 Approaching The Needle, Rarotonga |
The four-hour cross island walk began as a single lane road winding into the foothills, past ramshackle villages struggling to keep the fast growing jungle at bay. Rarotongan village kids ran beside the road giggling and waving while the dogs were as laid back as the adult villagers, barely lifting their heads in the tropical heat to give us more than a brief glance as we passed by.
We’d hitched a lift with a truck driver to the start of the track, saving our strength for the challenge of the energy sapping jungle instead. Swinging down from the truck tray at the end of the bitumen, the driver directed us to a barely discernible break in the wildly overgrown jungle: the start of the cross island walk track.
Ascending rapidly across the gnarled tree roots which served as steps, our mid point destination at over 400m above sea level, The Needle was occasionally glimpsed through the dense foliage. Startling the odd bush chicken scratching in the dirt, seemingly the only inhabitants for miles, we brushed past vines, contorted ourselves under fallen tree trunks, trekking silently onwards and ever upwards.
Apparently beyond the canopy there was a financial crisis crippling the industrial world, but who would ever know such a pall of gloom existed here in the glorious Cooks?
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