Again we were awake around sunrise, but again it was a little too cloudy to see anything spectacular. After breakfast we decided to hop on the bus and go into the big city, this time with a mission. We wanted to hire a motor scooter, unlike the Caribbean where you just turn up pay your money and ride away, t he Cook Islands require you obtain a local driving licence, and a driving licence requires a driving test! First stop the police station to pay for the driving test (NZ$5). Now you need a scooter to take the test. Off to the scooter rental place with driving test application in hand and rent the scooter. Now drive the scooter back to the police station for the test! Is it just me or is this a somewhat backward process? Now for the driving test, I had read in a couple of places that the test consisted of driving out the Police station to the roundabout (traffic circle) about 200 yards away, go around the roundabout and back to the police station. If there was no blood spilled (yours, someone else’s or any animals then you passed). Evidently this was taking its toll on the local emergency services so the test was reduced to 12 traffic cones, 1 give way sign and one stop sign located in an alleyway by the side of the police station. The test requires that your feet remain in the scooters floorboards from the starting point back to the stop sign. All you now had to do was to zig-zag through the cones, go around the give way sign, return going through the cones again and stop at the stop sign. No problem, got that hacked first time, however the constable said that they still average 1 serious injury and many cuts and bruises per week from people taking the test.
Why do the Cook Islands require you get their driving licence? It turns out that NZ won’t recognize a Cook Islands driving licence (wonder why) so the Islanders attitude was, well we won’t blxxdy well recognise theirs, and while we’re at it we won’t recognise anybody else’s either. With the signed pass slip in hand it’s back to the licence counter to pay over $20 for a nice photo-id driving licence.
There are 3 speed limits on the Island, 30K in town, 50K elsewhere except if you’re on a motorbike and not wearing a helmet, then it’s 40k. The 40k came about a couple of years ago when parliament brought in a law requiring the wearing of crash helmets. There was such an outcry from the populace that two days before the law was to become effective it was amended to requiring a crash helmet for travel over 40k. There were quite a few sea containers of crash helmets at the dock and some very unhappy store owners.
Hells Angel?
I was surprised at the rental car of choice at many outlets, a BMW Z3. Business opportunity Kevin?
While I was doing all this Lyn decided to sneak away and do some shopping, she found a fabric store (thank-you Marie) which also sold kiddies clothes (you have a present Noah) and a craft store with lots of black pearl jewellery (an Island speciality). We then topped up on groceries and tonic water and then it was time to try two of us on the scooter, amazingly we’re both here to tell the tale.
Back at the cottage it was lunch time, and after that we headed out to the Fruits of Rarotonga, discovered on our walk yesterday, for an hour or so of snorkelling. Again it was a little murky, but there were more varieties of fish here, so tomorrow we will try to go in the morning before the tide turns.