Saturday 21 August Exploring Niue

Floral display entries

Delos and Ghost have invited us to share their hire car, a people carrier that carries 7 people, to tour and explore Niue. The crew of Delos are American, Brian, his wife Erin and his younger brother Brady. Ghost are a Aussie Pom combo, Brad the Australian and his English wife Cat. The couples are early 30s, Brady early 20s. We had an early start to get over to the village of Hakefu for their annual village show. It could almost have been the Home Counties with craft and food stalls set out around the village green with its war memorial to those who lost their lives in WW1 and WW2, a small pavilion with the competition entries for best floral display, basket weaving, wood carving, spear heads, cakes, honey and the vegetable table, no marrows but plenty of taro roots and coconuts. The entertainment programme began at 8am with an aerobics display by the local ladies and there wasn't a bean pole among them. Keep on dancing ladies.

Canoe cave

As the ladies marched on we marched on to our first point of interest, the canoe landing stage on the north coast. This is an ancient site where fishermen have landed their canoes on the rocky coast and hauled them up into the caves above the sea. They are still used today with canoes stored inside. There was a bonus sighting of humpback whales off the coast.

Tavala arch

Next stop for the DIY Niue Tour Bus was the natural rock arch at Tavala. From the car park it was a mile walk along a coral path under the shade of trees, through a gap in the trees, through a big cave and we were at the shoreline looking at one of the biggest natural sea arches I've seen. It was low tide so we could walk over the exposed rock / coral out to the arch and see the waves breaking on it.

Freshwater pool

No time to linger, retracing our steps back to the car and a cold beer at the convenient snack bar, we grabbed our masks, snorkels and fins and took the second path down to the swimming pool. A long and deep fissure in the cliffs filled from the land side by a freshwater stream and by the sea at the end, although you can't see the sea from the inside because a large rock blocks the sea entrance. It was midday and we needed a cooling swim. Interestingly the freshwater was colder than the seawater and the freshwater floats on top of the heavier saltwater. As you dive under the temperature is warmer lower down and visibility is clearer. A bonus of this pool is you pass through freshwater as you get out – no itchy salt residue on your skin.

Limu pools

Next stop heading anticlockwise around the coast was Limu Pools. Wow! A film location finder's dream. An easy path from the road down to golden rocks surrounding crystal aquamarine swimming pools to take another cooling dip. The pools are extensive and open to the sea. There are some freshwater streams that flow in which give you a cold whoosh every now and then but you can soon be back in the warm and shallow water. Niue is a beautiful island and very few people visit. Mostly from New Zealand which is 3 ½ hours flight away. No foreigners are allowed to buy land, all land is owned by the islanders and consequently there's only one hotel resort.
We ended our busy day with a slap up curry and cold beer. A very decent curry with poppadoms and very cold beer.