It wasn’t until we went to the Avaiki Caves that our true adventure on Niue had started. Unlike Tahiti where all of the tourist attractions and sites and not marked so that a person has to hire a guide to find them, Niue marks each attraction very well. We walked down a well marked trail for about 3 minutes before the trail descended into a cave. The opening was enormous and was absolutely incredible. While the main trail continued directly down some stairs and rugged rock to the ocean and the shallow coral reef, little holes and crevices were in the rocks to both sides of us as we walked through the cave’s natural tunnel. I naturally continued down the hillside cave toward the ocean not noticing the small passageway to the north of me that led to another cave chamber with large swimming pool below. It wasn’t until we had explored the other cave adjacent to this one that the kids (who are adventurous explorers that like to go off the beaten path) discovered the passageway.

There were gigantic stalactites and stalagmites and others that were gradually being formed all over the cave system.

In both of the caves located here, there were rock ledges for the kids to crawl up that created stone balconies in a natural looking auditorium. It was like going into a cave like opera house with a second level mezzanine looking out over the cave. The kids made me a little nervous as they crawled out over some narrow ledges but they were true explorers and must have found every single passageway.

They ended the day swimming in the largest cave’s open pool. Inside the pool were some very small florescent blue fish but they had to be careful to avoid the coral and the sea urchins that were also in the pool. Jaeden, Orin and Eli were gravitated to jump off of the cave walls into the water below. It was absolutely irresistible. The water in the pool was crystal clear and I could see the turquoise blue colours and every detail of the floor of the cave through the water. This included the purple and other colours and shapes of coral growing throughout the sea-floor of the cave.