Home of Robert Louis Stevenson

I have long been fascinated by the life and work of Edinburgh born author Robert Louis Stevenson. Best known by most people for his works of fiction (Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, The Master of Ballantrae….) RLS also produced a wide variety of non-fiction: travel journals, autobiography, social commentary and literary studies. These are my absolute favourites. I am also intrigued to know why a lone, sickly, bohemian Scot who lived for just four of the last ten years of the 19th century in a remote South Pacific island should be so well remembered and so highly revered more than a hundred years on. A Samoan taxi driver in New Zealand spoke of him unprompted and with genuine affection within the past year. What did he do to make such lasting impression in such a short time? And that at a time when most Europeans were regarded with suspicion or even fear due to the sweep of colonization. One reason for the indulgence of a trip to that same small island was a quest to find out.

The Scottish writer

My description of Stevenson is not intended to be in any way derogatory. He was unusual for a man of his social class and time. The only son of high class family of renowned engineers (his grandfather built the first lighthouse on Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth), RLS broke with tradition by giving up the practice of law to become a successful and well paid author after the requisite period of starvation and poverty. He married a divorced American woman, Fanny van de Grift or Osborne, became step-father to her two children and gave up practicing the protestant religion he was brought up in for a significant period of his life. That he was a sickly man is not a point of dispute. TB was the whispered cause of frequent chest complaints, haemorrhages and periods of chronic ill health. If there was any room for doubt on this matter, his untimely death at the age of 44 must finally have settled the point.

The sick room

While in Samoa, Stevenson bought, through the agency of an American trader named Moors, a large tract of land in the foothills of Mt Veia behind the main town of Apia. On this estate he built a magnificent house and ran a productive plantation. He gave the property its present day name Vailima, meaning five rivers or streams. Four are actually visible. The fifth may belong to the spirit world.

Villa Vailima

Fanny's room

Home of the bottle imp

After his death, the house was occupied by a German colonial administrator and later by the governor of Independent Samoa. Recent years have seen it restored and transformed into a fabulous museum and shrine to the original owner.

Teller of tales 2009

The mandatory tour thrown in with the 15 tala entry fee features a local guide reciting Stevenson’s famous epitaph at a place in the house where tears seem always to arise.

Under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie
Glad did I live and gladly die, and I lay me down with a will
This be the verse thy grave for thee, here he lies where he longed to be
Home is the sailor home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill.

The tomb on Mt Veia

The very lucky might hear it as a song, as the Samoan tradition can’t let such lyrical lines go without music.

Stevenson’s writing career was both challenged and inspired at Vailima. Challenged by the social and political engagement of its owner, and inspired by the magical tropical surroundings. One of the reasons for Stevenson’s long enduring reputation was his firm stance on the side of the Samoan chiefs and interests against the sweep of European colonization. Other reasons are hard to explain without resort to bland phrases like ‘he was such a nice guy everybody loved him’.

He wrote something like thirteen books, various essays and newspaper articles, built a house then extended it to accommodate his widowed Scottish mother, hosted a family with an extensive social life and many visitors, and still managed to travel extensively to Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and other islands, all within the space of about five years. As well as nice, he seems to have been something like amazing.


The steep trek to the top of Mt Veia to the chosen site of his grave is worth every sweaty and slippery step. The view of Apia and the reef beyond takes away any laboured breath a visitor accustomed to cooler climes might have left on reaching the top. It seems fitting to arrive breathless at the grave of a man who spent much of his life similarly afflicted. His presence and that of his wife remain strong after all these years. The love and creative spirit is still palpable.
At the time of his December evening death, stepson Lloyd Osborne had long avoided the task of cutting a path to the burial site at the top of the mountain. Bodies need to be buried quickly in the tropics, and by midday the following day, his Samoan friends had cut the path for their loved one’s final journey. What is now a forty-five minute steep hike up a narrow track would have been a formidable task in the tropical heat and the midst of such sorrow. Nothing was too much trouble for the honorary chief Tusitala, the teller of tales.

Apia - Samoa

The main town of Apia on Upolu, the most populated of Samoa's nine islands, is not so large. Like recently visited Kobe, it spreads back from the shore towards hills and stops as soon as they get too steep to build on. There the similarity ends.


Apia is in no hurry, which I find typical of the tropics. There are a couple of department stores of the old style but most shopping seems to be done in markets. Malls are an alien concept (long may they remain so).


We are staying at the famous Aggie Grey’s Hotel (not to be mistaken for the resort of the same name, which is a self-contained tourist enclave out of town beside the airport). An enterprising Samoan woman whose English husband managed to drink away their collective fortune apparently started this business selling coffee and hamburgers to US airmen during WW11. She obviously did something right as the hotel, now run by her grand daughter, is world famous, a legend in the South Pacific and belies is humble roots. A huge ornate Fale beside the swimming pool is the main dining and entertainment venue. There is also an Aggie Grey’s farm nestled in the relative cool of the highlands to supply the accommodations. Must be one of the biggest employers on the island (Upolu).


A grand weatherboard building houses the main hotel with blocks of very decent garden rooms and small fales gracing landscaped tropical gardens out back. The rooms are decked with flowers and there seem to be three waiters for every guest and we can send someone out to buy tonic water if we want to. Wandering out to explore the area is more appealing than being waited on, so we park up the luggage and go for a stroll. Its still over 30C and someone said welcome to paradise. Fair comment!

