DAY EIGHT: LAST DAY SAMOA WRAP-UP

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At 7am I caught a free ride back to Apia with a van of school-girls. I had been planning on going back to Mt. Vaea for a last try at some of the missing birds but the winding road from Lalomanu had reminded my stomach of yesterday’s seas, the temperature was extremely hot, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my bags if I went into the forest. So I just got some breakfast in Apia then went to the bus station. I found a bus, sat in it for an hour until enough passengers had gathered, and then went to the airport where I sat slowly basting in the heat like a New Orleans plantation owner until my flight which was supposed to be at 3.30pm but turned into 4.30pm because Samoa.



Yesterday I had turned NZ$60 into 90 Tala at the Taufua Beach Fales in case I needed some extra cash for taxis and also because of the 65 Tala departure tax. It turned out that the departure tax had been done away with in the last few months so no need to pay it now. When I got back into Auckland I still had 90 Tala in my wallet. I changed it at the Travelex counter for NZ$37! A $23 loss!!! Pirates.



So, a summary of Samoa. It was too hot. Far too hot. The birds were nice but contrary to everything else I have read it was not easy finding them and there were several “easy” endemics which I didn’t see at all. My experience was a complete contrast to every other Samoa trip report I've ever read, where the participants only have to sit back in a deck chair next to a tree, gin & tonic in one hand and a pair of opera glasses in the other, and the birds line up to be viewed.I’m not sure if this was due to just being unlucky or (more likely) the recent bad cyclones have affected the difficulty for the moment through destroying a lot of habitat. The dogs surprisingly were all friendly! Dogs are always my biggest worry when travelling, and dogs in the Pacific are some of the worst. But without exception every dog I came across was perfectly civilised. Well, I did see two dogs attacking a car – literally attacking it, one hanging off the front bumper and the other trying to rip at the back wheel; and the car was moving!! – but that didn’t affect me so they don’t count. I think I do have to go back. The obvious reason is for the tooth-billed pigeon with a proper attempt at Nu’utele Island, and I’d also like time to go to Savaii to look for the Samoan white-eye which is only found there. Also everyone on Samoa kept telling me that Savaii is the nicer island.



And thus here endeth the Samoan part of the story, but stay tuned because there are still two more posts from New Zealand before I get back to birdless Hokitika!

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