Travel the Pacific - Niue

FAKAALOFA LAHI ATU!

With only one flight a week (courtesy of Air New Zealand) and room for only 120 travellers at a time, NIUE offers a unique, uncrowded experience. Unique in the fact it’s made of porous limestone, where rain quickly filters through to the sea, carving stunning caverns, cathedrals and caves along the way. It has the greatest underwater visibility anywhere in the world, providing spectacular views of its tropical marine life.

January 17th 2008
Rally of the Rock

The Rally of the Rock is an exciting mountain biking adventure across the challenging and beautiful tracks of Niue. Can you conquer the Rock?
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Travel Feature
Seven days and nights in Niue

With Air New Zealand supplying the only passenger flight to Niue on a weekly basis, what is there to do for seven days on a coral island inhabited by 1500 people? Plenty, especially if you love the sea, as LISA & JOHN JAMIESON discovered on their wedding anniversary.
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Attempts to log Niue cut down

The tiny island nation of Niue has lost most of its people to New Zealand. But the prospect of also losing much of its lush, tropical forest through logging severely divided those that have remained. One News reporter BARBARA DREAVER reports.
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An Island Paradise Unspoilt and Untouched

In October 2006 ZORA FEILO-MAKAPA returned to Niue, her parents’ island of birth, for the first time in decades. It proved to be an inspirational journey in so many ways.
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Issue 21 Travel Feature
Photo Essay: Te Wa - The traditional Canoe of Kiribati

Anthropologist TONY WHINCUP has spent more than 30 years photographing in Kiribati. In our latest photo essay, courtesy of Pacificfocus.org we present his documentation of the traditional canoe from the vast atoll nation.
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NIUE is a small up thrust coral atoll some 69 meters above sea level, formed by dropping sea levels in the last million years and composed entirely of coralline limestone and marble. Most of the coast rises 20-30 meters straight out of the sea and so the island offers unique coves rather then typical beaches. Its stunning rocky terrain showcases steep cliffs along gorgeous coastlines scattered with caves, chasms and blowholes. It is one of the smallest island nations in the world, with a population of only 1,800 and spanning just 258 km2, which is still four times larger than Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.

Centuries ago, Polynesian settlers from Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands named NIUE ‘Motusefua’, meaning island of its own. There are ancient legends telling of these first settlers, together with the Fire Gods from Fonuagalo (Hidden Land). Pre-European settlement NIUE was unique from other Polynesian islands as it avoided adapting a traditional Polynesian power hierarchy. Instead it was governed through family or clan based units, united under an elected monarch. From this early stage, Niueans held a strong sense of independence, both from each other and their island neighbours. Niuean chiefs gained British Protectorate status in 1900, and was then annexed by New Zealand in 1901. However, in 1974 NIUE gained independence in free association with New Zealand.

Niuean culture reflects a unique quality that echoes its distinctive landscape. The rocky limestone geology meant that the islanders had to develop very different domestic behaviour then their Polynesian neighbours. Its unique culture and language evolved from the original settlers who migrated from Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands. Until the arrival of Christian missionaries in the mid 1800s, Niuean domestic life was conducted within the many caves that interlace the island.
The islanders have a very present wealth of traditions that are still practiced today. These include the Haircutting ceremony for teenage boys, where the lone tail of hair the boy has had since childhood is removed. Guests and family hold a feast and hundreds of dollars is contributed to the boy’s future. Girls also have a similar Ear Piercing ceremony.

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