Club Tropicana

Most people who know me were surprised that I decided to go to Rarotonga. You can’t wear a coat in Rarotonga they cried! It’s full of nature! What will you do there?
Well I’ve found I could probably get away with wearing a coat but I am bemused by the other points. Indeed, there is a lot of nature and I don’t think I am appreciating it as much as I am supposed to. Today, for instance, I went for a walk along a beach. I was most put out that my feet got wet and sandy, something you don’t get from looking at the travel brochure images. If this had happened in Dunedin I expect I would have squealed like a stuck pig, but the water was pretty warm so I dealt with it, merely shaking my fist at the sea once. The scenery does look like a post card, all designer blues with contrasting white, oh all right, pale beige sand. Thank heavens the tourists helped kill the feeling that I was in an extended tv advertisement for the Cook Islands. They came straight out of Benidorm. Upon entering grounds of The Point, a glorious dining establishment & resort, I was treated to a middle aged man flaccid on a banana lounger at the pool side. When seated at our table there was a panorama of slightly dumpy, pale tourists and their crispier counterparts strapping it all up into bikinis and thongs, reclining for all their worth in front of the beach (but fenced apart from it).
So with the strains of kill all the white men in mind I trudged along the beach. It all seems a bit profligate doesn’t it? Walking for pleasure? I am used to scuttling to places desperately trying to make sure I am not late. People are more interesting than scenery as a rule. I am such a non-entity I can usually observe to my heart’s content. Yet today I couldn’t help but think I was being watched as much as I was watching. I filled the role of flabby undesireable, an anaemic blot on the beach frontage the resort goers paid $400 or so a night to enjoy (No children allowed). Oh well, I guess I was out of the way quickly.
Tomorrow there will be a cruise ship in so I expect that will make me look comparatively fabulous.