Rarotonga

With an area of 67.2 sq.km, Rarotonga is the largest of the Cook Islands, with almost 60 per cent of the total population of the archipelago. Its bizarre landscape and lush tropical vegetation make it, in the opinion of many visitors, one of the most beautiful of the Polynesian islands. The chief place, Avarua, is the administrative, economic and cultural center of the Cook Islands.

Rarotonga is the visible tip of a volcanic cone that reaches down to 4500m below sea level. The hilly interior consists of a number of much weathered overlapping volcanoes. Due to rapid weathering in the moist tropical climate the slopes of the hills have been deeply indented by rivers. Round the rugged interior is a coastal plain about 1km wide, covered with fertile alluvial sands and dunes in which grow various ornamental and useful plants, coconut palms, pawpaws, bananas, coffee. Between the belt of dunes and the volcanic hills is a swampy depression that, as on other islands, is used for growing taro. The island is fringed by a reef that encloses a narrow lagoon, linked with the open sea by a number of gaps in the reef. Only on the south and southeast is the reef further from the coast, separated from it by the Muri Lagoon, with three sand islands and an island formed of a volcanic rock known to the inhabitants as taakoka.

Rarotonga can be explored on the regular buses, in a hired car or on a moped or bicycle. Most the places on the island can be reached on a 30km asphalted ring road, and most of the hotels and other accommodations are on this road within sight of the sea. A second road, negotiable almost all the way, serves the agricultural areas at the foot of the hills, and from this route minor roads and a number of tracks lead into the interior. A good way of getting to know the island is to join a guided walk.