We have fled from the Samoan Village Resort and are now in the luxury Aggie Grey's hotel in relatively civilised Apia. We had to leave SVR, not because we were the only guests there (slight exaggeration - I saw another couple one morning, but never again), and not because the whole place seemed to be stuck in a 1970's timewarp (despite being less than ten years old) but because of the food, or rather the lack of it. The Resort had a snackbar, irregularly open, which served mainly sandwiches and soup. There were self-catering facilities in the fale - but the local shop (about 15 minutes walk away) had virtually no fresh food. Carrots were the only available vegetables.

There's only so long you can live off pot noodles and beans on toast without getting seriously fed up.

So we are now in Aggie Grey's. This is by far the poshest hotel in the country - with two restaurants serving excellent, plentiful food. Last night there was an "eat all you can" buffet of Samoan and international food, costing 35 tala (about seven pounds sterling).

Tonight we are due to fly to Fiji. Unfortunately, we get in at 3 am and our onward flight is not till 8 am so we will be trashed for most of tomorrow. We're staying at the Rainbow Reef Resort and we're both looking forward to a week of snorkelling over the coral reef (and eating well, not that I've become obsessed ...).

We are back in Apia for the morning - so we can do some blogs - before we head off to the Samoan Village Resort for a week of lazing by the beach. We spent the weekend doing an adventure tour of Savaii (the larger, but less populous island in Samoa) and we are now both of us muscle-weary and covered in insect bites.

We were picked up by Ken from Adventure Man travel on Friday morning. Ken is a Canadian who has moved to Samoa (for some unknown reason) and has been living here for several years. He is a great source of stories about what it is really like to live in Samoa. Perhaps we'll publish some of these (when we are safely off the island). We took the ferry from Upolu to Savaii, and it was cloudy, windy and rough. Of course, we both felt sick by the time we got there.

We drove for about an hour to get to the Vacations Resort. This was a collection of about twelve high-quality beach fale (oval wooden huts with thatched roofs on the beach - ours was about five metres by three. They had electricity, but no private toilet facilities.) The owner of the resort was around to chat at meals - he was an interesting character: he had been a wrestler in the WWF (called "The Flashing Lou" - which I have to say is an unfortunate nickname on so many levels) for many years, returned to Samoa and gotten into politics. He is now the Deputy Prime Minister, acting Minister of Communication and a Human Rights Protection Party MP for almost twenty years. Sort of the Samoan Jesse Ventura.

That afternoon we went to the Dwarf Cave. (Linda felt ill and so stayed at the resort.) This was real Indiana Jones stuff - we entered the caves through a small metre high entrance and walked and stumbled our way for about two kilometres underground in the pitch dark with two fairly weak torches. There were also five freshwater pools that had to be crossed, and a fair amount of clambering down steep rock faces. We finally arrived at a mud cave that was entered by crawling through a very narrow entry (only about 30 centimetres high) which was very muddy indeed. By the time we'd got into the cave, we were all completely covered in mud. And then we had to walk back ... Well, at least we could wash some of the mud off in the pools.

The next morning we set of to see some turtles. This is a small, unfunded, family-run conservation project. They buy turtles, mostly green turtles and hawksbills, off fishermen (who would otherwise eat them) and keep them in a large fresshwater pool. They are currently trying to build a sandy beach to allow them to lay eggs. Not perfect, from an ecological point of view, but certainly the best of its kind we've seen in Samoa. It is possible to swim with the turtles which was great fun.

We then drove to the far east of the island to a place called Faleloupu. This has a magnificent white sand beach. We spent several hours lazing around here and swimming in the sea (and also getting too far out on a boogie board and having great difficulty getting back to the shore against the tide.) The area around Faleloupu had been devastated by a hurricane in 1990. We spent a while exploring the ruined churches and tombs, which were the only buildings left standing.

The next day we set off early to the blowholes at Taga. These are tunnels eroded in some lava fields, when the waves strike the lave, water is forced through the holes and up into the air. Unfortunately, we had a cross wind which was reducing the size of the spray to about ten metres or so (apparently it can get up to 30 metres if conditions are ideal). It was still good fun to throw coconuts into the holes - if you timed it correctly they would get thrown up with the spray. I managed this twice (although they didn't go very high.)

