talofa lava: welcome to Samoa
Thirty-five thousand feet up in the air, the journey from Australia to Samoa is exquisite; a bird’s-eye view of hundreds of tiny atolls scattered across the turquoise ocean, ringed by haloes of coral reef and white surf. Bigger, lusher islands pass beneath, thickly forested along spiny ridges and long-dead volcano cones, that are now shimmering lakes where lava was once bubbling up from the earth’s core.
The elegant wing of the Samoa Airways 737, painted blue and white in traditional island patterns, tips sharply upwards as we turn in a massive arc, merging sea and sky, to descend into Faleolo Airport. This smart new airline, borne of the former Polynesian Airlines, started flying out of Sydney back in November; a very doable hop that takes you from urban mainland Australia to an island paradise
