RSSVaka Eiva Festival
Cook Islands Canoeing Association started the Vaka Eiva Festival of Canoeing in 2004 and is hosted on the captivating island of Rarotonga.The seventh edition of the festival will be held from November 19 to 26 this year. This season is offering paddling for a week embedded with fun and sitting and relaxing under a coconut tree for all the tourists.
This is a festival to celebrate the South Pacific heritage of canoeing with races and other activities. This is not just a sporting festival it gives the spectators to witness the tradition and culture of Cook Islands and other nations. Each participating country needs to present a cultural show at the end of the event. The first day of the festival will see a welcome by villager leaders, singing and dancing performances.
Canoeing clubs from New Zealand, Fiji and Hawaii join the Cook Islands in celebration. Over 200 peddlers participated in 2005.
From just 200 paddlers in the Vaka Eiva in 2004, the Canoeing Association hosted 800 paddlers from across the globe.
Entries to this event are now closed, however the one week long fest promises endless fun and entertainment.
Tiera festival
Cook Islands, a combination of 15 islands on the Pacific ocean is an island of festivals. Round the year they celebrate various fests. Cook island gears up to celebrate Tiara festival every November. Flowers are an integral part of Cook Islands. No festival is complete without floral decoration in this island nation.
It is a celebration of flowers. The atmosphere will be filed with beautiful incense throughout the month. This annual event at Rarotonga is made colourful with floral decoration, cultural programmes and other competitions.
The name of the festival originated from the maori name for a flowering plant and is commonly used to refer to the national flower gardenia.
Gardenia taitensis
Gardenia taitensis, which is also known as Tiare māori or Tahitian Gardeniais has large waxy flowers of 3 inches diameter and oval leaves. The origin of the plant is from Melanesia (Vanuatu) and Western Polynesia. This flower is an integral part of all the celebrations at the Island nation.
Turama festival
Rare and one of its kind festivals, Turama is a festival that honours the dead. In the week leading up to the All Soul’s Day, all the people will gather to clean the graveyards and decorate the graves with exquisitely beautiful flowers like hibiscus and gardenia. On November 1, the all soul’s day, special candles would be lit from the evening. Though it has been an Roman Catholic celebration, all people irrespective of caste and creed join the celebration. On that day the islanders would gather at the grave and share stories.
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