Getting away to a tropical retreat

Newspaper offices can be crazy places whether they are situated in the centre of a big city or a rural New Zealand town.

Northland New Zealand’s Pat Milich decided to recharge her batteries and take a break from her busy front desk as administrator of the Dargaville & Districts News to join family on the Pacific Island get-away of Samoa for six days.

Experts say getting time away from work is a necessity to give people time to destress and refresh themselves before returning for the next round of challenges in their workplaces.

Pat’s New Zealand-born son-in-law runs a charter boat on the island of Upolo and the family decided ditch the New Zealand winter and recharge their batteries offshore.

“It was a chance to have a rest and to see another country, to get a different view of how other people live,” Pat says.

Although she wasn’t staying in the touristy area on the southern side of the island, she did visit and found the people were very friendly everywhere.

However, the family lived in a gate-secured community on the northern side.

But it was still pretty cruisy for a much-needed break.

“We had our own swimming pool, which was great as I’m not a fan of salt water,” Pat says.

In the tourist area, fales (thatched-rooved, raised houses) were dotted along the beaches, where the islanders slept on mats in the heat, which can sometimes range betwwen 30 and 40 degrees, with sometimes a 90+ percent humidity levels.

“Sometimes we just lay there and relaxed. The highlight would have been the scenery, which is absolutely beautiful, with great service from restaurants and accommodation facilities, people are always smiling. I think we ate out every night, as it’s very reasonable, price-wise. But this is all part of a good holiday!”

She was interested in how on the southern side of the island, people make their fence battens out of various vegetation such as paw paw branches.

“You see all these banana and paw paw growing wild on the side of the road. We were treated to a dinner which is similar to the Maori hangi, but it was cooked on volcanic rock, which heats everything quickly. It was more like a roasted meal rather than the steaming type process used in the hangi method and not smoked,” she says. 

Two other points of interest included seeing a hint of evidence of the 2009 tsunami, where the resort of Sinilai and coconut groves had been completely wiped out, and they had been restored to their former glory.

Further along, it wasn’t long before coming to a place called Lalomanu; with Nu’utele and Nu’uala Islands that local folk lore says was an early lepper colony.

Pat shares some of her photographic memories, we decided to run, just to show how good it can be to ‘chill out’ and de-stress.

Majestic: A cathedral at Apia towers in the idyllic tropical paradise.

Colourful: Samoa delivered up some dramatically colourful flowers for tourists who visit.

Shady retreat: Thatched fales give good cover out of the heat of the sun for relaxing on Lalomanu.

An earthquake of 8.3 magnitude triggered a tsunami which devastated villages along the southern coasts of Samoa, American Samoa, and the northern islands of Tonga on September 29, 2009. 

More than 4500 people were directly affected by the tsunami, with social and economic impacts affecting many thousands more. Over 3000 people were made homeless. - See more at: http://www.oxfam.org.nz/what-we-do/emergencies/samoa-tsunami#sthash.uuZecc3U.dpuf

- Oxfam New Zealand website