Episode summary:
I am sitting on the rim of the crater of an ancient volcano in Samoa in the South Pacific, with a sheer drop down to a secret, sunken rainforest below me. Big fruit bats are flapping overhead and it’s not hard to imagine they are small pterodactyls and that I have time-travelled back to the era of the dinosaurs. It’s a beautiful scene as the tropical sun comes up and the air is full of birds.
If you’re wondering ‘what is the most beautiful part of Samoa’, ‘is Samoa good for tourists’ or ‘was Samoa a volcano’, this podcast episode might be able to help.
Listen to a podcast about going back in time to a prehistoric landscape in the South Pacific.
Transcript – S3 E11: Getting prehistoric in the South Pacific
This week we’re going back in time to an ancient landscape in the South Pacific.
“I’m somewhere on a South Pacific island”, to quote the great Australian rock band the Hoodoo Gurus. I’m standing on the rim of the crater of a long-dead volcano and I feel like I have travelled back millions of years to the Mesozoic era, the time of dinosaurs and the start of the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea.
A time when geological forces were incredibly active, tearing landmasses apart and creating new seas and islands. And a time when Mafui’e, the local god of earthquakes, was particularly angry.
Volcanos and rainforests
This is the island of Savai’i, the largest in the group known as the Independent State of Samoa, or Saaaamoa, as my New Zealand friend Sarah advises me it should be pronounced.
It is also the largest shield volcano in the South Pacific but it hasn’t erupted since the early 1900s. As a result of this inactivity its slopes are coated in jungle and it’s a haven for birds and bats. In fact, the island’s central jungle is the largest contiguous rainforest in Polynesia and a globally significant conservation area.
The bats are fruit bats, or flying foxes, one of the largest species and when I see a few flapping prehistorically over the crater it’s not hard to imagine they are small pterodactyls, reconfirming that I have, indeed, time-travelled back to the Mesozoic. All I need now is the roar of a Tyrannosaurus Rex to convince me the illusion is real.
I am told Savai’i has something like 100 old volcanic craters which gives me some idea of how active this island used to be. Today I am on the rim of the Tafua Crater – or Maugu Tafua – in the island’s far south east. And, thank goodness, I am alone. It’s still early in the morning and there’s a very light mist clearing from the forest down on the floor of the crater, maybe about 300 feet or 100-odd metres below the rim.
I am looking across the crater to the stretch of rim on the far side, a vertical wall of charcoal-grey and iron-red volcanic rock topped by a thick emerald curtain of rainforest. The sun’s rays are shining through that curtain now and just beginning to illuminate the tops of the trees down on the crater floor.
In search of exotic birds… and bats
Birdsong echoes around the crater. I can just make out the ‘chip, chip, chip‘ of what I think is a Samoan Whistler. I am pretty sure I hear White-eyes too but they are so small and distant I can’t see them. They certainly sound like their cousins – known as Silver-eyes – that I know from summer days in Australia and New Zealand; a rich, beautiful song, lyrical enough to cheer the saddest hearts.
I’m on the lookout too for some birds with fabulous names: the White-rumped Swiftlet, the Royal Parrotfinch and the Polynesian Triller. All are said to inhabit this rainforest and the much larger one that covers most of the island’s centre. Another local resident is the national bird of Samoa, the critically endangered Manumea, or Tooth-billed Pigeon. The species is definitely in trouble but individuals have been seen and heard in recent years… so there’s still hope it will survive.
As I look into the crater I have a great urge to abseil down the rock wall and spend the night down there, alone with the lushness of a mysterious, sunken rainforest world. I wonder if anyone has done it, or if it is even allowed to do it. There are strict rules in Samoa about certain parts of land, so it might well be forbidden. But that only increases my desire to explore it.
My Jurassic Park-style exploration plan of the tempting patch of crater rainforest is distracted by a couple of flying foxes who flap over my head and parachute down into it, landing with a bit of a thwack in a tree. They are greeted by several squawks from their brethren who are already resting after a busy night of insect munching … in bat language I take this to mean “hey, keep it down you dirty stop-outs, we’re sleeping here”.
The large tree fern I am standing next to rustles. Into it has flown an inquisitive little bird. It ferrets around near the new fronds in the heart of the fern, which are yet to uncurl. I can’t see it so I can’t identify it. Even if I could see it, I probably wouldn’t be able to identify it as my Samoan bird knowledge is sadly lacking. It hops along one established fern branch to get a better look at me but is still hidden. It makes the faintest of ‘cheeps’ and takes barely a second to make up its mind that my red tee-shirt is not a nectar-rich flower, and – it’s gone as suddenly as it arrived.
The sun has climbed higher now into the clear Samoan sky and its light is flooding the crater. More hikers will be here soon so I take my leave and walk slowly back down the path to the little village of Tafua-tai for a dip in the South Pacific Ocean.
