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Mitiaro is the fourth largest island in the Cooks group, yet probably the best place to go if you simply want total peace and quiet. Rotonui ("Big Lake") and Rotoiti ("Small Lake") - are unique to the Cook Islands, being the only sizeable freshwater lakes in the region.
Both are home to a particularly prized delicacy - prawns and eels, but particularly the eels, which are called itiki. The lakes themselves are somewhat are sedgy and not particularly inviting with the water brown and brackish, but the eels which are caught in the water are delicious, their flesh pink and full of flavour.
Itiki is like caviar to the Cook Islanders. Eels always return to the sea to spawn, so it can be assumed that the itiki of Mitiaro find their way to the surrounding sea through subterranean channels. Not even an eel could negotiate the razor-sharp rock of the makatea without grievous injury to itself.
Mitiaro eels, like eels everywhere, move in mysterious ways. But whatever the route they take, the itiki elvers return eventually to the twin lakes of Mitiaro, to fatten there and be harvested for consumption. The lakes are also home to imported African bream.
Mitiaro is of volcanic origin and it is 6.4 km across at its widest point. It is surrounded by the belt of fossilised coral - makatea - between six to nine metres high, which is characteristic of islands in the southern group. Beaches are limited but there are crystal clear pools ideal for a cooling swim in the subterranean. Air Rarotonga flies to Mitiaro from Rarotonga Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
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