branches and other organic matter.)
We read a bit more. Finally, at around 6, Sue made supper for us. I had another little snooze. When the sun was down we turned on some patio lights and sat outside. The air was pleasant. We did a couple of crossword puzzles in Sue’s book. Had some chocolate for a night snack. It was getting close to ten o’clock. Sue was chasing a big old fly around the house, trying to smack it with a beach towel. No success, although both the fly and Sue seemed to enjoy the challenge.
Yikes, all that lying around and breathing makes a guy tired. I tried watching a bit of TV again – but all that’s on either of our two channels is Australian rugby – and even that faded away when suddenly have the screen on our TV went black. Oh well. Time to go to bed.