Islands of Forgotten Time~

On By cindy knokeIn Conservation, Flowers, MY PHOTOGRAPHS, REVERIES, TRAVEL REVIEWS


The Cooks are the islands that time forgot.

When you are here time loses meaning.

You don’t wear a watch,

or have a clock.

You rise with the sun,

and set with it too.

You are on island time.

You make island friends,

like Jim’s hiking partners,

and my little buddy who are on island time too!

Cheers to you from the timeless Cooks~

305 thoughts on “Islands of Forgotten Time~”

  3. Lovely, Cindy, but I fear you are going to engender in all your American followers some major discontent..! So instead of going there, I will again say thank you for bringing us along on your great adventures!

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    1. Thank you! I took so many photos of them over time. They was a lake full of them and first they were just pods which were fascinating. We had a big rain overnight and they all started blooming. Really amazing and happy you like them.

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    1. A mere spin of the globe and snow turns into coral. Cheers to you my friend She is so adorable with the most outgoing and delightful personality 🌺

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  20. I believed you right up until I saw the little girl and her Teeshirt told me you’re really hiding in Los Angeles Cindy. Are all your trips faked like this?
    Looks like you’re having a glorious time.
    xxx Huge Hugs xxx

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    1. Rather humorous isn’t it. The name was carefully picked off, but LA just won’t go away. I know this for a fact. I have to drive through the God forsaken mess to get places far too often…..Cheers to you & glad you noticed!

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  31. Heavenly, Cindy! The flowers are stunning and I love the idea of no clocks … maybe we should all try it. Sounds like you are having a most precious time! 🌺🌻

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    1. I need a new book. I will look it up. I love reading books about the places I am visiting. Thank you. I just finished, “Come Ashore We Will Kill You and Eat You All,” which was an amazing history of Polynesia.

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        1. The author is an academic and is married to a Maori and the book is both history and memoir and I thought it was excellent. Let me know what you think.

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  41. Your pictures tell an amazing story, Cindy. One of the pictures looks like a banana tree, when it’s ready to expose the amazing fruit. 🙂

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  45. Beautiful captures, Cindy! Easy to forget time there…
    Thank you for sharing the good time you are having. 🙂 <3

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  47. These photos are absolutely stunning, my friend. I believe it’s called timeless photography. And your little buddy there is so beautiful and I love her cheeky smile. ♪～(◔◡◔ิ)～♪ ♫♡♡♡

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  50. Cindy, I think every one of us should be allowed (or in some cases, forced) to go on island time on a regular basis. Imagine how much more peaceful and aware we’d be!!

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    1. I couldn’t possibly agree with you more. The country of Bhutan has a national Department of Happiness, focused on improving the happiness of it’s people. We need a department like this. I would actually come out of retirement to run it, if they would let. It would be the best job ever and so very important.

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  53. Glorious! We don’t wear watches either, especially when traveling to magical places like this! Come to think of it, I haven’t owned a watch since 1992! 😉 Enjoy the rets of your vacation Cindy!

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  57. Tick tock no clock, how fabulous Cindy! The water is so clear, seems you can see every grain of sand. Do you ever feel like it’s too quiet? I can’t seem to chillax enough to adopt the pace of nature. At least you have your camera and a skill that helps us see every detail in brilliant colour. I generally take to reading, which isn’t altogether a bad thing. Mystery, murder and intrique is what island life holds for me…LOL Cheers dear x K

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    1. Ironic isn’t it. We go to paradise for peace and quiet, and read really disturbing murder mysteries. It is because we have busy minds that need to be focused on something. You are right about photography, it enables me to zen out, and be fully in the moment. I also use my own imagination and create my own stories that can entertain me for days on end in a hammock under the palms, or anywhere for that matter. One thing about travel, it usually takes about 10 days for me to fully relax into a trip. This is often how long people’s entire vacations are, so they leave, just as they are beginning to fully relax. And also, the more you travel, the more at ease you are with it, like anything else, you get accustomed to the things you do a lot. Now I get antsy at home! Laughing…….

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      1. What a privilage it is to travel hey? I really feel blessed. Still, I’m like Dorothy (click heels twice) “there’s no place like home”. 😀 I was away for 5 weeks on our last trip. The final week was tough for me. I missed my pets and routine. But the world is full of interesting people and places and I don’t want to miss out. That’s also ironic I guess……or is it a conumdrum? Well it’s a good problem to have at any rate, LOL. I’m curious about these stories you’re concurring up in that hammock 😀 snickering…… x

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        1. By the fifth week of a trip Jim is ready to go home and I am ready to keep traveling……..My hammock stories are pretty boring actually. You know, “Long ago in a kingdom far away……….”
          Laughing!

