Welcome!
Welcome to my personal travel journal! If you don't know me, that's OK! I hope you'll enjoy reading about some of my adventures and misadventures, and hopefully learn something new about a corner of the world.
Recent updates:
2015-10-06: Day 8 of Niue in 2011.
2015-10-05: Day 7 of Niue in 2011.
2015-09-29: Day 6 of Niue in 2011.
For list of trips, see TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The moon is just a sliver in the sky, but crisp and clearly visible in the clean air and lack of light pollution for hundreds of kilometres around. I made the same pasta dinner as last night, with the addition of a tin of mackerel in tomato sauce I picked up at the store, which dominated the flavour.
We walked back to the cove and the car after the sunset. The bakery in Alofi was open pretty late, so we picked up a loaf of coconut bread that Alexa recommended. It was great - thick, flavourful, with lots of coconut! Leaving the bread out overnight didn't seem to cause any problems, but later the next day, the entire loaf was thoroughly permeated with thousands of tiny ants! How did they burrow to the centre of the bread so quickly?
Driving back across to the west side of the island, we noticed many gravestones everywhere. I've noticed this in other parts of Polynesia as well - apparently some use them like survey markers to mark property boundaries. The Toi village hall had another one of those amusing signs - advertising "WOMENS GOSSIP." Well, that sold me! I should stop by and see what the women are gossiping about!
This landscape is typical for the Niuean coastline. You can see the general shape of Niue here - the island is roughly made of two plateaus. The central plateau, rising about 60m above the ocean (the highest point of Niue is a small hill in the north, reaching 69m above sea level), is ringed by a narrow plateau a bit lower. Steep coral cliffs are between the plateaus and the ocean. Plenty of jagged razer-sharp coral rocks jut out all around the island, in what I proclaim to be the worst place for a baby to learn to walk. You can get cut up pretty badly if you fall anywhere on the island!
This mound had tree roots growing over it and water dripping on it. Although it looked slimy, it felt like a smooth layer or rock. I wonder if the tree roots are still alive, preserved in rock in this way, and how did the roots not crack out of the thin layer of what appeared to be rock as they were growing.
Other portions of the cave wall appeared to be made up of large chunks of coral compressed together. Looking at the rocks up close, some of the smaller patterns of coral are surprisingly well preserved. There were some stories about evil spirits in this cave, and some rumours that people were living in it. Maybe the stories are related?
View of the shoreline to the north. Note the little puff of water mist from the peninsula - we wondered if there was a cool blowhole in the forest there, but were not able to find any trace of it. Ira and Brian also didn't seem to know of any blowholes there. Looking at satellite pictures after the trip, it looks like there may be a channel cut in the rock that concentrates the waves to form puffs of water. It would have been cool to see up close.
We continued our drive north and ended up at Ulupaka Cave in Motu. The Kololi girls brought lunch - we should have thought of that! The hike to Ulupaka Cave was immediately interesting with a varied landscape. The terrain was steep and rocky, with some exposed sections covered in foliage. There were also crude but stable ladders for the steeper sections of the trail.
On the walk back, Alexa collected some of these bright red seeds. She told me that they are edible and will prepare some for us to try. These bright red seeds were pretty common in the Niuean forests, and I remembered seeing our taxi driver in Savai'i with something similar, which I was curious about. She called it something like "poumere," but I can't find the proper name for it. However, in searching online, I've identified this as adenanthera pavonina. The brilliance of these seeds have led to them being used for jewellery in some parts of the world.
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