Getting Away from It

In what is becoming a bit of an Easter tradition, we are spending the holiday weekend on a tropical island.  In years gone by we spent most Easters camping, usually in the Lake District, and we had some fab times. Yes, some were wet, but for most of them the weather played its part and what better place is there to be than camping in Cumbria. But with a multitude of island getaways on Auckland's doorstep, and with the roads to the camping grounds in the north blocked with holiday traffic, it's shockingly quicker to fly to a South Pacific island and swap canvas for canapés.

This time it's Samoa's turn to play host and so far it's been a fantastic choice to get away from it all. Totally off the grid, away from emails, BBC news, football results, Facebook, Strava, and general global turmoil. And yes, I appreciate the irony of writing a blog about being off the grid that I can't actually post . You'll just have to take my word for it that what follows is all true and I'm not actually in a bar in Auckland making this all up. Although, cone to think of it, that would've been considerably cheaper and less damaging on the waistline. Probably.

It's not that this place is so remote that it doesn't have the internet, it does, it's just that I'm too tight to pay for the wifi cards or air time of our phones. I could, of course, turn on data roaming but I'm still paying off the debt from doing that two Easters ago in Tahiti to get a quick peek at Google Maps when we couldn't find our accommodation.  

So I can't send hourly photo updates of the beautiful sun, glistening sands and the roaring waves that are crashing on the coral reef a few hundred metres out to sea. 

I also can't send photos of me grinning from ear to ear holding whatever is the cocktail of the day, or underwater photos of fantastically coloured fish. You wouldn't want to see that anyway, I'm sure.

And no camera can catch the fact that it's 34 degrees and very, very humid. Being outside is not unlike being wrapped in a blanket. The air feels thick and gloopy and just walking is a struggle, although that might be the pizza from lunchtime getting it's revenge. We did try and take some refuge from the all encompassing heat yesterday afternoon and retreated to our chalet. If I have learnt one thing from this trip it's that, after closing all of the windows and doors, you really need to turn on the air conditioning unit to get the benefit! Essentially we created our own sauna as we sat in a closed room, with no fresh air for two hours in the baking heat and sapping humidity. On the plus side, however, my skin feels really rejuvenated after profusely sweating for several hours!

Apart from that, our days have revolved around swimming in the pool, snorkelling, eating and drinking and not much else. Not that that is a bad thing, which is just as well as it's likely to be the pattern for the next few days, although we have threatened to go for a run at least once. The thought of trying to run in this heat doesn't exactly make me jump into my running shoes, but I can't miss the opportunity to get a Samoan run onto my Strava account. Plus it will give more weight to the fact that we are actually here! After all, if it doesn't happen on Strava then it hasn't happened!

In a few days though we'll be back in a 'cold' New Zealand autumn with temperatures dropping below twenty and rain on the horizon. Well I assume so, we left with a cyclone knocking on the front door of Auckland so let's hope it's still there. Not that I would know if it wasn't.  I'm off the grid you see, and relaxing in blissful ignorance. Did I mention that already?