50th Anniversary of Independence from New Zealand.

One of the main reasons to be visiting Rarotonga this year is because it is the 50th Anniversary of the Cook Islands gaining their Independence from New Zealand. They still use the NZ Dollar as their currency and New Zealand still maintain strong ties with the country, so much so that our Prime Minister John Key  will be attending some of the celebrations.
The Government chartered some ships to bring people in from all the outer Islands so they could attend and put floats in the parade.
We were here for the previous celebrations about 5 years ago and there was a great parade of Floats down the main St plus lots of small stalls selling yummy island food and dancing displays..
The celebrations for the 50th commemoration is going to be even bigger with more than 50 floats and the stalls but many other activities as well, many are formal but the dancing and drumming will be for all to enjoy, the locals are all being granted a public holiday to enjoy the day.
Led by the Brass Band we stood and watched 57 floats go past us.

 So much work had gone into making the floats interesting and entertaining, many had a theme of cannibals with tourists in cooking pots, which made us all laugh.

Very old costumes made of bark were brought out and other native costumes were on show too.

This one was made like a canoe and the men paddled it all the way along the street.

Best of all were the dancers from one of the outer Islands who joyfully  danced and sang while walking all the way down the street and all the way back , enjoying every moment of it, and it would have taken 2 and half hours at least.

Was a great parade of floats so many of them.The people waved their little Island flags and you can bet that we did too. I even brought home my little flag.