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  58. Awesome once again Cindy! We certainly need more times of timelessness in this crazy time-structured world. The third shot (flower) is gorgeous! Also love the honeybee closeup and that sweet girl candid!

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  61. Island time…when I was a young girl I always took off my watch when school was out in June and did not put it on until school started around 20th of August. I know the feeling. But, whenever I try to come back to that feeling, I realize how difficult it is. The world does that to us, doesn’t it. You have to really go for it to get there once more…
    Wonderful photos again and again…and thank you for mentioning Bhutan and their philosophy of Happiness. I will vote for you too as head of such a department. But that department should be for the whole world. In fact I believe you are already on to that…doing what you can to make people happy. Thank you for being there, Cindy.

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    1. Your thoughtful and lovely comment sums up perfectly why I love blogging so much. I get to make incredible friends like you from all over this great big world. Hugs to you my sweet wise friend and Kia Orana! 🌺🌺🌺

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  67. Superb photography (as always). The little Buddy is adorable and the Poinsettia and other flowers just gorgeous. What a perfect place to visit and stop the passing of time…..even for a short time.

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  68. How lovely to be living in time with the day’s natural rhythms. Will you be so captivated that you will forget what time you are supposed to go home?

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  71. Bonjour ou bonsoir CINDY de jolies fleurs

    https://s31.postimg.cc/jyh2apj3v/bonne_journ_ee.gif

    ​

    La vie a grand besoin de respect et d’amour
    Il faut savoir donner pour mériter de prendre
    Ce qui nous est offert et savoir aussi le rendre
    Nous traversons, souvent, pendant notre vie
    Des tortueux chemins qui viennent nous surprendre
    C’est alors qu’il nous faut ouvrir nos cœurs et tendre
    La main à nos amis pour leur dire bonjour

    Belle journée ou belle soirée

    Bisous Bernard

    ​

    Reply

  77. How beautiful, Cindy! I love the thought that time is not important and all life happens in harmony with nature…priceless.

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  80. These photos are absolutely beautiful. Such detail. I LOVE them. I love this place. I’d like to go to this island and live out my days!!!!

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  82. Striking photographs, especially the butterfly. Well, the bee too. And of course, your little buddy.

    P.S., If time forgot that place, it’s also where you can forget time, or so it seems.

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    1. I wonder what Wolfie would make of it here. (Read prior post Adogables). Either he/she would be king/queen of all the doggies she perceives, or she would just be free, taking reef swimming lessons from the savvy local adogables and learning how to fish.

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      1. 😀Swimmimg lessons and learning how to fish sounds cool to Wolfie! I will eagerly read the prior post tomorrow ☺Today has been ridiculously hot and sunny so little constructive anythings have been achieved today! But at least the reply box is back in the reader tonight -it had vanished for yours and several others yesterday. 🤔🙄

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    1. They are disappearing fast. It is every creature’s, and living thing’s loss, on this planet, when the last paradises die.
      But mostly it is human being’s big loss, because we have been in control, and we have failed pretty completely, over a good stretch of time. It’s not like we didn’t know.
      I don’t see this changing.
      Sorry to put a crimp in paradise.
      I am so glad these places are still here too.
      The people in these last remaining places are not the people we know in civilization. They are different, they take care of each other, and total strangers like me, and their children call me Auntie.

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    1. Yeah, well there is one remaining, I think it possibly may be the second most penultimate trip to date, after Antarctica, up for September. It was cancelled last September because of familial responsibilities.

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  91. Pingback: Dynamic Duo in Pink – Exploring Colour

  96. Stunning and inviting Cindy. I believe many of us have an island or two tucked safely in the corners of our minds and hearts. Mine was a small island in the South China Sea. 🙂

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  100. Hey Cindy, Namaste 🙂

    Stunning: I’m not certain I got beyond the first photograph…

    Captain Cook opened his book,
    Sat-down to write his diary,
    A short-account on account
    His voyage had left him weary.
    ~
    ‘When then my first glimpse of paradise:
    How she ripples upon the sea!
    An emerald of deepest green,
    Exquisite in her beauty.’
    ~
    ‘What treasure is this I have found?
    At journey’s end where once bound:
    By wind and wave and billowed sail,
    Tis Eden here upon the pale!’
    ~
    ‘She shimmers in recumbent pose,
    Inflames my heart, my hearth, my prose,
    For here at world’s end where nobody knows:
    Behold a Goddess! Gaia’s viridescent rose.’
    ~*~
    A delight to the eye, the Cook Islands are a destination to keep in mind should ever opportunity come my way. Thank you for sharing your island paradise.

    Hoping all is well wherever you may now be. Take care.

