Rarotonga

 This is a guide, what you might like to know if you were thinking of visiting the Cook Islands.

 We stayed on the main island for 7 nights.  It seems quite big, but you can drive around it in about 50 minutes.  

The interior is uninhabited mountains, which are very scenic. All the population lives in a thin strip around the edge with a paved but bumpy road which can be be busy with locals on small motorcycles. The lived in part seems roughly half locals and half hotels with quite a few churches.

Gauging how nice a hotel is difficult from the road as the nicest part is usually by the sea.  The one we stayed in, Manuia Beach Resort, was a boutique hotel, meaning no children allowed and slightly dearer  than ones down the road. Strange how some humans think?

Or is it the cheap one is three stories high, so you need to get in a lift to go to the beach? You were able to snorkel off the beach but you had to wait a bit for the tide.

We liked it as it had sandy paths and chickens strolling around. Right now we have a mother and it's chick cheeping for food at the door. 

To rent a car or not? It took four days for us to cave in to that idea. Our experience was that it was a good idea as it was not that expensive about $160 for two days plus petrol. Petrol was about the same price as NZ, so not too bad.

It gave us the flexibility to try a restaurant down the road, The Tumunu, where I had a scallops and calamari and chips which I thought good value.  Prices for meals here are a bit high, but take in the idea that everything is imported, it starts to explain why.

For instance, a 500g pack of butter was over $10.

There are things to do, like go into see the main town, Avarua, or go on a lagoon cruise, which for pickup, drop off, lunch, entertainment and snorkelling was around $160, so not too bad.

A typical day might be a trip 4 k down the road to the marine reserve, which while not over run with fish certainly had some to see, with fantastic visibility.

On Saturday they have the local markets. Another thing is dogs.  Apparently homeless dogs wander around, and sometimes in the small hours you hear a lot of barking in the distance. Then a rooster starts crowing. Plenty of crops growing, some of which we can only guess at.

The weather for our stay was a bit unlucky, overcast and windy mostly. A perfect day, now we are leaving.

The currency here is NZ $, but there seems to be the odd coin that says Cook Islands, which would not work in NZ.

On the second day, Morty the cat appeared and made himself quite at home thank you. Not to be seen again much as he must have found even more cat friendly suckers nearby.

Coff's Harbour

A short stay here, just four days.  We stayed in The Terraces, a Wyndam Hotel just 5 minutes north of Coff's Harbour township. With a population of 75,000, it compares with New Zealand's Whangerei which has a population of about 51,000.

Impressions: a seaside resort town with the main Pacific highway running through it. Usual cafes and restaurants, with a nice central shops area.

View from the terrace at the Hotel:

 

 A Bush Turkey at the Hotel:

Off our terrace saw Black and White Crows, who were eating the berries off the palm trees:

 

 From the Hotel, you can walk a cliff path to the next beach, which is Digger's beach. This is looking back northwards on the way to Digger's Beach:

The waterfront area is extensive with a good beach.  Australian sandy beaches are better than in NZ, nicer colour.

This is Digger's Beach  which is nearby:

This is a small town close by, called Urunga:

What to do? Not much, one day took a trip to Dorrigo, a small town about 1 hour inland.  You set out on fairly flat farmland, and end up climbing into a sizeable mountain ranges.

 On the way there you go through Bellingen, another small town, very old:

Up there is a National Park with a bush walk, where we tried to make it to the waterfalls, but ran out of steam.

This is a view from the bush walk at Dorrigo:

This is a waterfall, just out of Dorrigo:

To diet or not to diet?

Seems a break from my usual travel blogging.
Just some thoughts in case there are others out there who have the dieting disorder.

I might have a mild case of this.  We could argue that it is a wise idea to keep tabs on what you are eating (and how much!), and exercising is surely a good idea. Just when it slips into a neurotic behaviour is a grey area.

Having  been through several weight loss programs, I have experienced the fun of losing weight.
It is really great - you are not carting 10kg extra around all the time.

They worked, but the weight seems to creep slowly back up when I go back to my normal diet. 

So, in the library browsing for books I found two books on the subject.

