You know when you go on a trip and you swear to yourself you will remember every single detail? Every restaurant, every lane way, every local you smiled at? You will have a diary-esque memory of what you did every day.

Yeahhh well, I got back from Samoa just over a month ago and already some of the days are starting to blur into one another. Thankfully I take photos of just about everything so by looking back at them it’s easier to remember. I’m going to be an old eccentric lady who does nothing but flick through photo albums…

Anyway, on the middle weekend I was in Samoa my sister Sarah and her boyfriend Nick and I picked up their friend Sean from the airport early on Saturday morning before beginning our circumnavigation of the main island.

We went to a beach called Matareva.

It had eerie remnants of an abandoned resort:

The others fell asleep on the beach while I explored the spiky coral.

And found a pretty shell.

After a few hours we were joined by a group of kids from New Zealand, I remember it felt strange to share the beach with so many people after the empty beaches on Savai’i.

By this point I was starving as we headed off for lunch at Seabreeze Resort Restaurant (or so Google tells me, I had forgotten). The view was ok.

Pineapple daiquiri anyone?

Delicious ribs.

After lunch we went to a big sinkhole in the ground called Tosua Ocean Trench.

The 20 metre climb down a ladder into the trench was petrifying, not to mention treacherous and slippery.

But it was totally worth it to swim in the salty water and let the tide slowly drift you back and forth inside the trench. We played a really grown-up game called ‘get the rock in the hole’ which involved trying to land a rock into a little cave inside the trench wall. It took Sean about 20 goes but he finally got it.

After the trench we drove to our accommodation at Lalomanu. Lalomanu was really badly hit by the 2009 tsunami and a number of people were killed. It just happened that we were there the night before the anniversary. Unfortunately we had plans for the next day so we couldn’t go to the memorial.

The next day we set off to Aggie Grey’s beach resort to get jump aboard a charter boat as a late celebration for Sarah’s birthday.

I had carried hats and swords (and Elly’s wench costume which unfortunately went unworn) all the way from Kalgoorlie to Melbourne to Auckland to Samoa for the occasion, so it was good to finally use them.

AHOY! Nick looked very Castaway with his beard.

This is the best shot I got of Sarah jumping off the boat:

Sarah’s housemate made a delicious skull and crossbones cake:

Occasionally Sarah and I get told that we sort of look alike, what do you think?

We had a ridiculous amount of delicious food and drink that we couldn’t get through. It was really nice to meet all of Sarah and Nick’s mates who are mostly also doing Australian Aid assignments. The weather turned at the end of the day and it begun to pour with rain so we went back to the house, ordered a pizza and played a couple of rounds of Banana Grams.