Arrival and Apia

We arrived in Samoa after a four-hour flight from Auckland, late in the evening and we were greeted by awful heat and one shy taxi-driver, who took us to the accommodation. During about 70-minute drive, he said only two sentences, which made me think about all those reviews on the internet saying that Samoans are warm and welcoming.

This kind of landscape made Marek say every other minute: "Hey, it looks here like in Far Cry 3!"

We asked the driver to stop at the supermarket, because we needed to buy some water and food, as we had pretty much nothing with us. Tired and confused, we were prompted by hand gestures of supermarket staff to leave our bags on the table before entering the shop and we received little numbers on the cardboard, so that we know, which bag is ours. We must have been kind of amusing, as the Samoans standing around were laughing (and I am still convinced they were laughing AT US though all the people later tried to tell us, that Samoans are just naturally happy). We bought some water and bread with white unidentified filling (which turned out to be some kind of sweet mousse and I am still not sure if I liked it or not).

When we reached our accommodation, nobody was around to greet us. The taxi driver pointed at the bungalow in front of us, so we just paid him and after the quick shower and bite into that weird bread we went to sleep.

In the morning we went to find somebody who could tell us where the hell we are and how to find the city centre and a supermarket. (It seemed pretty easy on the map I was studying in my room in New Zealand, but it was awfully hard in the reality of the Samoan morning heat in the middle of nowhere with no internet and no phone signal).

We found the space, which was obviously used for the breakfast - with two cups, two bowls and some cereals and tea and coffee, so we helped ourselves and waited what will happen. Soon the young Samoan girl arrived and without saying a word, she gave us some toasted bread with ham and cheese, bananas and papayas. Marek tried to start the conversation and asked her, if the town centre is on the road to the left. "To the right," she said. And that was it.

Marek going to the right.

So, after the breakfast, we went to the right. On the way to the centre, we came across Palolo Deep Marine Reserve, where you could rent for a small fee some snorkelling gear and explore the reef. The girl at the entrance didn't have any change at first, so we visited the place only after we got some small coins from the supermarket, but it was worth the detour - it was a really nice place with a lot of coral fish, peaceful and clean.

A friendly cat watched our stuff while we snorkeled.

The whole Apia on the other hand is not a beautiful place and whoever is telling you to go out of the town to enjoy the real Samoa is right. It is nice to walk around and have a look, but a day is enough for exploring the town.

At first we went to the Visitor Centre (air conditioning and information, hallelujah) and we booked a day trip around the island for the next day. We also went to the local flea market, where we bought some earrings made out of coconut shells and a nice wooden plate. We had some nice fresh coconut and coffee, sandwiches and headed back to the accommodation.

Samoans selling all kinds of fruit.

It seemed to me, that we were the only visitors of the island at that time (well for sure we were the only visitors at our accommodation), probably because of the fact that it was the rainy season. We were lucky though: during our whole stay it rained only during night.

Here are some pictures for you, so that you can enjoy Apia too. (I am just a bit sad, that you cannot feel the heat from the pictures. To truly understand the atmosphere, imagine it’s sauna hot around.)

Typical Samoan bus. Colourful and wooden.

24 km per hour. No rush, there is nowhere to go anyway.

Schoolkids having fun on the beach in the city.

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Samoa - an Introduction

We obviously couldn’t go back home from New Zealand without visiting one of the tropical islands of Polynesia. After hours and hours of researching, I chose Samoa, which was quite close and not so expensive. We spent 3 days on its biggest island Upolu and another 3 days on the smaller and wilder island Savai’i.

In this country, people speak Samoan and have their own currency Tala (and their paper money is colourful just like their nature). Samoa has population almost 200 000 and consists of two main islands - Upolu and Savai’i, and eight small islets. In case you don’t know, where this small, but beautiful country is, have a look here:

If you feel like reading about our adventures in Samoa, the country which inspired the writer Robert Louis Stevenson to write his Treasure Island, then go on here - Arrival and Apia.

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South Island Trip - Day 6 - Christchurch - Cardboard Cathedral and a Hungry Kea

In Christchurch we had just a few hours in the morning before our flight back to Auckland. After a quick and a bit depressing stroll in the damaged city centre we visited the "Cardboard Cathedral". The original Cathedral in Christchurch was badly damaged during the earthquake in 2011, so they built the Transitional Cathedral as a temporary place of worship. It is made pretty much just from cardboard and I found it really beautiful and peaceful.

