I also enjoyed the view of the ocean at the Crazy Uga. I also wrote and sent a postcard to my parents. Apparently Alexa did not make the 10am cutoff for when the mail on this island nation is collected for the week.

Thought I'd grab a hearty breakfast at the Crazy Uga Café to nurse away the hangover and to commemorate the completion of my visit to Niue, and thus the South Pacific. I ate leisurely and sat around recording my thoughts in my journal.

View of the backpackers from a bit north on the road towards downtown. It's in a great location and has a great setting.

I thought I'd drop in one last time to the tourism office and police station to see if anyone found my phone, but no luck. Oh well, it was a cheap phone, and I guess I'm leaving NZ anyway so probably won't need my NZ SIM card that much.

I woke up and and realized I completely forgot about the morning market - I wanted to see Ed(?), who apparently sells magnets - I like getting my parents a postcard and a magnet everywhere I go. Oh well, probably for the better, since I stayed up so late drinking last night. I picked up a postcard-like magnet at the tourism office instead. The commercial centre had an amusing recycling bin I though I'd take a photo of.

A picture of the Niue Yacht Club below the hostel (with bonus cat). They don't own any yatchs, but have lots of visiting members. Even Lucy the dog is a member and has her own member card. I am really going to miss the warm and carefree people here. I think this is one of the few places in the world I will absolutely try to return to some day.

We also made the poumere seeds we collected earlier. They tasted a bit like peanuts, and had the texture of popcorn kernels. Ira mentioned that huhu grubs taste like peanut better. We ended up chatting and drinking until 1am, while Alexa stayed up until 3. I know I'm going to miss this very special place and the people here already. I was feeling a bit sick near the end of the night - people sure do drink a lot in Niue.

Coming back to the hostel, Alexa and I squared the car expenses - she asked for more than I thought, but I thought I'd pay it since I wasn't sure if there was a misunderstanding and I wanted to support her anyway. I always feel welcome coming back to the hostel, as Brian immediately called me to join him for some drinks when he saw me returning, but I decided to take a shower first. Coming out of the shower, I was treated to beautiful singing coming from next door and this wonderful sunset view. Brian and Jim were happily drinking on the deck. What a great life. Alexa told me a great story about how Brian was supposed to drive some backpackers to the airport, but got drunk enough to fall down the steps, much to the dismay of the backpackers, but Alexa was there to drive them instead.

For reference, here is the inferior Palm brand corned beef that is also everywhere in the South Pacific. I took photos of the cans back at the hostel since I was getting sentimental about leaving the South Pacific in the next few days :( I ended up not needing the corned beef as Ira made us some delicious dinner from some leftovers, consisting of taro, real corned beef, and various other delicious South Pacific foods.

On the way back, we stopped at the well-known Israel Mart, where a man with a heavy Israeli accent serves up ice cream. Depending on his supply, he also has fresh and freshly-smoked fish sporadically. He said that he was making up a batch of honey-lime smoked fish for tomorrow, but had no fish today, so I picked up a can of Pacific brand corned beef -widely recognized as the superior brand. I was disappointed my can was made in Australia ..."to New Zealand recipe."