Feb 2006 - A new year and a new island
The new year in Samoa started well enough - apart from the bars closing at 10 past midnight on new years eve....
The holiday fest continued with no need to attend work for most of the first week of Jan! Beaches and relaxing ensued. Geez it was hard to go back to work!
Mid Jan saw the weather start to turn nasty, with a few cyclones passing by and bringing rain and wind and flooding and landslides... what a great time for Mum to visit! Luckily a few sunny days arrived for her stay...
My birthday holiday this year is to a small, beachless island known as 'the rock'...
Niue - striking, quiet, remote and just a little weird.
A speck on the map in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
An independant country, heavily dependant on New Zealand and other foreign aid.
Like a large country town, isolated and insular. Word gets around and everyone knows you are her and what you are doing.
But the coastline is beautiful. Stunning. The water is like nowhere else. So clear, so blue. The colour of the breaking waves is amazing - a light bluey aqua that has to be seen to be believed - or you could just believe me.
You can watch the colourful fish and coral from the rocky outcrops above like it is some kind of aquarium. Even in low season.
However, low season also means wet season, cyclone season. While the weather has not been too bad (given there is a cyclone nearby) the rain and wind has meant many hours spent indoors. Reading novels, magazines and watching DVDs and playing on the free wireless internet. Yep - free wifi internet to the whole island. Which is almost too much of a distraction really. A reminder of the 'real' world out there. Though I think there can be such a thing as too much relaxing?!
A drive around the island highlighted the weird fact that the majority of 'houses' (or what is left of them) are empty. Abandoned houses, most affected by the cyclone a few years back, create a really spooky feel to the island - especially when it is overcast and rainy.
In better weather, and in better health (we have been fighting off a flu) Niue would offer many activities and action. The small amount of snorkelling and swimming I have managed to fit in between rain storms were fantastic and i'd love to explore more. If only i'd had reef shoes there would have been much more exploring as my hacked up toes attest to my foiled attempts.
posted by N-Lo @ 5:16 pm
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