More than a year ago Jarrod McCabe had the idea to get a few Saint Marks families together to visit Greg Halls in Samoa, Hallsy’s been working on the island of Upolu for ANZ Bank since 2017. It took some coordination to get everyone’s schedules synchronized, but we all made it happen: the Littles from Adelaide, McCabes from Melbourne and Valtenbergs from San Francisco made for a total of six adults and seven kids.
The Littles and Valtenbergs stayed at Ifiele’ele Plantation on the northwest coast of Upolu, a beautiful spot in the jungle a few kilometers inland from the ocean. The plantation is run by a New Zealander who married an Aussie woman and moved to Samoa 10 years ago, they run a self-catering villa on the plantation as well as producing pretty much every kind of organic tropical fruit one can imagine. It was an ideal spot for the kids to run around and the three families to gather, the pool providing endless hours of enjoyment for the kids and the open grass seeing a few games of backyard cricket during our stay. The plantation staff would harvest fresh coconuts for us to drink and provided us with a dizzying array of local fruit, even cooking us up local dishes to sample one afternoon. The sasalapa was something I’d never seen before, quite a lot of work to deseed but great to freeze for our morning smoothies. The kids were quite enamored with the staff climbing the coconut trees to pull niu coconuts for us!
The Littles and Valtenbergs arrived a day earlier than the McCabes, on our first full day on the island we headed across the island to the south coast to explore some of the beaches around Savaia. The Samoans seem to have retained a lot of their traditional lifestyle, subsisting mainly on locally grown fruits and vegetables supplemented by fish. There was very little livestock farming evident on the island, though pigs and lots of piglets running across the road from the jungle was a pretty common sight. Most farming plots were small areas of jungle near the villages cleared to grow taro – an island staple – as well as all manner of tropical fruits. Most Samoans still live in traditional fales: open-sided houses with thatched roofs. The villages and roadsides across almost the entire island were amazingly well kept, manicured lawns and hedged tropical plants lining the borders of each village. It’s quite evident that the Samoans take a lot of pride in keeping their homeland tidy.
Once the McCabes arrived – they stayed in the capital of Apia with Halls – we met one morning at the giant clam sanctuary on the south coast for a spot of snorkeling. From there we all settled into our daily routine of meeting at a beach somewhere on the island midmorning – usually with a packed lunch, as eateries outside of Apia are few and far between – and then heading back to either Apia or Ifiele’ele for dinner. I’ll let the photos do the talking when it comes to the natural beauty of Samoa, but some of our favorites were To-Sua Trench, the giant clam sanctuary and the beach at Lalomanu. All the kids got on like a house on fire, so much fun having everyone together for the week!
The girls were kind enough to handle the munchkins solo one morning so the boys could take a trip on a charter beyond the reef for a spot of game fishing. It was a beautiful sunrise as we motored out of Apia past the breakers, although the swells after the previous evening playing Liar’s Dice were a little too much for my stomach! We hunted for flocks of birds diving into bait balls, eventually trolling through one and hooking a roughly 7KG/15LB mahi-mahi (or masi-masi, as the locals call them). Matt was as happy as a kid in a candy store as he reeled in our first catch, the colors were amazing as our Tuvaluan skipper gaffed it into the boat. We trolled through another bait ball later in the morning and hooked another mahi-mahi but unfortunately it wriggled off the hook and we weren’t able to land it (although we could see its electric colors in the water as it darted back and forth on the lure). A long morning of trolling for our single fish, but much better than getting skunked and I’d have to rate mahi-mahi as one of the best tasting fish out there (especially when cooked by Chef Matt!). I think there was only one of nine dinners on Upolu when we didn’t eat fish, couldn’t get enough!
We had a day-and-a-half to ourselves at the end of the trip, as the McCabes and Littles headed back Down Under before we were due to head home. We spent the morning in central Apia, with breakfast at our favorite Cafe Nourish, and then caught a couple of games of rugby at the Pacific Games. The Pacific Games is a gathering of all the Pacific island countries that’s held every four years, the Games were underway during our stay and we were lucky enough to catch the home country’s sevens play neighboring American Samoa as well as Papua New Guinea play Solomon Islands. The open air markets on the Apia waterfront were a good spot to grab a few souvenirs, and I was also able to snap some shots of the colorful buses that circle the island. I loved the buses: Nissan and Toyota diesel contraptions from yesteryear painted with all manner of decorations. Each one had its own name and they were typically packed to the gills with locals. It didn’t seem like too many of the locals owned cars of their own, which is understandable given the median annual income in Samoa is roughly US$10.5K. The low level of income makes the purchase of a car a huge investment, and explains why the islanders like to protect their investment by driving drive at speeds of 40KPH/25MPH on the open roads, or even as slow as 15KPH/10MPH on the many rougher sections of the island. 99% of the roads are single lane, definitely made for some interesting driving… The Samoan taxis were especially frustrating, often holding up scores of cars on Upolu’s main coastal road as they crawled along. The owner of Ifiele’ele commented that even after living in Samoa for 10 years the Samoan drivers still drive him nuts! They’re on island time, they have all the time in the world…
In the kids’ opinions, Hallsy saved the best adventures for last: following our morning in Apia we spent our last full day on an adventurous excursion up into the mountains to Sauniatu Falls and then to the cave pool below Piula Theological College. Sauniatu is definitely a locals-only spot, getting there entailed six kilometers/four miles up a rough dirt road that wasn’t even on my phone’s maps app. We had the place to ourselves for an hour or so until some of the local village boys came to join us for a swim. A majestically beautiful spot, Lilia and Max were in heaven, one of the most beautiful waterfall settings I’ve ever visited, without a doubt… The local boys were diving and flipping off the cliffs surrounding the falls, even climbing behind the cascades and jumping through the torrent into the plunge pool. Max was in awe. The cave pool at Piula was pretty awesome too, it’s fed by a freshwater aquifer and the clarity of the water was astonishing (albeit a little chilly!).
Our 10 days in Samoa went so quickly, but I guess that’s always the way with good friends: you pick up right where you left off and time flies by when you’re enjoying yourself so much! It really was great to get everyone together in such a stunning location, fun to get to know the Little and McCabe kids as well, they grow up so quickly when we don’t see them for a year or two at a time. Credit to Hallsy for putting together a jam-packed itinerary of all the best Upolu has to offer and making it work so well with seven kids under the age of nine. Thanks everyone for making the trip, it was a very memorable one for us!
Matt’s Ultimate Baked Fish
- 350 grams (11.5 ounces) cherry tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon shredded lemon or lime zest
- 8 garlic cloves, bruised
- 1.5 tablespoons salted capers, rinsed
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 4 X 120 grams (4 X 4 ounces) firm white fish fillets
- Lemon or lime juice
- Sea Salt and cracked black pepper
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C (350F)
- Place the tomatoes, lemon zest, garlic and capers in a baking dish
- Drizzle with half the oil and bake for 20 minutes
- Add the fish fillets to the baking tray
- Drizzle with the remaining oil and cook for a further 15-20 minutes or until cooked through
- Drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle with salt and pepper
- Serve with the tomatoes and green salad
Such a wonderful life. Good health, good friends, great destination and unusual activities. Lucky families????????
What a GLORIOUS holiday and GRAND adventure!!!!!!! We are very very happy for you all !!!!!!!