Fifty-seven years ago, the late Don Dorrell, then 30 years old, arrived in Rarotonga. He thought he did not know a single soul, writes Derek Fox.

Back in the 1960s a late-20-something Don Dorrell was living in Auckland. He had a car and motor bike repair shop in Barry’s Point Road on the Northshore, a pretty good location. But all of that disappeared when one day it went up in smoke; and while the business was insured, the payout was not sufficient to reinstate things to the way they were.

So young Don had a problem.

A solution was suggested by one of the blokes in his neighbourhood, a chap named Albert Henry, who reckoned Don should take his business and vehicle repair skills to Rarotonga, where they would come in handy.

Now Don had been enjoying a pretty good life in New Zealand. He loved going deer stalking, pig hunting, and tramping in the New Zealand bush. He was a champion motocross rider and reckons he fell off five times doing over a hundred miles an hour and somehow escaped serious injury.

On the other hand, he did not know a thing about Rarotonga. But he did come across a bloke who had served in the Royal New Zealand Navy who had been to the Cook Islands and reckoned they were the ‘best’ of the islands.

So, 57 years ago Don Dorrell then 30 years old, arrived in Rarotonga. He thought he did not know a single soul, but it turned out he did, a chap who worked for the Union Steam Ship company – the outfit that managed the shipping services to and from New Zealand.

He originally set up shop in what is now the CITC shopping centre area in Avarua – roughly where the pharmacy is at the moment. Don reckons the biggest problem in the old days was sourcing spare parts for the country’s vehicle fleet. Later his now well-established business – the Motor Centre – moved to its present site in Panama.

Young Don got to know and love the Rarotonga bush clad hills, and tramped round and climbed most of the local peaks. He says he had a hand in surveying and completing the cross-island track. The first part of the walk up the Avatiu valley to the needle was well established, but Don walked on through to Wigmore’s waterfall blazing a trail that was later cut and formed.

Over the more than half century he has been here he says he has also been to most of the Pa Enua too, helping blast sites for harbours and so on.

Don was one of Rarotonga’s very first Rotarians. He was one of the attendees of the Charter Night meeting at the home of Greta and Jim Little, where they launched a branch of the world-wide service organisation in Rarotonga.

Don was the last surviving member of that group.

The Rotary Club of Rarotonga and our current members, salute Don Dorrell and offer our prayers and condolences to his wife Diane and daughter.

• This is an updated extract from the Rotary Club of Rarotonga’s 50^th Anniversary Celebratory Booklet in 2019