Antipodal Living: Final Destination: Uoleva

Home Sweet Home! At last we made it to our destination, Uoleva. What a journey to get here! It was a welcome sight to see that we had a beautiful, if a bit repaired, fale to stay in. Finau had brought a brand new mosquito net and she and Talanoa put it up for us to protect us from the little buggers. This was one of two fales that had already been repaired from Cyclone Ian and it housed us well. As I discovered when we were cleaning up on the last day, you really and truly can "sweep it under the rug" in Uoleva as the floor is just a series of straw mats. If you lift one up, you can sweep all the sand underneath to meet up with it's fellow sand where it belongs. No official floor here. Before the cyclone there had been hammocks in front of every fale, but thos had been blown away, buried or ruined. The few remaining hammocks were hung at the front of camp. We did have a table and chairs and managed to rig up a clothes line. We also even had a line inside with some hangars on it to act as a 'closet' of sorts. Already much more than I was expecting.

After dropping our bags in the fale, Finau gave us a tour of the camp. We were shown the toilets and I was pleasantly surprised, but at the same time a bit disappointed, to see that they were real flush toilets. I was kind of looking forward to the rustic camping experience with no electricity and long drop toilets. There was one shower and two toilets- one with a door and one without, for emergencies. I didn't realize at the time that such an emergency could arise where the second toilet would be needed.

We did a bit of work on this first day, but I'll get to that later. We also managed to relax and enjoy the little slice of paradise we had found ourselves in. You had to look past the debris, but it truly is a beautiful part of the world.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so I think once again I'll let the photos speak for themselves. I'll just say that it was wonderful to bask in the sun and listen to the sound of the waves on the shore (sometimes even beneath your bum!) and relax! There is nothing else to do.