You may come to Niue for the natural scenery and delicious cuisine but you’ll certainly want to stay for the incredible locals, writes Anna Heath.
I’m always a victim of thinking someone is waving at me, returning the wave, then awkwardly realising it wasn’t for me. In my first few minutes driving along Niue’s roads, it takes some double-takes in the rear mirror to realise it’s real, and not just my eyesight: Niueans are chronically friendly.
The island’s rugged natural beauty, fresh cuisine and cosy accommodation are all worth articles on their own, but after reluctantly returning to a fast-paced Auckland on the brink of winter, I feel most compelled to write about the people. Their cheerful warmth, care for the environment and duty to family is what makes Niue quickly feel like a second home.
Here are six out of the some 1820 lovely people you might bump into on the rock of Polynesia.
Within hours of arriving in Niue and settling into the Scenic Matavai Resort, I’m being fed raw fish, cassava chips and the latest island gossip at sunset by my new island aunties: Pina and Lote, of Niue Orientation Tours. These two women would be guiding two minivans worth of us up the island’s west coast the following day.
We are at the mercy of Pina, who said the contents of the tour would be a surprise. As the morning unfolds, we are introduced to the island’s natural caves and chasms with laughs and heartfelt explanations of Niuean culture. My favourite spots: Avaiki Cave for crystal-clear rockpools, Matapa Chasm for its looming verticals, and the island’s dump, which you will inevitably pass on the main road and provides the pure spectacle of 30 roosters crowing atop a slow-burning pile of rubbish.
Along the way, Pina says she doesn’t want to provide a sugar-coated, glossy tour. What you see is what you get, and Niue is already beautiful in its unique rugged beauty and prolific smiles.
“That’s nature”, repeats Tony Aholima, as he serves up a taste test of various edible plants in the forest of Mutalau village. It turns out you can eat most parts of the coconut tree, my favourite being the inside of the stem. We’re not the only ones; uga (large coconut-crazy crabs with pincers of steel) have left a trail of frayed, torn-out husks along the path.
Unfortunately for us, our hunt for uga is largely unsuccessful. Not to fear, because Tony casually reveals that one has been riding along in his backpack, just in case. It’s heavier than I expected.
Evidence of Tony’s pure passion for horticulture unfurls throughout the tour as we traverse between his plantations, which are full of coconut, passionfruit, guava, pineapple, banana, pumpkin, taro and more. He’s been running tours for 17 years, and is clearly an asset to the island; a sweet, thoughtful soul who seems to be most at peace in the outdoors, working with nature.
At Tuapa church on Sunday morning, Victoria Kalauni happens to sit in front of me with her dad. She welcomes me to Niue, passes a spare bible and eagerly says I’m booked in for an uga feast at her restaurant, Hio Cafe.
Fast-forward to the evening, and I’m surrounded by thunderous cracks and laughs as patrons furiously whack the shells of their ugas open to retrieve the meat. It’s incredibly fun, and somewhat cathartic.
Victoria bumbles around the restaurant, sitting down with tables to help them pull apart the crabs and explain their life cycle from the sea to the forest. The pouch under the tail holds an oily pâté-like substance, which we spread on taro. Further up the crab, a smokier flavour is found in the legs. Victoria says every crab can taste distinct depending on what it likes to eat.
I leave Hio Cafe that night with a small splatter of crab pate down my shirt, a qualification in uga anatomy, and new friends made over food.
After 10 minutes of walking into the Huvalu Forest, a conservation area that takes up about 20% of the island, I’ve lost all bearings. I confidently point and ask if the road is in one direction. Jack Feleti Jr laughs and motions in the opposite. He’s grown up in this forest, playing in its caves as a boy.
I like outings like those run by Ebony Tours because step by step, your eyes widen and the forest comes alive with what you learn; a specific fern with wide leaves is edible (and better than lettuce), one species of vine and tree has a symbiotic relationship, and an outcrop of rocks means a cave is nearby or underneath you.
Niuean harmony with nature is reflected in a story Jack Jr tells us; throughout the island, there are wildlife “hotspots” where animals of all kinds congregate. I imagine a scene from The Lion King, except it’s a party of uga, bats, pigeons and maybe someone’s drunk uncle bumping to Adeaze at the Alofi Rugby Club. Haunting memories aside, ancestors decided these areas were tapu and not to be hunted from, building rock formations to let hunters know to stay away.
Working sustainably with nature runs further up Jack Jr’s family. The tour ends at the Feleti household with a showing of his father, Jack Feleti’s, ebony carving studio. The slow-growing trees are rarely harvested from outside of the conservation area and chiselled into intricate pendants that last for years.
If there is one person who embodies the epitome of wearing multiple hats in Niue (everyone does), it’s Stanley Kalauni, of Niue Vanilla. I thought he was busy enough running a cafe, tours, retail store, plantation and international exports, but after I forgot to fill up my rental car and email the company to settle, he responded as the business’s CEO. I feel a sudden urge to pull my life together.
“Vanilla found me, I didn’t find vanilla,” Stanley affirms as we track through rows of vanilla orchids, which twist and turn around their host trees to produce some of the world’s biggest pods. He says when he began distributing the vanilla locally, it boomed, and he “couldn’t say no to his people”. Now, the company exports to nearly 30 countries and takes him around the world to represent his home.
GETTING THERE
Fly direct on Saturdays and Tuesdays from Auckland to Alofi with Air New Zealand.
The journalist travelled courtesy of Niue Island Tourism.