About Sauniatu Waterfall
The Sauniatu Waterfall (or Sauniatu Falls) was probably as off-the-beaten-track of a waterfall as we wound up visiting in Samoa.
Compared to most of the waterfalls that we encountered on the islands, which involved no more than a short walk and easy-to-find car parks, this waterfall required us to go a little out-of-the-way.
Indeed, although reaching this waterfall wasn’t physically demanding, the road to get to the village of Sauniatu made up most of the adventure (see directions below).
We certainly appreciated the high clearance of our rental vehicle to traverse the fairly rough road.
Once we got through that, we were then greeted by a guard manning the village of Sauniatu, which I believe might be more of a Mormon village.
That Mormon factor definitely made this village feel a bit different as opposed to most of the other rural villages throughout Samoa.
In any case, after the guard let us through and pointed the way to the waterfall, we promptly parked and then walked across a lawn towards fencing that protected a picnic area.
Right behind the picnic tables was a tall series of steps leading down the bottom of a deep gorge.
About half-way down the steps was a branch leading to a closed off path, where we noticed some local Caucasians with American accents doing a cliff jump into a deep plunge pool with the rest of the family looking on.
The steps also presented us with direct views of the gushing Sauniatu Waterfall itself, which featured a smaller drop followed by a roughly 20m drop.
Once we were at the bottom of the steps, we had one more step to take to get down from the concrete platform onto the rocky riverbed to get right up to the fringes of the plunge pool.
Even though we made our visit at around midday, the mosquitoes here were seemingly quick and aggressive, but that didn’t seem to bother the people swimming and doing cliff jumps at the falls.
The lighting wasn’t the greatest for taking pictures when we were here, but I don’t think any of that mattered when it came to cooling off and enjoying this rather secluded spot in the eastern mountains of Samoa’s ‘Upolu Island.
Overall, we spent about 30 minutes away from the car, but we easily could have spent more time here if we chose to swim and cool off.
Authorities
The Sauniatu Waterfall resides in the Atua District. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try the MNRE website.
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