Then my boyfriend's love for animals of all kinds got us to the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve. It wasn't the part of my plan, but we saw their leaflet at the hostel a day before and it looked interesting, so we gave it a shot. After we came back home, Marek told me it was probably the best experience of the whole trip for him. Though for me it wasn't number one for sure, I enjoyed a walk around tamed eals, cheeky Keas or my favourite animal small pig Kune Kune. 

Let me tie those shoelaces for you...

Scratching kune kune pig.

I wish there were still birds like this living in New Zealand!

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South Island Trip - Day 5 - Mt. Cook Village, Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo

On the day 5 of our trip we woke up at beautiful 6 a.m. (ouch!), because we had booked the Glacier Explorers tour the day before. They took us with the bus a bit closer to Tasman Glacier terminal lake, where we boarded the small boat and enjoyed our tour to glaciers floating on the water with some interesting commentary from our boat "captain". Well, at least I assume it was interesting. To tell you the truth, I hardly listened to anything he said, I was too consumed by the beauty of the surroundings and taking pictures. Here they come, enjoy the flood of blue and white colour:

The Fellowship of the Ring. Chinese version.

After the tour, we grabbed some coffee and returned to our car one more time to go back to Christchurch. For me, this was probably the nicest route we took during our south island trip and most of the time I just stared, unable to understand it and also unable to capture it with my camera (though I tried, of course I tried a lot).

Still in Mt. Cook Village.

The road next to the Lake Pukaki.

Goodbye mountains!

The truth behind our trip. This is pretty much all we did - me: taking pictures, Marek: eating Dorritos.

A girl reading a book next to the Lake Pukaki. Heaven.

We stopped one more time before going back to Christchurch - at the hot springs nearby lake Tekapo:

Lake Tekapo. Flowers, flowers everywhere.

Church of the Good Shepherd.

After visiting Lake Tekapo, I was really tired from seeing all that beauty around (and quite sick of taking pictures as well), so I put my camera into my bag and just dumbly watched the country for a while. Please accept my sincere apologies and this picture of the tired me with coffee in front of my dream car. This was one of the last pictures taken on that day. See you in Christchurch!

Hopefully this beauty will be mine in the future...

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South Island Trip - Day 4 - Lavender farm and Omarama

Soon after leaving Wanaka, we visited the Lavender farm. It was very nice and neat, as it was a newly born business - just a small house in the middle of nowhere, with a shop full of lavender products. We bought some gifts for our family members, had a nice chat with the owner who was selling them, dreamt a little bit about having our own lavender farm and then moved on.

Apart from compulsory stops for coffee and food, we did just one significant stop on our way to Mt. Cook Village. In Omarama, another nice village on south island, there are sheep shows organized for the tourists, so that they have an idea, where all those expensive Merino sweaters at airport shops come from. At first we just wanted to stop for a coffee, but the next sheep show was about to begin, so we decided to have a look at that as well.

We came to the big room with stage, surrounded by approximately one hundred Japanese. The show began with a short 10-minute talk about sheep shearing in New Zealand. (Every sentence in English was followed by the sentence in Japanese, from the cute little girl standing in the corner.) Then we were shown how to shear the sheep, at first with a shearing machine and then with a simple scissors, which is a way less common nowadays.

Merino sweater and our Japanese translator...

Sheep shearing demonstration. 

Maybe I should be ashamed, as I am from Slovakia and we have some sheep in my country as well, but it was the first time I saw the sheep shearing, so it was quite interesting for me (but maybe not as interesting as for those Japanese people, who seemed rather ecstatic).

Pure New Zealand nature... and a bunch of Japanese tourists.

After that, the sheep shearer took us outside and showed us how his sheepdog can control the flock of sheep and at the very end of the show he let us feed the baby sheep. The only thing you could hear at that time was "kawaiiiiiiii", the Japanese expression for cute.

After this cuteness overload, we jumped into the car and continued in our trip to Mt. Cook Village. As we drove closer to the mountains, the country got more and more beautiful. We drove by the beautiful lake Pukaki and ahead we had majestic mountains. I have never seen the water in Carribbean, but I am pretty sure, it must have the exact colour as the lake on the day we approached Mt. Cook Village. (Better photos to be seen in the next blog post, where I wasn't lazy and actually get off the car to take some pictures.)

And here are some pictures I took on our way there. 

Road & lake & mountains.

Mt. Cook Village. Just a couple of houses in the middle of mountains.

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