We arose rather later than intended this morning, because, for some reason I don't quite understand, both of our iPhones and this iPad are one hour slow. They were also wrong in Fiji. As the time is set automatically and the phones and iPad get their time from the Internet, I am not quite sure why this should be so. I don't know whether it's a feature of Apple, or whether these countries alter their time for winter but have no time-server. Anyway, if you rely on your phone to wake you up, you have to remember it's an hour slow, and we didn't.
So showering, dressing and breakfast were all a bit hurried. But we were in time for our tour when the taxi arrived, and, for once, it was not raining. Robert Louis Stevenson's house is a couple of miles away from where we are staying, on the same road, so it was not a long journey there. The house looks exactly as it does on the postcards.
Only the central and left side of the house were built by RLS. The wing on the right was built by the person to whom the house was sold by the family after RLS's death. The gardens are extensive, as the whole estate is 350 acres. There is a long drive to the house, which is surrounded by lawns bordered by trees and shrubs.
There are not huge numbers of visitors at this time of year, so we had a tour all to ourselves, given us by a very nice young man wearing a lava-lava; he said his name was Nigel, but looked just like James Wong.
We started with the Smoking Room, which had a big deep fireplace
Nigel explained that this wasn't a working fireplace, in fact there was no chimney, so no fire could be lit; in Samoa you don't need a fire anyway, it was just to make the family feel at home, as they were accustomed to fireplaces. The was a similar one in RLS's bedroom as well.
His bedroom was large, and was actually a library, full of bookshelves. This is one end of it - there were too many bookshelves to get them all in one picture.
Apparently he often slept on that bed under the window which had no mattress, only some finely woven Samoan mats. At the other end of the room was a single bed.
Because of his TB, he did not share a bedroom with his wife, who had her own bedroom through the doorway you can see on the left of the picture. And that's a tray-table by the head of the bed, so he could work in bed.
There was a hospital in the house, so the doctor could treat him when he was ill.
There was quite an extensive medicine chest, full of interesting herbal remedies.
I was a bit surprised to see no guest rooms, but apparently, though he had a lot of visitors and parties, he did not have people to stay.
The main room downstairs was very large, and consequently a bit difficult to photograph.
It could be used as a ballroom as well as a dining room. There were a piano, a pianola, a banjo and a couple of zithers on the left, behind the table. Also behind the table you can see the main staircase up to the bedrooms. There was an outside staircase too. Just on the right of the photo, you may be able to see his portrait. Paul took a better picture of that than I did.
As you can see, I was fascinated by the house, which I have wanted to visit for over 40 years, and we spent almost two hours there and took a lot of pictures. It was strange to see so much Victorian furniture in such a setting. There were a couple of treadle sewing machines, since the women made all their own clothes. I suppose it was difficult to obtain European style clothes in Samoa at the time, so I imagine they had to make their own. They must all have been very hot most of the time.
We had planned to walk up to the tomb, but Nigel warned us that the short path was steep and difficult, and the less steep path took an hour each way, and still required good shoes and plenty of water. So we decided to leave that for another day - if the rain stops.
We set off along the cross island road for the south of the island, through farms of coconut palms, taro, sugar cane and vegetables. The photo below shows the taro, which has leaves that are almost heart-shaped. That may be some young sugar-cane in front of it.
We climbed steadily through the volcanic hills, and stopped to photograph the highest waterfall in Samoa, which is called Papapapaitai Falls
There is a deep pool at the foot of the falls, which used to be popular for swimming. However, it is very deep and apparently there were some accidents, so now swimming is not allowed.
Eventually, we crossed over the highest mountain, and had a view of the south coast.
We drove down to look at a couple of the nice resorts there, which are very romantic. Both were destroyed in the tsunami, but one has been completely rebuilt and you would not know anything had happened there. It has a golf course, though with all the coconut palms, it looks quite hazardous. Everything is built under shady palms, and it all looks looks very expensive.
The other one, the Coconut Resort, is still not finished, and was full of builders. Part of it was open though.
The beach was very romantic
I went into the sea here to take this picture, but not for long, because the rain started. It seemed reasonable to return to Apia then, especially since the rain soon made it difficult to see well enough to drive. Apparently, this is not typical weather during the rainy season, when it usually rains two or three times a week, not all day for weeks. Just our luck! It has rained, off and on, for the rest of the day. We are hoping for better tomorrow!
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