"The Overfat Pandemic" by Dr Philip Maffetone and
"Solving the Paleo Equation" by Dr Garrett Smith.

This blog is not a review of these books, just an introduction to some of the key ideas they put forward.

Which leads to the moral of this story: Don't just get ONE book out! Because every where you look there is a huge amount of advice in this area, especially the internet, which is probably at  best case mostly wrong, and worst case dangerous.

Both books emphasize getting rid of junk food from your diet.

"The Overfat Pandemic" has an interesting two week program you can do, which is where your eliminate all carbs from your diet for two weeks. I lasted 1.5 weeks on that one. Might have to go back for another try.

The idea is you monitor your weight and at the end of two weeks see if reducing the carbs in your diet results in a weight loss. In my case it was only a slight loss.

"Solving the Paleo Equation" seemed like a better approach with some shattering of myths(?) such as you need to drink around 3 Litres of water per day.  I have tried that one on a previous diet and could not keep it up.

He says this is wrong.  Drink when you are thirsty. His main message is that you have to consider all the following: Stress, Nutrition, Exercise and Sleep.  Which to me sounds logical.

Another myth he busts is "No Pain, No Gain", which he says is not the right approach.

He lists various things you should eat, mainly red meat or wild caught fish,  stay away from pork and poultry. Avoid deep fried foods at restaurants. (Makes me a bit sad that one-I enjoy fish and chips)

An unusual list of "Anitmetabolism Foods" to avoid he lists as beans and legumes, and cruciferous vegetables such as Kale, Cabbage, Cauliflower and so on.  Which is strange because most nutritionists say eat all the veges you like.

At the end of the book is a section on Cell Phone/Wifi radiation which has solutions I would find very difficult to implement. Who knows, he may be correct.

Starvation dieting is not good for you and there are other approaches.

Port Douglas

Port Douglas feels miles away from anywhere, yet is a busy little tourist town, about 45 minutes north of Cairns.

The Main Street:
 

Farming here is mainly sugar cane, on the flat areas in front of a large mountain range called the great dividing range, with some really tall mountains here and there.

This is the hotel. No views of the water, but the whole complex of about 4 buildings is arranged around a waterway with tall trees and a walkway down it, leading to a swimming pool.

 

This is a typical suburban street in Port Douglas, most houses are holiday rentals or for sale.

 

This is the beach, accessible from the hotel, about 200m away. Looks nice for swimming, but you cannot go in as a crocodile might eat you! Four ks up the beach you are allowed to in a patrolled area.

 

Day One we hired bikes and rode into town to see the Sunday Market.

Nice, with good quality things for sale.

Good here for biking, flat with little traffic.

This is a wharf just by the downtown area:
 

Day Two was a drive from Port Douglas up to cape tribulation.

Lots of rainforest blocking spectacular views. Nice to stop at an ice cream factory, and fish and chips by the beach. Windy roads, with an opportunity to see crocodiles which we passed on. Not that up to date as you need a ferry to get across the Daintree river. Makes a journey of interest though.

Our hotel, while being quite near the beach, does not have a view of it. Neither do any of the houses next to the beach have a view of it either, so it must be policy.

When you do end up on the beach all you see is palm trees, so it has a plus side.

On the negative side, you are warned not to swim in the lovely water because a crocodile might get you. Even standing close to the water is not recommended.

Another day off, just going into town about four kms away, doing usual touristy things.

This next pic is one from the lookout on the hill at the end of the big beach, just up from the town:

Day Four and a drive inland was planned. Inland scenery was different, with termite mounds.  Stopped at a coffee plantation, saw coffee being roasted, and a video on how they grow and pick it. Lunch in a little country town then off towards Kuramba then on towards Cairns.  Nice but not spectacular.

Another day off.

Day 6 or so! Got to go on a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. Actually an island. About half an hour, transferred to the beach and off snorkeling.  The day was overcast and it rained some, but the things underwater were wet anyway. Saw a turtle, a giant clam, corals and lots of brightly coloured fish.

Some of us went in a glass bottomed boat and saw clams, coral.

Walked around the island, very small which had an old (140 years) lighthouse on it.

After we got out the gannets came in and were impressive dive bombers.