Next we went to a beautiful waterfall which fell into a volcanic crater. This was covered in vegetation and had a real "Lost Worlds" feel to it. This feeling was enhanced by the fact we had to climb down a twenty metre home-made wooden ladder to get down into the crater. After an hour or so, jumping into the pool and swimming around in the cool, refreshing water, it was back up the ladder, into the van and off to the ferry.

Sunday night is very quiet in Apia, so we had an early meal and an early night. Now we're off for some rest and rehabilitation!

I lied in the last blog and we are (obviously) posting another one before heading off for remoteness. Steve is posting a blog about the three day trip that we have just done and I am going to post a few impressions about Samoa.

Everyone here speaks English and so one assumes that the society here has similar values to ours and that people think in pretty much the same way. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If the earth was flat I reckon two steps from here and you would step off the edge. It is very, very different. Not unlike how I imagine medieval times to be.

Firstly the family comes first and without a village you are nothing. The chief of the village has absolute power and there are two laws - village law and then the whole police style law. The village law is still pretty much the main one of the two. The worst punishment is banishment from your village as then you really are at rock bottom. Loyalty is very important. Here is an example (true story). A guy went abroad and made a bit of money. He came back and bought a bus and from his village operated a bus service to Apia (the capital) charging about US$1 which is quite fair as it is about an hour's drive. Anyway, the chief of the village approached him and said that he should take all the villagers from his village for free. He explained that he couldn't do this and that he was operating a business and he needed to make money to cover his costs. So the villagers burnt down his bus (you don't get vehicle insurance here). He was obviously not too pleased about this and moved to the next village in protest. At the next inter village cricket match the original village saw him playing for the other side and weren't too happy. So they summoned him and his family to see the chief. Then they executed him.

Women here are very badly treated. They are kept in their place by a bit of bashing from the menfolk. Consequently the aim of a lot of girls is to bag a foreign man. Their family encourage this as then he can support the family too (remember, family first and foremost). If they go to live abroad even better as they can then send remittances (the biggest income here). Families are large as the more kids you can send abroad the more income you get. As lots of girls go abroad homosexuality is quite tolerated and not uncommon. So middle aged men can come here and get a young wife who will be more than happy to marry him. There are practically no western women living here although there are western men living here.

Corruption is high and very in your face. In most corrupt countries people seem to acknowledge that it goes on and also know that is wrong but hey what can you do about it. Here there doesn't seem to be that concept that there is anything wrong with it. People will just ask one another for money on the off chance that you will give it to them.

Headline news a few months back : "Smoking is bad for your health". Yes that's right - up until then nobody thought that it could be unhealthy to smoke.

The church is very important. In every village people live in fairly basic accomodation but the church is always an elaborate and well constructed structure. People also give all their money to the church even though most of the churches are also corrupt. It is no coincidence that the shamed American evangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Benny Hine have ended up here.

There is no long term planning. It seems that only the goal of today is thought about. An example is at the Millenium celebrations it was widely viewed that people would want to come here because it would be the last sunset of the twentieth century here. So they put up lots and lots of ugly fale and chopped down lots of palm trees so that people could see the sunset. However, nobody had thought about the problem of people getting here. There are no charter flights here and very few flights a week operated by Polynesian Airlines. Of course this is expensive but the government here won't allow any competition to the airline (presumably they have interests there) and turn down the companies that want to fly people here and guarantee x number of visitors. So now there is lots of accomodation and no one to use it.

For local news you should take a look at the Samoa Observer. The archives haven't been updated for a a few days but the cover article on Saturday 15th (once the archive is updated) is a good example of life here.

Despite all this Samoa has been my favourite bit of the Pacific because it has been so different and stimulating. I highly recommed it if you are passing by.

This will probably be a our last blog for a little while as we are heading out of Apia and communication facilities here are quite sparse. There are a few prepaid card phones and you have to consult a map to find them. When you do find a phone there is a bit queue and no privacy. To cap it all we bought a phonecard and have lots of units left on it but when we tried to make an international call with it the phone would not allow it!

