Nearing the end of our holiday now but it wasn't over yet! We decided to cut our stay at Jane's fales a day short and carry on around the coast in search of a nice place to stay for our final night on Savaii. Along the way we stopped off at the spot where you can swim with the turtles. Now some people do not like the idea of this as the turtles are enclosed however I was very impressed with the large fresh and salt water pond they were in. It was very clean and clear and the turtles seemed well looked after. We got there earlyish in the morning around 9.30am and there was no one else there so the place was peaceful and quiet. It only cost us $5 each to go in to visit.
We got changed into our togs then got into the water and quietly swam around just looking in awe. It was so amazing to see the turtles up close and we got some fantastic photos with the underwater camera. At one point I stood up to adjust my mask and snorkel and felt a bumping on my legs as a small turtle decided to try and swim through them!
Before long though our peace was shattered by a rowdy Australian family who thrashed about in the water and churned up the sand so it was time to get out. I would hate to see tourists destroy the wonderful opportunity by overstepping the mark. I have heard stories of people picking them up etc. I'm not into that ..................
One last thing to vist and that was the lava flows, caused by the eruption of Mt Matavanu between 1905 and 1911, which buried villages and churches etc. We stopped to look at the village of Mauga where we saw one half buried church and the Virgin's Grave where the lava flowed around and left it undamaged. It was extremely hot on the black lava flows and amazing to see the local vegetation, frangipani trees etc, growing up out of cracks in the rock.
To finish off a brilliant holiday we finally stopped at the Siufaga Beach Fales where the Italian restaurant has a good reputation. We were lucky to get in as they were quite heavily booked but flashing about a few tala during lunch in the restaurant seemed to do the trick and we were quickly shown to a lovely room which was decorated with flowers. The shower was outside in a stone walled area which we all found fascinating. We went for a bit of a snorkel and got yelled out by the locals to get out of their roped off area! We are not sure whether this was because it was a protected area or whether they again wanted money for us to be snorkelling there. We didn't go into shore to find out. We also went for a swim in the hotel pool and had some fun taking photos of us all sitting at the pool bar on stools that were under the water.
A delicious meal to celebrate my Birthday early rounded off a great few days in Savaii.
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