NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • Deloitte Fast 50
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Travel

Niue: How to nab a giant crab

NZ Herald
15 May, 2013 03:00 AM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save
    Share this article
Graham Reid holds a giant land crab on Niue. The crustaceans make delicious eating. Photo / Graham Reid

Graham Reid holds a giant land crab on Niue. The crustaceans make delicious eating. Photo / Graham Reid

With help from a local, Graham Reid goes in search of an elusive meal on Niue

There's a simple phrase for what Tony Aholima does. It's "sustainable living", but for him it's more complex than that.

As a young man he left his homeland, spent three years in New Zealand, then moved to Australia. As best as I can understand it between the laughter and sudden bouts of homegrown philosophical seriousness, he ran a company and employed quite a few people. But then there were problems. Someone didn't pay the cheque so he couldn't pay his workers.

"It just started to mess with my thinking," he says, "and I had all these ideas going around and it was confusing me."

Basically he burned out, so in 2002, with his Australian wife, he moved back home - after 22 years away - to live off the land. Except his homeland is the island of Niue, a three-hour flight from Auckland, and they don't call it The Rock for nothing. It's all rock, jagged limestone, which makes the idea of a vege garden of any size just laughable, and dangerous.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

So Aholima concentrated on indigenous plants, or those that have successfully adapted already - varieties of banana, mango, pawpaw, taro and so on - although in his own sprawling yard he also has lemongrass, chilli and pumpkins. And a dozen pigs.

We drive to his various gardens scattered around on family land near the village of Mutalau, most of which are well hidden from tracks behind a wall of dense bush. Wild pigs and chickens are a constant problem - as are people who sneak in to steal the odd vegetable and health-giving liquor from his noni fermenting tanks - although tomatoes and large white cucumbers grow wild when you throw them on the ground. It's a struggle on land that is mostly bleached white, and merciless if you fall over.

Aholima loves it though. He moves from one plot to the other if he gets bored and tries to keep the workload to a minimum: "Maybe just an hour in the morning before it gets too hot, then maybe two hours in the late afternoon. Don't want to work to hard, huh?"

At one remote plot he has set up, for his own amusement and that of visitors, an outdoor office complete with desk, computer, ergonomic chair and other accoutrements. None of it works, of course, but it makes a good picture.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Interesting though all this is, the reason I'm in the sweat-inducing humidity is to hunt uga (pronounced oon-ga), the coconut-eating land crabs that can grow to have a claw-span of a metre.

We've been out in the cruel heat of noon and my shirt is sweat-soaked when Aholima says 3pm is a better time. Or night. But within minutes he's snuck up on two decent-sized creatures and hauled them out for inspection.

They use one serrated claw to cut through partially opened coconuts he's left outside their lairs in the rock, but they are skittish and can disappear at any movement.

However, now we have a couple - you hold them by the shell while they try to get a claw on to you so powerful it could take your thumb off before you can scream.

Discover more

Travel

Niue: Life on a deserted island

06 May 05:30 PM
Travel

Niue: The many charms of Niue

11 Mar 10:00 PM
Travel

Niue: Natural wonders

24 Mar 02:00 AM
Travel

Niue: It takes a village...

08 Apr 11:00 PM

They are, however, delicious.

After a fruitless hour clambering over slippery limestone with no further success other than a few sightings, we slump down outside his place and he offers more homegrown philosophy about the dangers of fast food (although he's not averse to it when in Auckland), how animals are like us (stupid, smart), how people prefer to work for someone else than themselves and ... Time to go, I don't want to keep him from work.

"Work? Nah, just feed the pigs and that's it. Don't want to work too hard, huh?" says the man who seems to work very hard indeed, yet also hardly at all.

Niue Checklist

GETTING THERE

Air New Zealand runs a twice-weekly service from Auckland to Niue, crossing the dateline along the way.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

ONLINE: niueisland.com


• Graham Reid travelled to Niue with assistance from Niue Tourism and Air New Zealand.

Save
    Share this article

Latest from Travel

Travel

I wept and ate my way through my business class experience

Travel

Five immersive encounters with Vietnam’s Cham Community

Travel

Why Kiwis' 'Euro summer' is under threat as heatwave makes tourist hotspots unbearable


Sponsored

Family-built tours, Fiordland soul

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Travel

I wept and ate my way through my business class experience
Travel

I wept and ate my way through my business class experience

What better way to be waited on hand and foot than on a business class flight?

04 Aug 07:00 PM
 Five immersive encounters with Vietnam’s Cham Community
Travel

Five immersive encounters with Vietnam’s Cham Community

04 Aug 08:22 AM
Why Kiwis' 'Euro summer' is under threat as heatwave makes tourist hotspots unbearable
Travel

Why Kiwis' 'Euro summer' is under threat as heatwave makes tourist hotspots unbearable

03 Aug 02:00 AM


Family-built tours, Fiordland soul
Sponsored

Family-built tours, Fiordland soul

27 Jul 02:00 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP