Garry Gillard > photos >
I was in Niue in May 1984. At the time, I was the Coordinator of Course Development for the University of the South Pacific, based in Suva, Fiji. It was seen by my Director as a good thing that I should travel to some of the other countries served by USP, so I arranged a trip to Samoa, Tonga and Niue.
Here are the only five photos I took while in Niue.
This is the place called Grave Point. It's right beside the main (and almost only) road, in the main settlement.
In 2004 Niue - and the capital Alofi in particular - was hit by Cyclone Heta which caused extensive damage. I'm fairly sure that this building no longer exists.
I hope I'm right in remembering that this was the Niue Hotel. I believe it was also either destroyed or badly damaged in 2004.
I took this sitting on my bed, as I recall, in my room in the (since destroyed) Niue Hotel, thinking that, apart from another bit of Niue in the near distance, there was nothing after that but 600km of ocean to Tonga. (Well, I didn't know then it's exactly that.) It's also (still) across the International Date Line. Niue is a day behind New Zealand, where 95% of its people live.
As I recall there was only one landingplace in the country (tho there is also an airport, which is just barely long enough for a Boeing 707 to land and take off). This is because Niue is a raised coral atoll, so has no beaches. As I was watching, a fisherman came in from the open sea in his outrigger canoe, got out, picked it up, and walked up the landing.
Garry Gillard | New: 2 September, 2009 | Now: 24 December, 2021