Living in Rarotonga

Living in Rarotonga is a dream for us. We live in a rented 2 bedroom house (the one that was just built). We live isolated near the mountains, with only 1 neighbour (a policeman), yet we are less than 500m walk to the most perfect beach imagineable. We have peace and quiet & a sea view!

The house is perfect. It takes me less than 10 minutes to vacuum it entirely.

 


Within 1 month of arriving we adopted a stray dog from the beach - who is an absolute darling & a breeze to look after. Nick drives a scooter to work & in our first year here we spent almost everyday at the beach.

The coldest day means you need to put on T-Shirt rather than a singlet. There is virtually no crime, except petty theft. The last murder was about 20 yrs ago. (edited...November 2010 - man just recently been charged with manslaughter for killing a man with his car after fight in a bar.

The island itself has one "official" ring road, only 30km's all the way around. The population is about 8,000 people & about 2,000 households. The pace of life is easy going & everything gets done in its own time. Everyone knows pretty much everyone & going to the supermarket means you will most definitely bump into a friend. 

                                                   

Unlike Auckland, there is no blatant indecent billboards or similar magazine covers content in your face on every dairy corner. Rarotonga is a Christian nation, where meetings still begin and end with a prayer.  You can talk about Jesus without getting weird looks from people.  The newspaper is about 10-15 pages long and you can read all of it in about 10 minutes.

                                                      

It is an absolutely wonderful place to raise children. There are no fears of strangers & Seychelle can play for hours and hours outside on her own & literally cover acres without me worrying one bit. We can take daily walks around our neighbourhood and still discover exciting new places.  Often on our walks we discover new and exciting things like a massive dead moray eel on the beach or a newborn goat.  Everyone is laid back and most of the locals are very friendly.

Every night the weather is generally picture perfect, still, quiet & the sunsets are to die for!
There is nothing quite like going for a walk on the beach after dinner to watch the sun set.