Yesterday we went on a tour around "Upolu" with a rather amateur but quite fun outfit. There isn't really any tourist infrastructure here so organising things is quite difficult. Our van was completely clapped out (door gaffa taped shut, need of oil, etc.) and the driving here is quite bad but we are still in one piece. We visited several waterfalls and did some jumping off one of them. Or rather, I just swam around in the freshwater pool at the bottom of the waterfall and the action man Steve did the jumping. Well someone had to take the photos of the jumpers.....The water was glorious, really refreshing.

We had lunch (they actually served vegetables so Steve and both leapt on the vegetable curry option - veggies are a real luxury) and then had a look at some beach fales as a few of the people on the tour wanted to stay in the fales. I have to say that I wouldn't last more than two nights in one of those. No privacy, no space and really nothing to do. I don't even want to think about what the communal hygiene facilities are like as this is quite an underdeveloped country.

In the afternoon we went to the Ocean Trench for a bit of Indian Jones style activities. I have to confess that I had enough of slipping and sliding around and bunked off to sit in the sea whilst the others seriously drained their energy. They even did a swim from the ocean into a cave where you have to swim completely underwater for a few minutes. It doesn't sound a lot but when the current is strong and the tunnel is quite far under the water it is hard work. At least that's Steve's excuse for the massive puffing and panting that he was doing when he got back! Two of the people chickened out and joined me sitting in the sea. I have to say that an accident was not an unforeseeable event and there would be "emergency procedures" available as things here just don't work like that.

We are going to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum this afternoon and also trying to get in touch with some hotels in Fiji. Tomorrow we are going on a three day two night tour around Savai'i (the bigger Samoan island) where we are visiting various snorkelling sites and swimming with turtles. I was a bit concerned that the guide said you can hold onto them as they are an endangered species. I did give him an earful about it and sensible eco tourism.

We get back into Apia late on Sunday night and then head off to the Samoan Village Resort for six days and seven days of blissing out on the beach. We are staying in a beach fale but I think it is a luxury one. At least I hope it is for that price....On the tour yesterday we saw how life outside Apia is and the word is basic. It really is a strange place. People here are extremely polite and try to be helpful. I'm sure we were driving the person in Polynesian Airlines crazy when trying to rearrange our flights (we are not even flying with Polynesian Airlines but there aren't many airline offices here) but the man/woman (it was a man masquerading as a woman) was very patient and helpful. I think if we had been in New Zealand or the UK the person would have told us to make up our minds and then come back.

Everyone is also very softly spoken and it is quite difficult to restrain yourself from saying "Speak up boy, you're mumbling! Enunciate properly!".

Anyway, as the internet cafes and telephones seem to be in Apia and we will not be in Apia this might be our last blog until Fiji (we arrive at some very early in the morning time on 26th June).

We are now in Samoa - and enjoying it a lot. The place is an unspoiled paradise - the landscape is lush and green and the people are friendly and very polite. (A minibus from the hotel picked us up from the airport. On the way back, the driver asked us if it would be okay for him to stop and buy something at a shop. And thanked us when he got back in the minibus.) After a very thundery start, the weather has been fantastic - sunny and hot the whole day long.

We arrived late on a Saturday night. As this is a very God-fearing country, nothing was open on the Sunday, so we had to spend it sitting by the pool (it's a hard life). The next day we went into Apia - the capital of Samoa. (Out hotel was about a mile or so from town). This is a working town - with very few tourists about. The place is dominated by the many churches (I counted eight along the waterfront) and by the harbour. There's a lot of people bustling about - men and women wearing "skirts" called lavalava and schoolkids in smart shorts and shirts outfits. Also quite a few cars - although nowhere near enough to justify having the policeman direct traffic.

We've moved to a hotel in Apia and tomorrow we are on a trip around Upolu (the island we're on at the moment). At the weekend we are doing a long tour of Sava'ai, which is the other main island of Samoa. We've decided that we are trying to fit in too much travel - so we are not now going to visit Tonga. Rather we will spend a week on a beach in the south of Upolu (where "Return to Paradise" was filmed).