Athens Wednesday 6th September 2017

Leaving day. Ugh. No fun for us then.

After a late wake up and a leisurely breakfast, we walked the 200 m to the Acropolis Museum. What a deal: 5 euros to get in! Architecturally a wonderful building.

They do not like you using a camera inside, so if you are interested in what it looks like, this is the link to the official site:

http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en
 

The stuff inside, well one Minotaur starts to look like another. How it is presented is superb.  We enjoyed the audiovisual stuff and the odd small recreation of the pediment sculptures.

A nice cup of coffee in the cafeteria, which would have been worth five euros cover charge by itself.

One of the best parts was the top floor, which showed most of the frieze in position.

It was like having a view from a scaffold, high up.

Cannot believe the amount of work that was put into the carvings and friezes.  Very beautiful.  Takes a few days to start getting into the way of things here. A huge amount of work put into the museums to bring back some idea of the history of Greece.

Going to the airport, we were originally going on the metro, for the sum of eighteen euros.  The taxi was a fixed price of 38 euros, so for twenty euros extra we got a taxi.

Athens, Tuesday 5 September

We tried unsuccessfully to keep this low key and relaxed as we were getting a bit frazzled with the heat.

Two tasks: One, check out the National Archeological Museum. Two, take the tram to the beach for a swim.

Sometimes, it just pays to ask your hotel receptionist how to get somewhere.  By the time Bill had misread the subway map, which admittedly was a bit non specific, and you pop up out of the underground expecting the Museum to be at least close, only to find it is a 1k walk away....

National Archeological Museum

Quite an impressive museum, if you like pots.  Rose started at one end and was minutely examining every thing she could find, which was LOTS. Of pots. Busts of this and that, and so on. One of us took time to point out if we check everything, we might be here for weeks.

One amazing item was a mechanical zodiac indicator with actual bronze gears. A CAD animated exploded view, coupled with  an actual reconstruction to show what a feat this was.

Tram trip to the beach

Neat tram, good trip. The beach was nice, but the water not really clear enough for snorkelling.
Trip back not so nice as we had to stand most of the way.

 

Athens, Monday 4 September 2017

If you are ever in Piraeus, the port of Athens, do not, repeat NOT get on the x80 port bus. Just a big bunfight trying to get your bags on, then even more people get on the next stop squashing everyone in a hot bus for half an hour. Getting out at the Acropolis was another frantic rush to get out around too many people.

Guess we have had it good so far, so why expect perfection?

Cruising is great in theory, but it can feel like you are on a merry go round, each day a new port and you do not know what it will be like.

Probably good for finding a nice island, for instance Rhodes we liked very much.

A more relaxed holiday might be, go to Rhodes, find some hotel in a remote village and stay for 7 days.  Needless to say, it would have to have really clear water for snorkelling.

Sunday we did the Roman Agora, which you can see most of from the outside. So why did we buy tickets for 6 Euros? Dunno.

Nothing truly astounding.

Here it is, with the temple of the winds:

 

Forging ahead to the Ancient Agora, made it to the ticket box, but Rose pulled the plug, which made Bill quite happy, as he was near empty.

Sat in a cafe, Rose had coke, Bill had an Ouzo.

Monday, set off again for the Ancient Agora, tried to buy two iced teas, then realised I had left my wallet behind.  The waiter said no worries, and gave it to us anyway.

So a 1k walk back to the hotel and then returned to buy our tickets.  Rose thought it was nicer than the Acropolis, but I thought it appeared to be the foundations of what was once there, just like the forum in Rome. Having said that, we did find both of the buildings, one of them reconstructed, to be as impressive as the Acropolis.

Pics of the Ancient Agora:

 

Back to our usual cafe, where we balanced the budget with the waiter.

The area seems to have lots of homeless cats, and we noticed a young woman busy feeding them.  She has treated lots of them for blindness.  We tried to give her 5 euro but she flagged it away. 

Here she is with the cats:

Now zoned out under air conditioning. 

So what do we feel about the Greek people? Four days is not enough to give a really informed opinion, but the ones we have come into contact with seem to be friendly, competent and helpful.