Travel hits and misses: Matt Watson

Matt Watson with daughter in Niue.

Matt Watson hosts ITM Hook Me Up!, Mondays at 7.30pm on Prime.

HIT
For our first overseas family holiday (with kids aged 10 and 13) my wife and daughter had plans for long white beaches and beachfront resorts. But I've been lucky enough to visit pretty much all of the Pacific Islands, and I lobbied for my favourite, Niue.

My kids are active like me, and in Niue you can make your own fun if you get out and explore the sea tracks, jungle treks, swimming holes and snorkelling spots . . . and the fishing's not bad either!

The kids were easy to convince, however the missus took a bit of convincing, but once we got there she never stopped raving about the incredible beauty of the place, the friendly people and how cheap everything was.

To us it was like going on holiday in New Zealand, only it was in the tropics. There was no tour guide, we just jumped in our rental car, got out and met the locals and went coconut crab hunting, fishing, diving and swimming.

Every morning when we opened the curtains we'd see whales, we ate fresh coconut and pawpaw on the deck for breakfast, and in the evening we ate fresh sashimi and sipped our NZ$5 mojitos and still the whales played beneath us. Ten days wasn't enough: we're going back!

MISS
We had the opportunity to fish in Principe. We travelled for more than 60 hours non-stop to get there. Kerikeri-Auckland- Dubai-Lisbon-Sao Tome-Principe. Travelling with fishing and camera gear is a niggle, but it went really pear-shaped in Sao Tome, when we arrived and had our passports taken off us by Customs.

We had our bags and just one flight to go, but Customs wanted €50 each for our passports. We didn't have enough cash, they wouldn't take credit cards, and there are no banks on the island.

Our once-a-week flight to Principe was about to leave, but because it was a domestic flight we were advised we could leave our passports, get some cash in Principe and get our passports back from him on the way home. We had no choice, we had to go, with no embassy, no money and no way of reasoning with them, we jammed our gear into the little plane.

There were chickens on the flight and the door was tied closed with rope, though it did look like good rope.

All the locals flew the entire flight in the braced recovery position and when we touched down they broke into cheers of joy and hugged each other.

Principe was incredibly beautiful and the people were fantastic, but we still had to get back through Sao Tome.

We bought our passports back, and I'd never been happier to take off on a plane with all the film crew safe.