About Togitogiga Waterfall
The Togitogiga Waterfall (or Togitogiga Falls) was an attractive dual-tiered waterfall that seemed like an ideal spot to cool off from the stifling humidity of a place like Samoa.
The falls featured an upper semi-horseshoe-shaped drop that had four segments when we saw it during our November 2019 trip.
Then, the falls dropped over a second tier into an elongated plunge pool that seemed to be the spot to swim and cool off.
Because the Togitogiga Falls resided in a national park (more specifically, the O Le Pupu’pue National Park), we didn’t have to pay an entry fee to access it.
The falls even featured a handful of picnic fales as well as a stream gauge upstream of the falls.
These things gave us reason to think that the river responsible for the falls was significant enough to have such a measuring instrument.
For those wanting to change into swim suits, there was a changing room at the top of the stairs leading down to the banks of the river.
Experiencing the Togitogiga Waterfall
From the signed car park (see directions below), we took the path right behind the sign, which was on the left.
There was another path (more like a road) that went to the right in a more downstream direction.
However, we can’t say anything more on where that road went.
In any case, the path quickly started to skirt along a narrow and elevated trail with dense jungle growth on our left and more open terrain with the river to our right.
The surface of the trail went from standard dirt trail to a mixture of lava rocks.
This hinted at the geology that gave rise of the Togitogiga Waterfall that we headed to.
After about 200m, the track traversed one minor clearing before reaching a larger clearing where we could see the picnic fales flanking the wide grassy area.
However, immediately to our right were some steps leading down to a changing area, where we encountered another longer series of steps leading down to the river’s banks.
Once down at the banks of the river, we scrambled on the boulders before we started to get a good look at the Togitogiga Waterfall.
Since we showed up in the late afternoon, the shadows were pretty severe.
So it made photographing the falls a bit difficult (due to blow outs in the lit up areas or underexposure in the shadowy parts).
The time of day also happened to be when the mosquitoes were at their worst.
In any case, we got to see as much of the waterfall as possible from down here though the upper tiers were somewhat obstructed by the ledge responsible for the lower drop of the falls.
When we had our fill of the bottom, we then went back up to the picnic fales.
That was where we noticed a short but steep path leading down to an eroded dropoff between the upper and lower drops of the Togitogiga Waterfall.
This was also where I was able to get a semi-direct view of the segmented upper drop of the waterfall though any further progress to the bottom seemed dicey at best from what I could tell.
After exploring around amongst the fales as well as checking out the stream gauge, I got to appreciate the somewhat horseshoe shape of the segmented upper drop of the Togitogiga Falls from its top.
But after having had my fill of this spot, we returned to the car park, where we wound up spending about 30 minutes away from the car.
Authorities
The Togitogiga Waterfall resides in the O Le Pupu’pue National Park in the Tuamasaga District near Apia on ‘Upolu Island, Samoa. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try the MNRE website.
The Togitogiga Waterfall resided off the Main South Coast Road of ‘Upolu Island in O Le Pupu’pue National Park.
There are many ways to get here, but I’ll just focus on the driving directions from Apia since that’s the main city of Samoa.
From the junction of Beach Road and Cross-Island Road, we went south on Cross-Island Road for about 22km before turning left onto the Main South Coast Road.
Then, we drove about 6.3km to one of two signed turnoffs on the left for the Togitogiga Waterfall.
Both turnoffs shortly lead to the same unpaved road so even if you miss the first one, you can still catch the second one.
Once on the unpaved road, we then drove roughly 200m to a signed junction where a signed fork for the visitor centre was on the left and another sign pointed to the right for the waterfall.
Keeping right, we then drove a fairly rough road (our high clearance rental car was helpful) for another 100m before we reached the end of the road at the car park for the Togitogiga Waterfall.
Finally, for a little local context, the town of Apia was about 23km (over 30 minutes drive) north of Maninoa (South Coast), about 50km (over an hour drive) northwest of Matatufu (Southeast Coast), about 62km (under 90 minutes drive) northwest of Lalomanu, and 41km (under an hour drive) east of Mulifanua (Northwest Coast).
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360 degree sweep from the bottom of the falls revealing all the components though the upper tiers were partial
Looking down over the four-segmented upper drop of the falls
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