Friday evening after getting home from my evening of work was spent packing for our holidays. After packing up all our stuff we headed to bed ready for an early night.
Getting up at 4am on Saturday proved quite difficult, but was slightly eased by the holiday excitement. So, after driving the hour and a half to the airport we checked in and sorted ourselves our for some brekky.
The flight to Samoa was about 3 1/2 hours, but as we crossed the date line we actually arrived in Samoa at midday on Friday - cool hey! After arriving we headed over to the wharf to catch the ferry over to Savaii, the bigger, but less populated of the 2 main islands. Our hotel/beach resort (not resorts as we know in Europe) was about a 20 minute taxi ride from the wharf and was beautiful, set amongst palm trees and tropical garden it is across the road from the reef lined lagoon and beach....perfect. We had booked one of the more expensive villas(mainly because that was all that was left when we booked), but it did mean we had an amazing private outdoor shower (my favourite bit...and it came with 2 king sized beds, incase Si pissed me off!)
The rest of the afternoon/evening was spent drinking cocktails at the in-pool bar and having a lovely barbeque dinner with live Samoan music. We attempted to watch the tri-nations rugby that night but got the timing all wrong and ended up missing it - doh.
Saturday we headed to the local market with Elizabeth, the hotel's guest relations manager who showed us around and introduced us to some of the local food. Really nice trip and a great way to interact with the locals. She also introduced us to the local bus etiquette, which soon became our preferred mode of transport. After that we joined her and her husband to watch the rugby, regional matches, not quite the same as the stand we are used to watching regional matches in New Zealand but a better back drop! That evening was spent having dinner at the hotel's restaurant (not going to win any awards, but nice enough) with a few beers before heading back to our room.
Sunday we had a nice lie-in and respected the islands very Christian beliefs by having a day of rest. We spent the day mainly lazing around the pool and doing very little - that afternoon we took our snorkels to the lagoon and had a play around out there. The lagoon was amazing, like a giant swimming pool. We swam probably just shy of a km to the reef before deciding we should probably think about getting back in. Visibility was a bit variable but the further out we got the better it got and the fishes were so cool!
Monday we decided to hire a car to explore the island, we picked up the car around midday and headed south, we stopped off at an old waterfall that no longer had a waterfall as the chiefs of the land above the water fall had a fight with the village at the bottom and decided to dam it - that showed them!! After the waterfall we stopped at some pretty viewing points before stopping to see the blow-holes. Pretty cool really, one of the old dudes that lives there grabs some coconuts and throws them into the blowholes just before the spew! AFter that we grabbed a quick bite to eat before moving on to the next. Our next stop was the beach at the far west of the island. The last place in the world to see the sun set. The thing that annoyed us about this little trip was that everyplace you stop for more than 2 mins, you get a local come and tell you that they want money for us to be there - and its not just a few quid either, one placed asked for the equivalent of £10 just to stand on the beach - little bit crazy - but you can see why they do it if it works! Unfortunately we didn't get to stay to watch the sun set, we needed start heading back, plus the clouds were rolling in, so probably wouldn't have been that much of a sunset anyway. On our way back, we decided to stop at one of the more up market resorts on the northern side of the island, unfortunatley we were not really dressed appropriately for the place, but what the heck...was an amazing meal, easily our best on Savaii. By the time we got back to our resort, we were suitably knackered, but managed a beer or 2 before bed!
On Tuesday, we still had the car till midday so we got up early and headed north back to see the turtles, we expected this to be a really expensive, well set up tourist trap, but we were wrong - it was a family who owned basically an enormous pond extended from the river, where they kept the turtles, it was deep enough that we could get in and have a swim with them. Unfortunately it was chucking it down with rain at the time so the visibility wasn't great, but it was still pretty cool, and a great opportunity to use my underwater camera. After that we headed back to drop off the car and then lounged by the pool for a few hours. That afternoon, Elizabeth had arranged for us to have a tour of a local village. Was a great tours, led by one of the members of the village, she took us to her home which was incredible, it was very outdoor, open plan living with a different hut as a different room of the house, she also took us into her plantation, where her son Ien showed us how he fetched the coconuts for the family, climbing to the top in less than 10seconds - phenomenol. That evening, we decided to try out a different resaurant on the island, which didn't turn out to be all that great, but good trying a different place anyway.
Wednesday we had a lazy day by the pool, good weather and a good book was all I wanted, and it delivered on both of those. That evening we went on a little trip to one of the plantations where they showed us all the different fruit and veg they grow and how they work and live in the plantations, really interesting and some lovely people.
Thursday was our last day on Savaii and Elizabeth invited us to her village for the day. She lives in a village about 3 down from the resort. Her story is really interesting, she was born and brought up in Sydney, but her father is Samoan, she always dreamt of heading back to Samoa for a simpler life. About 1 year ago when she was 28 she headed over and in less than a year she has settled into Island life and married a Samoan man (who played professional rugby in New Zealand before heading home to look after his widowed mum) cute story really and a fascinating couple. There home is amazing, and every night they go to their beach fale to sleep, imagine waking up every morning on the beach with a view of the lagoon....awesome! So, after spending the afternoon on their beach, we headed back to our resort for a fia fia night which all the staff put on for us, complete with Samoan dancing and the national fire dancing champion performing for us, oh and a barbeque and cocktails!
On Friday we got up early and headed down to the wharf to catch our ferry back to Upolo, the main island, unfortunately, although the weather was nice, the sea was rough, and there were alot of sick passengers on board......However, I did get to see a whale which was pretty cool! After arriving on Upolo, we caught to bus to Apia to Aggie Greys, the most famous hotel on Samoa, and I think we were the youngest people there by at least 20years! That afternoon we headed into town to buy a few bits and pieces before grabbing our snorkels and heading to the deep sea marine reserve. This was really cool, visibility was good and there were so many fish! Got a little over excited with the underwater camera there! That evening we found a really nice restaurant down the road and made a bit of an evening of it, before heading back to our hotel room in time to watch the All Black thrash the Wallabies in another awesome rugby match.
Sunday we woke up to rain - we attempted to find the bus to take us to the sliding rocks but then the storm blew in. A proper tropical storm - we got absolutely soaked on our return back to the hotel and didn't manage to make it out at all. Not a great end to the holiday but never mind, We managed to have a lovely last meal that night before heading to the airport at 11pm for our flight home. Unfortunately, we didn't think our flights through properly and had arranged to arrive back in Auckland at 4.30am in time to drive down to Hamilton to start work at 8am. Obviously not thought through, especially since our flight was delayed, our shuttle bus didn't turn up and I ended up an hour late for work.....oh and to top it off, the person I was due to be with that morning was the boss....nice one Sallie, oh well what can you do.
So, all in all, a great holiday. Looking forward to the next one......in 2 weeks to Queenstown skiing - YEY!!!
