I opened the door to the balcony this morning and was assaulted by a rush of hot smoky air. It’s barely 8.30am and already a sultry 30 degrees. I’m not good in the heat - it plays havoc with my hair.
Off in the distance, the dark blue sea and sky were interrupted by small grey curtains of water joining heaven and earth. Rain that would fall intermittently on us all day, but would quickly evaporate from our skin in the relentless tropical sun. Mirroring the rainfall, was a series of tall wispy columns of smoke rising up from unseen fires inland and the ingredients from this mixture created a sultry tropical air that succeeded in draining our energy, but invigorated the spirit.
Spread out before the ship, was the low-lying capital of Samoa, Apia. It peered back at us through a layer of thick palm fronds, punctuated regularly by the spires and steeples of many churches. The missionaries really did a number on these Islands.
After walking into the main part of the town, past old colonial buildings with paint peeling, a heavily fortified police station, a large well patronised flea market and numerous churches of every religion and architectural style, we were able to hail a taxi for the drive up into the mountains for this morning’s foray away from the ship - the home, museum and tomb of Robert Louis Stevenson. Born in Scotland in 1850, he travelled extensively throughout the world in search of a climate that relieved his tuberculosis. After writing Treasure Island, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped, he had settled here on the Samoan Island of Upolu. He bought 400 acres high in the hills over-looking what was then a sleepy little fishing town, where he involved himself with the local tribes and their customs.
His influence over the island gained him the native name Tusitala - the Teller of Tales and he earned the deep respect of the Samoan people. He established himself on his estate, Villa Vailima, and it was here in the mountains overlooking the harbour that he died one evening, opening a bottle of wine. He was aged 44.
His home is now a museum dedicated to his memory. Here, if you have the stamina, you can walk up the mountain to where his tomb proclaims:
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
He had two wishes, to be interred on the top of Mt Vaea and to be buried with his boots on.
I like this guy. He had style. He had class.
So who was this man? This guy who had written tales that were such a part of every child’s bedtime story and whose poetic verse inspired travel writers for so many subsequent years. The home didn't disappoint and yet still didn't provide too many answers either. Native tapa cloth wall-papers the solid wooden walls and the beautiful dark timber floor is covered in natural flax mats. Solid old colonial furniture, a piano in a glass case to protect it from the tropical climate and a view out over a magnificent botanical garden that can’t help but inspire. When built, this house high on the hill, must have appeared to the locals like an alien Tardis. Gabled, double storied and surrounded by verandas it was nothing like anything that had been built before and it added to the mystery and mana that he attained with the people of his newly adopted home.
Virtually alongside the estate, is the waterfall Papapapatai. Its fresh clear waters are sucked out of the mountain jungle at the top of this peak and fall 500 feet to the valley floor below. The cool waters looked enticing considering the temperature, even here up on the mountain ridge.
It’s not hard to imagine Samoa’s scenery inspiring Tusitala in his writing. His life may have been cut short, but his tales of adventure and travel continue to inspire and entertain people of all ages and across all of the world
Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson
13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894
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