This is a serious informational desert - there are about one and a half television channels, which seem to show religious programmes most of the time, no satellite TV, the only available radio stations are also evangelical Christians and the newspapers are full of very local news. If you didn't know that there was a World Cup on at the moment, then it would be very difficult to find that out.

We are at the end of our stay in New Zealand and will depart for Samoa tomorrow. Our stay here has been very pleasant and enjoyable although not very challenging. Everything is so easy to organise and as everyone speaks English it is very simple to organise everything. It is a pity that we were not able to enjoy the best bits of the South Island due to the cold weather but you can't get it right all the time. I don't think that I would come on a holiday just to visit New Zealand on its own but if you are passing through I would recommend stopping off. We are thinking that we will come back to sample Queenstown and perhaps combine it with a visit to the Cook Islands.

So what have we been up to the for the last week? Well we went on our dolphin exploring trip with a company called Dolphin Explorer. It was a really good day out (despite the sea sickness that I got) and we saw about 100 dolpins and 2 whales. The dolphins came right up to the boat to get a free ride (not to play with humans as is commonly thought) which was great. The whales (a mother and calf) were not so close and about 100 - 150 metres away from the boat.

Unfortunately we were not able to get in the water with the dolphins as there were baby dolphins in the pod and also the water was too rough. It didn't matter though as they were so highly visible. Whilst we were standing at the front of the boat watching the whales we hit some really choppy water and got completely soaked. It was too rough to let go of the railing to move to a drier spot so we just had to crouch down and get hit by wave after wave after wave....There was a moment when I thought that we were going to go overboard. Our legs were really sore the next day from trying to stay upright and on board during this choppy bit.

The next day we set off on our mini New Zealand tour. We caught a flight down to Christchurch which is quite small and reminded us both of the town of Newmarket in East Anglia. Quite a pretty place but very cold. The next morning we had to leave our hotel at 7:10 am to catch the Tranz Coastal train to Kaikoura and the temperature was -2 degrees celcius! The train journey was quite pleasant but if you do catch this train do not have the bacon and egg roll for breakfast. I don't know how those eggs were cooked but they tasted very odd and distinctly iffy.

Our reason for visiting Kaikoura was for watching male sperm whales. Kaikoura is an old whaling town and it doesn't really seem to have left its past behind. It is very small and there isn't much going on there. We were quite shocked by the hotel that we were put in. Luckily we still had some duty free vodka left which helped us cope with that night's accomodation. I wouldn't mind (and we have stayed in worse on this trip) but if you are going to stay in a dump you do expect to pay very little money for it. To pay a reasonable price one would expect a reasonable room. We didn't have much choice in the matter though and so had to grin and bear it.

It was worth stopping in Kaikoura as the whale watching was excellent. The sea was very choppy again but this time I was prepared and had some travel sickness pills and sat at the back of the boat. We were told that usually a trip will see one or two whales. We were extremely fortunate and saw seven. Plus another three that were just going down. They ranged in size from 15 - 17 metres in length. Sperm whales dive for 40 - 50 minutes and then come to the surface for about 10 minutes so the trick is to find one that has just surfaced. They are amazing animals and it was a great experience to see them. It was slightly surreal as you watch them and then they tip their tail up and dive and you would never know that they had been there. It was difficult to get perspective on just how enormous they are because there was nothing that we could contrast their size against. They are just there in the water.




The next morning we caught the Tranz Coastal train again to Picton where we would connect with the Inter Islander ferry to Wellington. The train journey was very pleasant with varying landscape and the weather clearly getting warmer. The ferry journey was also very enjoyable and we even saw a pod of dolphins jumping out of the water. Again nice scenery and warming temperatures.

I'm afraid that we didn't spend too much time in Wellington but there didn't really seem to be that much there. It was a surprise that this was the capital city. We pushed onto Napier which was again a small town. It seems that New Zealand is full of isolated towns. I don't how many times on this trip (and not just in New Zealand) we have uttered the phrase "Imagine being born in a place like this....".

