A family adventure

When you enter a sea cave 18m deep, with 70m visibility and your two teenage sons are leading you on their first ever cave dive, you achieve a massive tick on your family travel bucket list. A goal I had when I taught our two sons to swim, and a memory I will cherish forever. With eyes wide open and smiles visible behind their regs I knew they were both mesmerised and proud; and as they broke the surface after the dive and exclaimed, “‘that was absolutely blimmin’ awesome!”, I couldn’t help but agree!

There comes a time when family holidays with your kids move beyond Kids’ Clubs and resorts, and making memories together with epic experiences becomes the goal. Niue Island is perfect for this age and stage of family holidays, where you can enjoy snorkelling, diving, fishing, even swimming with humpback whales; as well as many land-based adventures. Niue is an easy 3 ½ hour flight from Auckland, and within an hour of touching down you can be in the ocean or off on adventure.

The island is large – some 64km around the ring road, and with no public transport everyone needs a rental car. This lends itself so short but fun car adventures, often with the teenage kids at the steering wheel, exploring the various sea tracks, hikes and snorkelling spots.

For my husband Hayden’s recent ‘significant birthday’, we enjoyed two weeks in Niue with a few dozen of our closest friends. This included many families, and we had over a dozen teenagers with us. Niue delivered everything and more for our friends, as not only did they enjoy quality time as a family, but the teenagers also had the freedom to self-explore as many of us quipped, ‘just like the old days we enjoyed growing up at the bach’.

This epic trip was two-years in the making, and with full snorkel, dive and fishing boats going out most days a bit of preparation and planning was needed. There is only one scuba diving operator on Niue, Niue Blue, and their booking board was filled most days with “PPP” – the Porter Party Peeps. The teenagers did not complain when alarms went off (although the roosters helped with this too), as it meant there was a fish to catch or scuba diving to be enjoyed.

Niue is one of the world’s largest raised coral atolls, so the reef runs around the island. Being an atoll means there are no rivers or streams, making the water ‘gin clear’ with up to 70m visibility. It also means dive sites are close to where the boats are launched, making scuba diving in Niue also very time efficient. A double dive before lunch, and the afternoon is free for more adventures… or perhaps a nap.

The geography of Niue also means there are a number of caves, caverns, swim throughs and chimneys to explore while diving. The dive team from Niue Blue are very well trained and experienced and, as the business is run by Dive! Tutukaka, you might even spot a familiar face amongst them as many of them spend their winters working in Niue. Our sixteen-year-old son completed his PADI course at Dive! Tutukaka and was delighted to see his tutor Charlie on arrival at the Niue Blue dive shop, washing away a fair few of the nerves he initially felt.

Once our family had done a couple of dives in Niue, the soon-to-be favourite dive site was experienced. Diving through the reef deep into the island you surface in ‘Bubble Cave’ – a cavern with an air pocket that is often filled with sea snakes and copper sweepers, and incredible stalactites encroaching from above. Swimming back out from the cave, the striking bright blue ocean is only topped by the light fractions that dance from above. Magical is an understatement when diving in Niue.

As the sun set each day and happy hour commenced on our communal deck, our friends and their kids shared experiences from the day. This led to ‘Discover Dives’ being booked at the last minute for those who weren’t certified, as well as additional dives for those who realised that there really was nowhere like Niue. One granddad who had never snorkelled or swum in the ‘deep blue’ was encouraged by his two confident and competent grandkids to give it a go, and they snorkelled hand-in-hand with spinner dolphins playing below them.

In the last few days of our holiday the migrating humpback whales began to appear, and whilst we could clearly see them from land tail slapping, fluking and breaching; bookings were already being made to return to Niue the following year to add whale swimming to the memory making album for our family as well as most of our friends. It seems the significant birthday celebration may just turn into an annual adventure for us all.

Ready to book your family trip to Niue? Click here for more information on holiday deals and specials, dive and snorkelling trips, resort options, weddings and more.

Visit niueisland.com or niueblue.com for more on this special South Pacific island destination.