Mt. Matavanu Crater

Checked out this morning and drove to see Mt. Matavanu Crater which is a Volcano responsible for the devastation visited upon North Eastern Savaii a century ago.

Warning

We were greeted by the famous Gr8TRMan (Crater man) and drove on a rugged 4WD track and took a short hike to the top to take in some impressive views and read some signs written by the Crater man himself in his funny Pidgin English.

Neil

We then continued on to find somewhere to stay for night after our first choice was fully booked and stumbled across a deserted amazing beach with an old resort on.

View from the crater

Luckily the family were still taking customers but due to the reputation this part of the Island has for car break-ins we had the whole place to ourselves which made it simply paradise!

Old church affected by tsunami

After we had settled in, the sea soon started calling us so we grabbed our snorkels and went for a swim.

Sunset

It was in fact the best snorkelling we have seen so far in Samoa and we saw a big puffer fish and amazingly a HUGE shark!

Nice sunset

It was by far the biggest Chris and I had ever seen and we would like to think it was merely a harmless(ish) black tipped reef shark, but by judging the size and shape of it (it had a huge belly and a few black stripes down the side) I’m not so sure, so we got out quite quickly just in case!