We stayed in a lovely hotel in Napier. In fact the hotel was only one of two significant buildings that withstood the earthquake of 1931. It was the old county hall and only had 12 guest rooms. It had a lovely library with complementary port in the evenings. No prizes for guessing where we spent our after dinner time. The first night we were the only guests in the hotel which was strange. A bit spooky. The mad manager there took a shine to us and kept yakking on at us in the bar that evening. I was very impressed that in the time it took me and Steve to consume two gin and tonics he was halfway through his second bottle of red wine! The next day there were more people in the hotel and we were able to keep a low profile.

Napier is famous for its Art Deco architecture and there were some fine specimens around. However we were here to sample the Hawkes Bay wines. We were booked onto a tour that would take in two wineries and also lunch at one of these. There was only one other couple on the tour (also English, from Yorkshire) and our guide/driver was really nice and very knowledgeable about wine growing. She was so nice that she let us come on the whole day tour that the other couple was on for no extra charge. So in the end we had a whole day out and sample the wines of five wineries. It was a lovely day and the weather (amazingly) was superb. One of the best days out of this trip.

Unfortunately, none of the wineries would ship to the UK so we could only buy a few bottles. We have posted three bottles of excellent dessert wine back to the UK though. I look forward to enjoying these some time next year on a trip down memory lane. As luck would have one of the wineries does have a supplier in the UK and it is located in Norwich! Unfortunately they don't sell the dessert wine that I loved so much (only sold in New Zealand) but they do stock most of the other wines of the winery.

We were due to be driven to the bus station by the same company that organised the wine tour and our driver turned out to be the guide/driver from the day before. As she knew it was us she was picking up she brought her stretch limo! It was quite funny turning up to the bus station in a stretch limo.

From Napier we travelled to Rotorua famous for its thermal springs (and smell). Most of the day had been spent travelling there and we booked a tour for the next morning. At 7:35am a coach turned up and we handed in our ticket and got on board. The driver seemed to tick us off on a list. At the entrance to the "Whakarewarewa Reserve" there was a tap on the coach door and another coach driver got on and asked if there were any passengers by the name of Hedges on the coach. It turned out that we had got on the wrong coach! The first driver wasn't too pleased as it meant that he had to go back to our hotel to get the people that he should have picked us instead of us. He should have checked properly though!

The thermal reserve had some geysers and bubbling mud as well as a Maori village and cultural centre. We also visited "Paradise Valley". However, the unexpected highlight of the morning was the visit to the Agrodome. Here you watch a one hour stage show with the 19 different breeds of sheep in New Zealand, sheep shearing demonstrations and sheepdog shows. The sheep dogs were really good and even walked across the backs of the sheep and sat on the back of the sheep when doing their final party trick. We enjoyed the morning our much more than we had anticipated.

We spent the afternoon in the geothermal pools at the hotel which were very relaxing and extremely hot. Steve also had a massage. The next morning we travelled to see the Waitamo Caves. The caves were quite beautiful and the glow worms were really pretty. Worth a visit if you are ever on the North Island of New Zealand. The rest of the day was spent travelling back to Auckland.

I should mention that we did stop at an Angorra shop where they did a live Angorra rabbit shearing demonstration. The rabbit was very pretty and extremely soft and I did feel sorry for it having its legs and arms tethered (rather like being on a rack) for shearing, especially as the woman doing the shearing didn't look too confident.

Today we have done the shopping for the rest of our holiday supplies. Steve has been wrecklessly throwing underpants away and was dangerously low on supplies, which we have now corrected. We also got more camera film and bits and bobs. Best of all we have stocked up on books for our planned lazy days on the beach. We haven't really had a blissing out on the beach bit of the holiday yet. So here's hoping that is what we do in the next few weeks.

A last note is for those of you that know us from IF. Just before we embarked on our mini tour of New Zealand we did meet up with Jason and Gillian Swain who took us out for dinner in their part of town. It was really nice to see them and they haven't changed a bit! Jason's company url is here.