Tombstoning the royal bath
Tombstoning
Nuie a trully exelent Island. Think the Chrisian Piety might be as a result of snubbing geologists. Now I'm not a geologist, but I belive that islands that stick out of the sea near plate bounderies should be volcanic. The rest of the islands in this ocean are. Their made of lava and stuff. Sharp and pointy. Igneious rock. Now sedementary rock is layed down as sea creatures die and sink in oceans. They're flat. What the hell is Nuie? its sides drop off like a cliff, making the echo sounder useless right by the shore. So if its a tinny volcanic style island why the hell is it flat and made of limestone? Maybe their is a god, and its his little joke. I'm sure the geologists have an explanation.
Nuie is a flat plateau of limestone sticking out of the ocean. Population 1500, last year it attracted 3000 tourists. 75 odd yachts. Its awesome. I love it. Techically its the first new county I've been to this trip. Due to the arival at the weekend however we didn't even get a passport stamp.
The islands lack of acidic soil and flat with underground drainage gives a new defination of lush. The water flows out to sea in caves or georges made collapsed caves like wot we leared in geography at skool. Swimming in these is wonderfull. Some have underground streams emerging in them, wich are compared to the sea water freezing. The cold fresh water floats on the surface, making wierd distorations when snorkeling. Its cold.
We swam in Limu pools, wierd limesone pools. We swam in the Royal Cave at Avaki, we swam in Matapa Chasm. The last one is a limestone george whos landward end is fed by an underground stream and whos seaward end is cloged by huge boulders. Nearly fresh is a favourite with Nuians out for a sunday swim in between church services. They go twice a day. Its also know as the Royal Bathing Pool. We wen't tombstoning. I.E. Jumping off the cliffs into the water. Was epic fun, not to menton scary. I videoed a nice kiwi called Eli its here
More photos availble in the Nuie Gallery
LINKS FOR RSS USERS:
http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Cat=11&Res=777 - Video
http://www.oceanhippie.net/thumbs.php?gal=778 - Photo