Sunday 29 August 2010

Picton Castle alongside at Avatiu, Rarotonga, Cook Islands; Sunday 29 August 2010 בס"ד

Woke up and got ready to leave by around 0930. Dapper, Dave, and I went (the Kiwi dude was a no-show) and walked into town before hitching a ride to Muri. The guy who gave us a lift was driving the Deputy Prime Minister's car, and was running late to a church where he'd be making some sort of official visit. We got to the road, where we saw the map said the Turangi Walk was, but didn't know what to expect since there was no path drawn on the map to the tallest mountains. The road ended up being the whole path, and terminated at the Turangi water station. We decided to trailblaze up the mountains anyway, so I took off my sandals and barefootedly followed the Turangi creek for about 45 minutes. Then it forked, and in the center was a steep ridge, which we climbed. The higher we went, the dodgier it was getting, and the ridge was only about a foot narrow in most spots. When I knocked down a loose rock, it took about twenty seconds to hit the bottom and make a huge crash, and this was about halfway up to the summit. The ridge ended at a very steep, conical mountain peak, and we pretty much vertically climbed up it. It was a lot like a video game where you jump and the thing you touch disintegrates after a second, with loose, crumbly rocks and trees about an inch thick, many not firmly rooted. We finally made it to our summit, wit the three of us barely fitting on top of the peak, since it literally was a pointy point. It wasn't the highest mountain, but it was close, and it looked like a three hour hike to the bottoms of the valleys between our mountain and the others. After realizing we were total idiots, since we were virtually stuck on this tiny peak with a death-climb back down, we began our descent, which was extremely nerve-wracking, since one wrong move would result in a Jimmy-like tumble to our certain doom. Very slowly and carefully, we did it, and twice I was struck by falling rocks (once in the face and once in the left kidney). Luckily, after a three-hour climb down, we had survived and made it back. By the time we made it back to the main road, it was 1700 (again, too late to call the States), and we managed to quickly find an open store where we bought drinks to rehydrate a bit. We tried hitching for a while, and eventually got a ride. Back at the ship, we were telling of our adventure, when I suddenly felt nauseous. In about twenty minutes of rapid deterioration, I ended up puking about a half-bucket full. Don't know why, but I felt better afterwards and just hydrated and rested for a while. Woke up to our new doctor Vicki checking up on me, and now wrote this log. I feel much better now, just drained from 7+ hours of adventure climbing and then vomiting. Now maybe I'll type this up and possibly go to Telecom to upload stuff.