Niue

Say it with me now, "new-ay". Like the word "say" but without the "s" - "new-ay". If you've heard of this country before, good on you. I'm not sure when I first heard about it, but I know it's one of the only places in the world that you can snorkel with humpback whales. Female humpbacks come there every June through October to give birth and nurse their calves for the first few months of their lives. Turns out, it's more like June through September. Spoiler alert - we didn't see any humpbacks at all, much less swim with them. We did, however, have a great week exploring this tiny country and swimming in it's waters. Let me tell you about it, but first, some Niue facts:

• Niue is a raised coral atoll, meaning basically that it's a huge rock made of dead coral that rises some 220 feet out of the ocean at it's highest point. In fact, it's often called "The Rock".
• Niue is located somewhere in the middle of the big triangle between Samoa, Tonga and the Cook Islands. Samoa is the closest at 350 miles away.
• As a tourist, you can only reach Niue by plane from Auckland. They do one flight a week in low season and 2 flights per week in the busy season. A cargo ship makes the trip between Niue and New Zealand once per month.
• Niue has no "beaches" in the traditional sense - for the most part there are cliffs that drop quickly off into the deep ocean. There are a few tiny sandy beaches that get flooded at high tide and one large permanent "beach" that is made of large chunks of coral.
• The whole of Niue is about 100 square miles. You can easily circumnavigate the whole island on a scooter in just a few hours.
• Niue is in free association with New Zealand. They use the New Zealand dollar and their citizens are also New Zealand citizens. Actually about 90% of native Niuens live in New Zealand.
• Only about 1500 people still live on The Rock, though there used to be many more as evidenced by all the abandoned buildings you see as you ride around.
• Niue actually means "behold, the coconut"
• Captain James Cook was the first European to visit the island, in 1774. The Polynesians had already been there around 900 years. They wouldn't let him land in any of his 3 attempts.

Some of that stuff I remember from our visit, but most of it I got off Wikipedia. Basically, there's not much to do on Niue, but that's why people come here. We pretty much spent every day exploring different parts of the island both above and below water. We did a LOT of snorkelling - the water was amazingly clear. Because Niue is a coral atoll, all the rainwater seeps into the ground so there are no rivers or streams to flow into the ocean to cloud up the water. That's why it's so clear. On to the pictures...

The best way to get around the island - rent a scooter!

This was Steph's favorite spot - Limu Pools - it's like a giant pool

I liked jumping and snorkeling off the pier

Stopped by the sculpture garden during our exploration of the island

The east side of the island is nearly un-navigable, but you can see how this was once a coral reef 

One day we went to watch a fishing tournament - they went out in these little outrigger canoes and came back with huge fish (well, some of them did)

Tavala Arches

Even Steph got into the rock-jumping action

There's tons of caves to explore too!

Some Aussie guy built an awesome putt-putt course with a view!

We rode all the way out to this cave so Steph could re-create this shot that some fellow travellers had taken

Let's play "Spot the Shark!!"

The water was very clear, and there was some nice fish, but not a ton of fish and not much coral

Guineafowl puffer fish - I tried to scare him to get him to puff up but no dice

This was probably the best of the best as far as coral that I saw

Niue was awesome! Definitely go during whale season though, as adding whales to the mix would put it over the top. Now, back to New Zealand!