A Samoan sojourn

At long last, a travel entry! Boy, Lauren and I have been craving an overseas trip and our six days in Samoa really hit the spot. The timing was particularly good as we were starting to feel the gloom of winter closing in around us and I'd be really busy at work.

Despite rave reviews from friends, we were a bit dubious about how the break in Samoa would be. We stayed at Aggie's Grey's Resort, which was our first time doing a resort holiday. It was also our first overseas holiday with two kids, both of whom are very young. Would the humidity turn them into little balls of grumpiness?

So, was it a dull, stressful, hot, waste of money? Thankfully no. It was great!

People travel for a few different reasons, such as partying, adventures or relaxation. Two little kids means we don't do any of the first two any more and, while we were hoping for some of the latter, we knew that after more than a day of chilling out on a beach and/or a pool we'd be bored. We primarily travel for the exotic, the feeling of being somewhere different.

With that in mind I think we, like many in New Zealand, saw the Pacific Islands (or at least the ones on the tourist radar) as a bit tame. Beautiful beaches, but if you want exotic, you go further afield, say to South-East Asia.

Well, we were wrong. Samoa really, really feels like being in a different part of the world. Pigs, dogs, chickens and shirtless children wandering across the main road. Lizards climbing on walls, a rhinocerous beetle outside the door. Palms overlooking fales, the traditional houses that are everywhere.

And the churches. Almost every village has one that is fancier than almost every church in New Zealand. Though I note that shortly after driving past the church below ...

... the main road around the island turned into this one-lane, pot-holed track.

We turned back when puddles covered the road and the jungle closed in.

Well, it's up to the Samoans how they choose to prioritise their spending. When we stopped in one village and heard magnificent choral singing coming through the dusk, we wondered who was happier - New Zealanders with our wealth and infrastructure, or Samoans with their family and religion.

But while it has exotic charms, Samoa also feels comfortable. English is widely spoken, the locals are wonderfully friendly and there are the strong ties to New Zealand. The local paper, for example, had news of the sex scandal involving a Samoan-New Zealand Shortland Street actress and lots on the Super 15.

Those ties were another reason why we went. Samoan is the third-most commonly spoken language in New Zealand and Samoan-New Zealanders, from Tana Umaga to Oscar Kightley, are an important part of this country's culture. It's good to get a feeling for where they come from.

Being only there for six days and biting off small chunks of it, not wanting to push the kids too far, we've only seen a little of what Samoa has to offer. We'll be back soon.

Next time, Savai'i!

New land for old

Lauren, Amotai and I recently returned from Amotai's first trip overseas, and our big holiday for the year. It was a trip all about new stuff - we treaded new ground, heading to Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Adelaide, which we've not been to before (except for airport stopovers and a short trip to Sydney for work by Lauren a couple of years ago). And of course it was a new experience doing a big trip with a toddler. More on that in another entry.

We had a few doubts before the trip. Would Amotai cope with planes? Would he cope with being shunted around to lots of new and strange places? Would we get that buzz from travel, going to the culturally most similar country to home? Yes, sort of and hell yes.

I love going to new places. I get a mild kick out of walking down suburban roads I've never been on. I really like a new bush walk. New part of the world? Woop woop woop!

Sunset Rock, Mt Victoria, The Blue Mountains

One year ago

What a year! From this, this time last year:

To this.

And at risk of sounding cheesier than a cheese burger, I'd take the mushed up food any day

On an island in the sun

You all know the stories. The German who's been to Cambodia and Peru, but not to France.  The American who's surfed off South Africa, but never seen the Empire State Building. So many people neglect the gems in their backyard while looking for them on the far side of the planet.

To an extent, that's true of us.  It was only last year that I went to Australia and I've never been to Cape Reinga, while Lauren's never been to Milford Sound.  Only once has one of us been to a Pacific Island - Lauren's trip to Tonga.

So going to Rarotonga this month was an overdue pleasure.

My whole life, I never made the connection. Duh.

And what a pleasure it was.  We've been a bit dubious about island/resort type holidays - there's only so much lying in the sun that we can take before we get bored.  One of the great things about Raro is that it's as gorgeous a tropical island as any cliche - rugged jungle-covered hills, palms drooping over white beaches, coral atol teeming with fish, friendly locals - but there's a lot more to do than just laze around. While we were there we:



Went on a glass-bottom boat tour and learned about coconuts from this guy, the Pacific coconut tree climing champ. Seriously, he was awesome.



Got cultural: visited the site where the Great Fleet waka allegedly left for New Zealand and watched a tapu-raising ceremony at the marae at Highland Paradise



Raced crabs. The little pincers were everywhere.



And, of course, spent a lot of time lying around doing some light reading. For the record, I read a trashy fantasy.

And despite an economy dominated by tourism, Raro doesn't feel like a tourist trap. Grab a bike and head inland and you are surrounded by taro fields, pigs, rusting cars, innumerable small cemetaries and Rarotongans going about their lives. It is a genuine place, and certainly different enough from New Zealand to make you feel that, despite not needing to change currency, you had visited a very different part of the world.

Add in some nice restaurants and plenty of adventure-type options (I tried scuba diving for the first time, which is another story), and Rarotonga has it all.  Go.

Koala-rama

I'm spending a few days in Australia, and am blogging today from Sydney. Sydney's lovely - like what I imagine Auckland could be like if it had better infrastructure and weather - and I'm enjoying walking around and checking it out.

The highlight for me so far has been a wildlife centre on Darling Harbour, where I saw snakes and other creepy beasties that I would hate to see in the wild. There was a giant croc as well that gave me the heebie-geebies good and proper. The best part about the centre, though, was the koalas. I know it's terribly cliche to get a koala picture while in Australia but I don't care - aren't they cute?

Tonga

Tane's blog entry on Melbourne (and the very exciting use of the new tag "Travel in Australia and the Pacific") reminded me of another great trip I did back in 2005 to Tonga. I'd always been curious about Tonga, largely because of having Tongan family connections. My Grandpa was born in Tonga in 1914 as his parents were missionaries there, and my aunt married a Tongan man as well so some of my cousins are Tongan. As I hadn't been to Tonga before, though, these connections meant nothing to me apart from the fact that having an ancestor born there before the 1930s means that I could buy land there should I choose. That, and they fact that I know the Tongan word for 'spicy'.

In 2005, Ngaire and I decided to visit my Uncle and Aunt there, and it was a great week. It was especially neat having them to show us around, give us information about the country, and in the case of my uncle, cut open many a coconut for us to drink. Awesome.

It's true what Tane always says - visiting places where you know someone are always the best. In those trips you gain a greater level of knowledge and appreciation about a place - for example, that the frequent power cuts in Tonga were caused by the then Crown Prince stringing up his Christmas lights. Ngaire and I were talking recently about how glad we are that we went to Tonga when we did, as our Uncle and Aunt live in New Zealand now so we wouldn't have been able to visit them there if we'd gone later. And really, with regard to places when you know someone, that would have been a real shame. I certainly wouldn't have been able to cut open coconuts on my own.

At last, across the ditch

Hello all,
Crickey, it's been a while since I blogged. To be honest, I've been thinking of blogging as time better spent working on my Great Unwritten Novel, which I've actually made a bit of progress on. Not much as I should of course. For instance, I'd earmarked last Sunday afternoon for writing but instead spent many hours disemboweling a dodgy vacuum cleaner. Such is our exciting domestic life.
Anyhow, we're about to get our backpacks on again and tackle China, which is very exciting. It's gotten me back in the mood for a long-overdue mention of my visit to Melbourne.

Melbourne is one of those cities, like Vancouver or San Francisco, that no one has a bad word for. And guess what? Neither do I. It's very multicultural, with an impressive cityscape, a pretty river, the best market I've ever seen and a stack of cultural attractions - including an excellent musuem (featuring wonderhorse Phar Lap and superb sections on Aboriginies and prehistoric beasts).

The best thing about the visit though - aside from the fact that the flights were free, as it was a work trip - was the mighty MCG, the second most famous cricket ground in the world. It's enormous, holding 100,000 people, but it's the history that really makes it a treat for sports nerds. It's the home of the Australian Sports museum, which I spent hours in (Shane Warne in 3D! Try your foot at kicking Aussie Rules goals!). There's a very cool tapestry of major sporting events that have happened there - Aussie Rules finals, Bledisloe Cup rugby, baseball and of course cricket, wonderful cricket. Almost all of the greats have walked out onto that pitch, including perhaps the greatest sportsperson of all time. This is hallowed ground.

The Don

This was my first visit to Australia, which is rather embarrassing given I've been to 30-odd other countries. It's like English people who've never been to Scotland, or the many Kiwis who've not been to either the South or North Island, but have travelled to the other side of the planet. You take for granted what's in your back yard, thinking you'll get to it sometime, that it won't be new and exciting. And it's true that Melbourne didn't feel exotic - it was rather like a New Zealand city I've not visited - but it was cool. I look forward to my next trip across the ditch.