More to do than just fishing and diving

When the westerly winds blow in Niue the launching area at the Alofi wharf and the access to the fishing grounds sometimes becomes limited. Luckily it doesn’t blow from the west often…. but when it does there is an endless array of other things to do in Niue to keep adventurers entertained with unique experiences.

Head out and explore the massive cave systems and various walks found all over the Island that can be explored with ease via well-signposted tracks. Most of these sites have well-maintained showers and toilets and vary in length from 5 minutes to 5 hours. Talava Arches is a moderate one hour walk that takes you through the bush and then into a cave system that pops you out on the coast to a spectacular display of mother nature and the ocean’s power that has formed a huge arch. Take your snorkel as well as there are crystal-clear rock pools to swim in at the end of this walk. On your way back, take a five-minute detour to take a refreshing dip into the amazing Matapa Chasm – a place where the kings of Niue once bathed. Avaiki swimming cave is only accessible at low tide and after a short walk, you’ll arrive at a breathtaking setting straight from a James Bond movie. With no sediment in the water because of the coral structure of this atoll, diving and snorkeling here offers staggering 80mvisibility. There are dozens of these amazing sites to explore along with land based whale watching sites to spot the migrating humpback from June-September.

If you want something a bit more hands-on, you can head into the bush with Jack’s Ebony Tours and learn about bush medicines and the use of the flora and fauna of Niue for craft and survival. A plantation tour with Tony Aholima is a great display of the sustainable living that Niuean’s enjoy. He will take you around his farm picking fruits, harvesting taro, and picking up a few coconuts along the way. Then head into the bush and grab a few of the huge coconut crabs (called Uga locally) for good measure. These crabs are a local delicacy and the population of them is probably the densest anywhere in the world as they can only be eaten locally and not exported. Tony calls it his pantry and he is happy to share it with visitors and send them away with a box of his goodies when joining his daily tour.

The nightlife is limited but given Niue is also the world’s only ‘dark sky nation’ you can just watch the stars and enjoy the serenity, all while enjoying a cold one at the Washaway Café on Avatele beach – quite possibly the world’s last honesty bar, or any of the other clifftop eateries on offer. As they say, you will arrive as a visitor and leave as a friend in this place, having met your share of the 1,500 residents that live there by the end of your trip and swapping tall tales of the one that got away.

So, while the fishing and diving are amazing in Niue there is a huge number of other things to do that are just as fun when mother nature tells you to stay on land for the day.