DeeKnow’s Grotto

Initially I had romantic notions of taking responsibility for planning our honeymoon and after some consideration was convinced that one of my ideas, Stewart Island, would be just the ticket. Thank God I asked a couple of sheilas what they about the idea coz they unanimously shot it down exclaiming Kym would hate the idea, on no uncertain terms.

So much for mens intuition, or a kiwi destination.

When Kym and I started to consider honeymoon options we came up with all sorts of erratically priced and scaled location ideas, everything from Australia, to SE Asia, to Canada for a ski holiday, but everything just seemed a little busy for what we were hoping would be a nice relaxing break.

As a kid I was lucky to have generous parents who (reluctantly no doubt) took us brats a few overseas holidays to places like Australia, Norfolk Island and Fiji. Kym had been to Rarotonga before as well so the idea of a quiet pacific Island came to the fore as a target for the honeymoon.

After consuming a few brochures and reading up on stuff on the web we settled for 7-days on Aitutaki, a wee slip of a reef type island wrapped around a Lagoon a 30min flight north of the main Rarotongan island.

When we arrived on the main island of Raro for a night before transferring out to Aitutaki we were both thinking "jeeze, this is great, can it get any more laid back", and as it turned out, yes, it bloody can, so far back the Tequila runs out the top of your mouth your head is so far back

Aitutaki is absolute heaven. We were there in the shoulder-season really so it was pretty quiet, but we also stayed in a little cabin in a small group of 3 self contained and seperate dwellings a mile away from anyone else and on a piece of coastline so beautiful it almost made you cry.

By christ it was a great place. The locals were friendly, we had a funny little bar withing walking distance called "The Crab Bar", the weather was fantastic, the water was crystal clear and warm, the coral was pretty healthy and fish abundant, it was just so bloody relaxing.

The program for each day was exceptionally taxing, and tended to following something very much like this for pretty much all of the 7-days we had on the Island...

9am - wake up quietly, take a look out at the gorgeous sea view, go back to sleep
10am - get up, stretch, fart, make breakfast, eat on the balcony
11am - pour the first Vodka and retire to Hamock with a book
12am - go for a swim, then have lunch
1pm - have another Vodka, take the scooter for a ride
2pm - a swim, more reading, more Vodka
3pm - take an afternoon nap
4pm - scooter ride to another beach or Bar
5pm - home for a quick Vodka
6pm - more reading, swimming, resting
7pm - dinner, at home, or a local cafe
8pm - reading and drinkin wathcing the sunset
9pm - off to bed

9:06:58 AM