    Love and be Loved. Namaste 🙂

    DN

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    1. Your tale gave me goosebumps. You are such a fine poet Dewin, and I can tell the words and images fall off of you like golden rain. I was with you on Cook’s ship. Seeing it through his (and your) eye.
      Wonderful!
      Cook seems to go everywhere I do, albeit, he did it a bit earlier.

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      1. Hey Cindy, Namaste 🙂

        I have never been to many of the places you visit and find your photographs richly rewarding to peruse and ponder over, and wonderfully inspiring…the desert island shot is like a dream in itself that one can get lost in.

        Thank you for kind words about the poem…I just wondered what Cook may have thought when first arriving at the islands those many years ago – although I’d imagine his prose would have surpassed my own scribble 🙂

        I quite often sit and write poems whilst visiting certain blog-sites: those where I find the company convivial, inspired and inspiring. Mostly the poems are a response to what is blogged, but sometimes other ideas come that lead in other directions. I enjoy your photographs and the comments you receive, this is a happy place to be. Thank you for a welcoming blog 🙂

        ‘Cook seems to go everywhere I do, albeit, he did it a bit earlier.’ 🙂 I wonder if there is a ‘connection’ of some sort between you and he that motivates you towards certain destinations and separate to the fact you love travel and exploration?

        Have a wonderful weekend and a great week ahead. Happy wandering.

        Namaste 🙂

        DN

        Reply

        1. Getting to know people like you Dewin, make blogging the fascinating and rewarding experience it is. I am so happy to have met you here in our virtual Kingdom of Blogdom. Be well my friend & thank you for your lovely words and thoughts~

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          1. Namaste Cindy 🙂

            Your kindness is so generously sincere, thank you. I enjoy being here Cindy and always find poems come and go readily in my mind whilst I visit. In your travel photographs exist a world that colours my imagination and imprints itself on my mind. Your photographs open up an unseen world to my eye and allow me to soak it up for later use when I need a reference for a line. Your travels take you to ancient cities and exotic places that are a dream to my eye: and I love to dream 🙂 I get to see it all through your photographs whilst in comfort and at ease sat here. It’s chance to dream as much as it is opportunity to think and ponder, but it seems to work its charm. The photographs you take so well of birds are often my favourites…those spectacular aviators of a free world 🙂 …but all are a fascination in some way 🙂

            I am grateful to all whose paths cross mine: grateful for exchange, for company, and importantly for friendship and honesty through the written word. The WP community is special: wonderfully diverse, vibrant, rich, and fascinating, as are the individuals behind the lines. If only time allowed chance to get to know every individual there was on WP, wouldn’t that be amazing! 🙂 (I wonder if anyone has ever visited every Blog on WP?)

            Thank you for your good friendship: I am also so happy to have met you in the Kingdom of Blogdom 🙂

            Enjoy a wonderful week.

            Namaste 🙂

            DN

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              1. Namaste Cindy 🙂

                That is very beautiful, thank you good friend! 😀 I shall be back shortly to enjoy your window on the world. .

                Until next time, travel well and safely, take care of one and all. Thanks again.

                Love and be Loved. Namaste 🙂

                DN

                Reply

  101. You had me convinced that this is an island paradise after your post about the friendly dogs! Gorgeous images, Cindy! I’m so glad you’re having a wonderful time in the Cooks. 🙂

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      1. Yes and some years ago a movie was made of Captain Cook going to the Islands, but that was pure fantasy. He never made it to the big island, only the smallest and mostly uninhibited Island. It was the Spanish long before Cook, but it was the British who eventually made Cook Island a British territory. However, the Islands got Cook’s name because he was responsible for much of the Pacific Ocean Islands oceanographic, I think. However, the islands did develop a more dubious reputation as time went on. Lots of Pirates too. Your photography is beautiful. Thank you!

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        1. You might enjoy reading, “Come Ashore We Will Kill and Eat You All,” by Christina Thompson. She is a scholar and academic, married to a Maori man, and she wrote a fascinating book that is both a history of the colonization of Polynesia, and a memoir about her marriage and the cultural differences therein. It is a fascinating book

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  114. Bonjour ou bonsoir belle fille CINDY

    La vie a grand besoin de respect et d’amour
    Il faut savoir donner pour mériter de prendre
    Ce qui nous est offert et savoir aussi le rendre
    Nous traversons, souvent, pendant notre vie
    Des tortueux chemins qui viennent nous surprendre
    C’est alors qu’il nous faut ouvrir nos cœurs et tendre
    La main à nos amis pour leur dire bonjour

    Belle journée ou belle soirée

    Bisous Bernard

    https://s31.postimg.cc/gcjly68ez/oiseau.gif

    ​

    ​

    Reply

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