We quickly found out why Savai’i is indeed the less touristy island. It was tough to get around the place, and difficult and expensive to make any travel or tour arrangements. The hard truth is that Savai’i really doesn’t have much to offer the tourist – or at least not as much as the island of ‘Upolu. If you’re pushed for time I’d suggest to travelers to stay on ‘Upolu.
A traditional Samoan wooden bus. They look like fun, but we never traveled in one with fewer than sixty people aboard… Yuk.
We stayed in Manase along the north coast and organized a taxi for the day with another couple to go around and see Savai’i. We spent the day doing a clockwise tour around the island, seeing all the sights (good and crap) along the way. Good was the lava field and underground lava tube. Crap was the "giant’s footprint", black sand beach and a piss-weak "canopy walk". Awesome was the waterfall swim and the chance to swim with sea turtles.
Beautiful Olemoe waterfall on Savai’i. It was a bit of a walk to get there and a scramble down the cliff, but definitely worth it for a refreshing swim!
Lava flowed through this church and destroyed it – a sure sign God isn’t a happee chappee! Plants are now just starting to reclaim the lava fields, 80 years after the eruption.
Adriana gets up close and personal with a huuuuge turtle.
Adriana and had I planned a mini-holiday within our Australian trip, and on New Year’s Day we flew from Melbourne to Apia, the capital of Independent Samoa (formerly Western Samoa, and yes that’s different to American Samoa). Because of the Date Time Line we actually arrived JUST after midnight on New Year’s Eve – almost got to do it all again! We made our way to our hotel and got to bed late. The next day we walked into town to explore Apia and found the place completely dead because of the public holiday and the fact it was also a Sunday.
Getting on our plane in Sydney – it was a stinking hot 45 degrees Celcius on New Years Day there!
There’s not much to see in Apia so we made plans to travel across to the larger (and less touristy)island of Savai’i the next day. We caught the ferry across and then crammed onto a Samoan bus to get to our destination: the beach town of Manase.
Believe it or not, even though I’d grown up in Melbourne, I’d never done the length of the Great Ocean Road! For those of you that don’t know, the Great Ocean Road is a coastal road that follows a large section of Victoria’s south-west coast. It’s a lovely, twisty two-lane road that hugs the mountain side with terrific ocean panoramas along the way – it’s similar to California’s Highway 1 if you know that.
A good tip…
One surprise along the way was coming across some koalas in a eucalyptus grove. I grew up in Australia and this is the first time I’ve ever see them in the wild!
Historic Loch Ard Gorge.
The Twelve Apostles – postcard perfect!
Green tree ferns in the Cape Otway National Park.