Intern: Intern Expedition - Part I

By
Tayla Beddoes
Photography By
Tayla Beddoes

Kia Orana, it's Tayla here! Warmest greetings from a little paradise. This post is long overdue - the first part to my take on the Intern Expedition to Aitutaki and Atiu.

Sorry for the delay in getting this uploaded. I’ve been on leave the past few weeks and have finally arrived back into the office not too long ago only to be met with massive deadlines given the launching of our new website. This post is long overdue; my take on the Intern Expedition Emma and I went on last month to the islands of Aitutaki and Atiu. You’re already well aware of this trip, however what you’re probably not aware of is just how much of an impact our outer island experience had on us and how desperately we wanted to convey our experiences on social media, in the hopes of better convincing potential travellers to seriously consider a trip to the outer islands. Putting it quite simply; the effects of a trip to the sister islands is extremely rewarding and humbling.

From the posts we have created on social media (where we’ve shed the spotlight on a different outer island each week) the feedback, responses and comments have been extremely encouraging. Many of our social media followers don’t know much about the outer islands and almost always assume that Rarotonga is all there is to the Cook Islands. And we can't blame them - there's very little awareness about the Cook Islands - but we hope to change all that soon and have more visitors considering a journey beyond the main island.


Though words can only sway a person so much and because I’m more of a visual person, I thought I’d try to convey my recent experiences through film and photo. The films will be going up in my second post about the Intern Expedition; this one is dedicated solely to photos. However if you follow the Cook Islands on Instagram you’ve most likely seen 2 short films I quickly made off my phone summing up our trip in each of these islands. So think of these little films as extended versions of those - but more on that in the next post.

The first set of images is from Aitutaki (there's not many because Emma had plenty for the both of us in her blog post) and the second lot is from Atiu. Atiu was easily the highlight of the trip for me, mostly due to the fact that I've never been there before, whereas I travel to Aitutaki at least twice a year. While it's always great getting back to Aitutaki, there's nothing like exploring an island you haven't yet experienced. The nature grows sporadically and largely remains unkept, the sheer number of birds you see around at one time are pretty shocking, and as for the people itself - they have this quiet, warm way about them. You get the sense that they don't encounter new people often (especially seeing as they receive a 10 maximum visitors per week) and as such treat them with such great hospitality and genuine care that will no doubt have you booking a return trip in no time. 

Also because we've received tonnes of comments on our social channels, namely Snapchat, here are the details and links for what we got up to and where we stayed during our little expedition:

Aitutaki:

Atiu:

 

Oh! That reminds me. We’ve also got a couple of new kids on the block meaning that our Intern Blog will have a more regular posting method after all (yay!). With the festive season approaching, our new interns will say a big Kia Orana into the new year.

Ka Kite for now,

Tayla