We're baaack!

Hi all

Well - here we are - back in Auckland and very rested. Have spent Sunday washing and today washing and cleaning and cooking and scrap booking holiday snaps.....Whew! Hope you are all well and heerre goes.....Tonga was FAB!

Just landed! Tonga airport is tiny - we had to climb down the stairs and queue up in the very tiny passport checking place. Left Auckland with the temperature at about 20 degrees and landed in Tonga to a lovely tropical thirty degrees ish!




We stayed two nights and one full day on the mainland (Nukualofa). The picture above is of the lagoon which our hotel was next to. I sat there stilling my beating heart (after nearly breaking my neck sliding on the rocks next to the water) and watched crabs scuttling and jumping around (yes - a blue one was actually jumping from rock to rock!) and schools of fish swimming by. The wildlife in the water around Tonga is just amazing - as you will see later.......

We had this rather large visitor late one afternoon - he was climbing up the wall on our verandah! Big bug#$% isn't he!?

Here's Kev's hand rather bravely put next to said spider to give you an idea of size. I say bravely because some spiders can jump you know! Very glad we had meshes on all windows and doors to keep creepy crawlies and mozzies out. Some huge wasps flying round too......


Sunday was our one full day in Tonga's main city Nukualofa and there was not a soul to be seen!

We began our lonesome walking tour from the King's Palace, which is currently being done up. It's a Victorian style wooden building and fully fenced off unfortunately!



Had a really nice coat of arms on the gates:

The Tongan royal family has its own web site if you'd like to know more.......
http://www.palaceoffice.gov.to/

No-one works - everyone is very religious and hardly anywhere is open on a Sunday. Still, we had a lovely stroll around and got to take in the sights - which consisted mainly of churches!
This is what EVERY street was like! Felt very strange - as though we were the only people alive on the island!

Above is the side view and below is the back end of the first church we came across - felt very English.
I think this must be the church that the King of Tonga uses because it's down the road from the palace and just across the road is the royal graveyard. All the graveyards in Tonga are a very colourful affair.


From here, we walked round the corner and came upon the rather grand and beautiful Catholic Church:

Crucifix above the main entrance:


Here's the doorway and the entrance:



The interior was beautiful and I enjoyed just sitting there taking in the peace and tranquility.

Sorry - tis a bit blurry - maybe I wasn't allowed to take photos inside the church?! Here's one less blurry of the ceiling:

From here, we walked back towards the sea front (after lunch in a lovely Chinese restaurant - one of the few places open). We saw another church (they are everywhere in Tonga - considering it's such a small place):

Then we came across the Chinese Embassy - a very smart building!

Oooh - and here I am at the Treasury! (Rather unflattering photo methinks!).





Lovely views along the coast line - very nice breezes too - twas rather hot!



Here's the view from a very nice little cafe - we stopped here for a much needed cold drink and a not so much needed carrot cake - yum! This is also where we got our taxi (boat) to Fafa Island the very next day!


Wonder what he's looking at?

After a lovely 30 minute journey - we made it to our desert island - home for the next 5 nights and 6 whole wonderful days................



Here's our fale (pronounced far lay) - modelled on a traditional Tongan home - the walls were made of plaited coconut palm leaves!


Isn't it beautiful?! I was very sad when I had to leave.........

Here we are - having our welcome to Fafa Island drink - bet you can't guess what it is!




Aren't the flowers lovely?! They were growing everywhere!

This friendly pukeko dropped by for a crafty snack when he thought no-one was looking!


Now - staying on the island came with its dangers - as I'm sure you can imagine! The main one coming from above our heads - these are the dastardly culprits:


There I'd be - lying in me hammock reading a bit of Dean Koontz ( I read 5 books altogether!), when suddenly thud, bounce, thud - a coconut would bomb down onto the sand nearby!


Spent many a happy evening sitting on these here chairs (below) with our kerosene lantern on the table (very dark at night and the lantern would be delivered each evening before dark to light our way along the sandy path to the restaurant for dinner - whilst dodging coconuts of course.)

We were also visited every night by these little critters - they'd come out and watch us - all the while making chittering noises to us - pretty cute - except for when they poo on you from above!

They were about 6-8 inches long I think - ish.

Cute - eh?!

The bats that flew around late afternoon and night time were really cool to watch - so quiet for such large creatures!

Here's the lovely bed with the even lovlier mosquito net - felt like you were in a four poster tent at night! I really liked the feel of the net around me, except when I needed to go to the loo - then it was a bit of a pain - untucking, climbing out, tucking, climbing in, untucking, tucking - phew! I also spent a happy half hour one evening trying to kill a mozzie that was trapped inside with us! Got the blighter in the end - whacked it very quickly with my book - trouble was it got squished onto my pillow! Hey ho...............

This is our shower - solar powered and , yes, it's outside! We constantly had the company of sparkly dragonflies during our bathing times!

And here I am on our lovely beach - went snorkelling every morning here and also did a bit of kayaking! We walked around the island coast one day when the tide was out - took bloomin ages NOT! 30 minutes all in!

Looks like I was just missed by a coconut, eh?! Lucky......

When the tide was out, we'd wander up and down the beach looking at the amazing wildlife in the shallows - take a look at this feller:
You can see how big he is by my foot next to him - the water was only a few inches deep!

This is a sea slug - they were everywhere - all kinds of sizes, shapes and colours!

Here's a spiky one - actually not sure if it's a slug or a cucumber! Think it's a cucumber - it was over a foot long!
When I saw this - I really thought it was a snake basking in the sunlight of the shallows! But in fact, it was a sea cucumber with an extremely floppy body and a mouth out of an Alien movie - perfectly circular with tentacles coming out at odd moments for food - FREAKY! The elderly Australian man examining said creature with me said testicles instead of tentacles causing me and his wife to fall into intense giggles - happens every time! An old, but funny mistake!


This star fish was HUGE!

And heavy too!

This sea cucumber was sending out sticky filaments from its anus in order to warn us off and to leave it alone!

Here's some more sea cucumbers in a rock pool - you can see a close up of their mouths below:

Weird!

So - as you can see just from the shallows - the life in the water was amazing. Snorkelling was just FAR OUT! We saw different stuff every day. And yes - we did see a sea snake - he was all curled up in the grass-like sea weed happily minding his business and we followed suit by happily minding ours!

The sunsets on the island were so beautiful - we would lie on the beach and just watch this spectacle of nature until the sky became pitch black, the Milky Way was visible and the walk to dinner with our kersene lamp beckoned:


One evening we were treated to Tongan dancing, music and kava!
(Kava is a drink made from the Piper Methysticum plant. It is widely used in Pacific communities, largely for ceremonial purposes.
It is usually made by mixing a dry powered root with water. The strength of kava depends on the plant from which it is prepared and the preparation methods.
It's basically an intoxicant - made you feel a bit drunk and tasted like mud! We drank it out of a shared coconut bowl - interesting!)



This fruit grew all over the place - no idea what it is, but apparently the Tongans eat it. The way the flowers become part of the fruit is a bit unusual!

This is the 'outside' part of the restaurant where we sat if we were a bit hot and wanted to catch a bit of the lovely breeze wafting by.

We sat in a different part of the restaurant every day and the views were always amazing and beautiful.

When the time came to finally leave, I was very sad and did not want to go - however I managed to refrain from having a paddy and got onto the boat with a modicum of style...........

Bye bye Fafa - hope to see you again one day..................

The tide was low, so we were lucky enough to be able to sail right round the island on our way back - and yes - we sailed - the big sail was up and off we went.

Back to Tonga Airport and the flight to New Zealand........................



x Sue