Time is starting to tick away it feels like. Not long till we fly back. We get up and the day looks bleak and a lot cooler.
There’s a forecast for thunderstorms which diverts us away from our original idea of completing the cross island trek and instead Alissa remembers that Kura had mentioned the Discover Eco Centre is worth a trip. In a howling gale we set off for the other side of the island.
The Eco Centre seems to be a combination of a recovery centre for injured wildlife, a small aquarium and museum. An impressive amount of (enormous) turtle shells, crabs, sailfish bills and shark jaws greets you immediately. Just around the corner is a section with two fairly dangerous looking coconut crabs in cages, Pono the sick turtle trying to get better along with a Fairy Tern with a damaged wing on the mend. As you head further around you find an exhibition of whaling artifacts (harpoons, pictures and a whale skull) along with a small aquarium and video display. The stonefish and lionfish were very worth a look. The boys had a great time in there, Nate spent a reasonable amount of time blowing on a conch much to the annoyance of the other patrons.
As we were leaving the owner pointed out that she also owned the Raro Reef Sub which we had been thinking about doing to get Tom out and seeing fish on the reef as his snorkelling skills aren’t up to much. Booked in at 4pm, we had an afternoon to kill and some hungry children to feed so we headed back to Avarua and relived our first day at The New Place, pretty yum and they have Matutu beer which is pretty delicious and seemingly hard to find.
Another trip to the playground at Punanga Nui kept spirits up and it was time to head out of the harbour in the Reef Sub. We cruised on over and locked our bikes up, Alissa got chatting to the first mate of the sub and swapped a bunch of travel stories. On board and it’s a boat and sub type scenario, nice up on deck and then down the ladder to below the water line with 8 portholes along each side. We head out through the harbour entrance and are immediately surrounded by 8 Giant Trevallys all pushing hard up against the portholes waiting for some fish to be thrown. Giant is an apt name for them, these are no fish and chip shop trevallys to be filleted, they are all getting on for a metre long and must weigh 20kgs. Apparently you can’t eat them as they are apex predators and build up the ciguatera toxin. Sad times. Or not depending on you point of view. They are genuinely gnarly beasts though. Tom and the other boys are enthralled with them.
It’s a bit of a windblown day so the water is a little murky but the visibility isn’t too bad. We head out to the wreck of the RMS Maitai which sank in 1916 just outside Avarua harbour and still has some structure poking above the waves today. Theres a lot to see as the ship is surprisingly over 95 metres long which is a bit unexpected based on what you can see from shore. Once we have gone over the wreck a couple of times its off to a coral bank for some fish spotting which is fine (I think I’m completed spoiled by the Aroa Bay snorkelling and Kura’s reef walk where everything else has paled a bit in comparison) and then we head back to shore chased by those Trevallys again.
As we pull into shore we can see that its finally going to happen, heavy rain is rolling over the peaks in the centre of the island heading straight for Avarua. Because its late and we need to get back before dark (as riding in the very dark night roads around here seems like a poor choice) we don’t have much choice but to put the jackets on and cycle in the pouring tropical rains. It was only a matter of time. It all eases up after 15 minutes anyway and by the time we get back, its fine. Bikes are the winners on the day.