The island is a mix of old and new with more churches than there are pubs in Scotland. Contemporary Christian religion has spread like a vine in this seemingly fertile climate. The religious tradition is strong, tithing http://www.tithingdebate.com/ is still practiced and everyone except the cook is expected at church on Sunday. Whatever the leaning, they make great photo opportunities for those of lesser faith.



The clock tower in the town centre says its always twenty past one. I wonder if that is morning or afternoon?

The town hall is a modern building with hints of traditional design.

The police band marches to raise the flag in front of the town hall at 8.45 every morning, though not if it rains. Check the lava lava uniforms.


Old and new parliament houses follow the traditional meeting fale design.

Just around the corner from Aggie’s, a marine reserve offers snorkeling gear for hire to view coral and tropical fish, all withing spitting distance of the shore. Entrance is 3 Tala (about NZ$2). The tide is low when I visit early one morning. A careful slither across coral in shallow water is rewarded by the sudden descent of a steep shelf about fifty metres offshore. A few massive brain corals break up the irregular lines of fluorescence purples tipped tree like structures. The water is like a warm bath, and a few big slug like sea cucumbers are in deep enough water not to bother a squeamish swimmer. I never had the courage to touch one of these things to find out if they are as slimy as they look.


Next stop the Mt Veia former home and grave site of Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous Scottish author of Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde among many personally preferred titles.

Samoa - first impressions

First impressions of Samoa are suggestive of cultural links to Pacific nations previously visited– particularly Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. The runway tapers off in a shallow turquoise lagoon enclosed by a reef that varies between 50 and 200 metres offshore at different points around the island (population about 185,000). A twin prop 19-seater is the only other plane on the tarmac outside a single storey international terminal. Men in white shirts and traditional dark blue/grey mid-calf length skirts– called lava lava – attend to landing procedures and usher passengers into a fan cooled immigration hall. Smiles all round say Talofa, ‘welcome to Samoa.’ These are not formulaic smiles switched on to anticipate tips in lieu of wages.

A slightly hotter than comfortable 30C notes this landing as close on the equator. It is still the wet season and it really needs to rain. Yesterday it did, maybe again today, maybe tomorrow or the next day; in Samoan time. Nothing moves in a hurry and it’s easy to get why.




When all 150 or so passengers have been processed and assigned transport – swept up in the arms of awaiting relatives, shoe horned into regulation white taxis or packed into waiting tourist shuttles - another 150 ascend roll away steps into the plane before the airport closes down for the afternoon. The next flights in and out are not til tomorrow.

The Lonely Planet Guide flags the 22-mile trip from the north-west corner to Apia, the capital, two thirds of the way to the opposite end of the island as a sightseeing tour in itself. This proves to be spot on. Traditional fales are scattered along the road between breeze block and weatherboard bungalows. There are three types of fale, for meeting, sleeping and eating.


Some are plain grey with sheet iron roofs. Others are painted bright purple, turquoise or yellow, breaking the visual rhythm and apparently, displaying the affluence that comes from overseas relatives remitting funds back to the island. This maybe great for the recipients, but not so good for the economy as it is a castle built of sand.



The tradition of burying deceased family members in the garden - or in front of the village meeting house for chiefs - under solid concrete grave markers is very much in evidence. Status is marked by the position either in front of the house, at the side or round the back. This guarantees the land stays in the family or village community.





The road follows the coast all the way to the town, and our destination at the renknowned Aggie Grey's Hotel.

Rain forest in the rain

Next stop after Brisbane is across the state line to the rain forest area of northern New South Wales. I’ve been here a few times before, and like Waiheke - the island suburb of Auckland - every time I go I want to up sticks and move in. A few things (like leeches rearing up at the edge of the deck ready to grab a tasty passing toe and huge Huntsman spiders in the kitchen) remind me that all aint rosy in the Australian rain forest, but it is surely one of the loveliest spots on earth, specially for someone like me who loves rain and prefers it served up with a large dose of humidity. That is before any mention of the local residents, who just don’t have the same sharp corners that us city folks do.

Well, the forecast said it was going to rain – and that is exactly what it did for most of five days I stayed in the area. Not that this caused any real problem. The culvert on the road into the community wasn’t flooded to the extent of being impassible – far from it – and even if it had been, there is a tractor that can get across when cars can’t.



It was kind of relaxing with not much to do in the rain except sit around and talk, catch a dip down at the dam between showers and watch the local wildlife.



The local stuff is quite exotic for us NZers as we don’t have little furry animals that hop about carrying their young in front pockets. Christine’s comment ‘get some shoulders’ hit the spot, but a witty wallaby response could well be ‘who needs them with ears like these?’



The property where she lives is a community with about 12 houses on enough land so no one has to have neighbours overlooking them. An interesting way to live – community style with collective decisions and all that stuff that became so popular back in the 1960s/70. These guys still seem to get on really well with it in 2009 and there are many such 'multiple occupancy' properties in the area. Most of the residents on this one are creative types and it’s really easy to see how these surroundings would inspire them.


The local pizza oven is a sight to behold even though it’s not operating in the rain.




A visit to the area would hardly be complete without paying a call to the [in]famous town of Nimbin. Just for once, no one approached me on main st to ask if I wanted to score! Maybe I just don’t look the type anymore, in my dirty old man’s raincoat!