It’s surprising to me how fast the second quarter of the year went by. Already the shortest day of winter has passed and (thankfully) the days have begun to get longer – albeit only by the tiniest, almost unnoticeable fraction of a second a day! The most recent 3 months of the year were fairly unremarkable except that they gave me the opportunity to do a bit of traveling.
Toward the end of April I made my way back to Louisiana for the first time in a few years. It was good to see my grandmother, uncle, aunts, and cousins. The only bad thing was that the trip was just too short! We lucked out with some cool weather for May and I was treated to a bonfire and hotdog cookout, complete with marshmallows! Good fun, haven’t done that in years and years. We did as much as we could in the time that we had, but it seemed like as soon as I got there it was time to turn around and leave again. However, I was thankful for the time that we did have and look forward to my next trip – whenever that may be!
Nonnie and Me
I returned to New Zealand and spent about a month at home where it was time to wrap up pigeon racing season. Jim was pleased with his team’s performance this year having done exceptionally well in the season’s biggest combine race. In the time off between racing birds and the upcoming breeding season, we decided to take a trip together but were unsure of where we wanted to go. We tossed around a few locations with Mongolia being at the top of the list, but at the last minute, Jim came across a reverse auction on the internet and bought 2 round-trip tickets to Tonga at an incredibly low price! So our plans changed and we spent our holiday time a little closer to home relaxing on the beach.
At the beginning of our trip we didn’t know much about the Kingdom of Tonga. We didn’t even know anyone who had been to Tonga! A lot of New Zealanders have been to Fiji and we didn’t have any trouble getting information about that location when we visited there last year – but we didn’t get the same response when we asked about Tonga… not that we had a long time to investigate, only 5 days from ticket purchase to departure! But it was a pleasant surprise… the people were nice, the beach was great and the weather was perfect.
The beach on Atata Island, Tonga.
Tonga is unique in this region in that it is the only nation in the Pacific never to have been controlled by a foreign country. It is also the last remaining Polynesian monarchy. Unlike so many of the other small island nations in the Pacific, Tonga was never colonized by the British, but it did sign a Treaty of Friendship with the United Kingdom in 1879 which afforded Tonga the status of a “Protected State.” Later, Tonga become an official protectorate of the British in 1900. It is a country that consists of 176 islands, but only 52 of them are inhabited. This group of islands is located just west of the International Date Line and has always been known as the first Pacific nation to greet the new day. (However, if the Samoan government gets it’s way, the line may change this year and Tonga may lose this distinction.) It’s about 2,000 kilometers from New Zealand to Tonga and takes about 2 1/2 hours to fly there.
On the morning of our departure it looked like we might not get off the ground at all when several flights on the departure board at the airport started showing the status, “CANCELLED” next to their numbers. The reason was that the ash cloud from the recently erupted Chilean Mt Puyehue Cordon Caulle volcano had circumnavigated the globe and made it into New Zealand airspace. Luckily, it turned out that only Australian airlines were cancelling their flights and we were flying on Air New Zealand. Off we went!
When we landed on the main island of Tongatapu, we saw what looked like a royal band just off the tarmac. Jim joked that they must be there to greet him, but actually it was the royal band and they were there for the King of Tonga who had arrived on the same flight as we did. We got into our transportation and started on our journey toward the main town of Nuku’alofa where we were to meet our boat at the wharf, and after a little while we had to pull over and let the King pass us. This was actually quite fortuitous for us because after he went by, we were able to join in the royal motorcade and travel the rest of the distance to Nuku’alofa at “high” speed, two cars behind the King!
>At the Houma Blow Holes.
Our resort was located on the small island of Atata just off the mainland and required a 20 minuted boat ride to reach. It was the sort of place that had certainly seen its better days, but our fale (bungalow) was fine… large, with hot shower, right on the beach. The good thing about the resort is that it has new owner/managers that are working toward upgrading the place and re-opening it with a new name in the near future. While we were there only part of the resort was open due to damage from a cyclone last year, which was fine with us because that meant fewer people around. We almost had the place to ourselves… in fact, at one point we realized I was the only white woman on the island! In addition to the resort, there is a small fishing village made up of about 100 people. It was extremely quite there, no roads, no vehicles, I don’t even think there were any bicycles! Just people, a few dogs, chickens, lots of pigs and big fruit bats.
The Royal Sunset
Pigs rooting at low tide.
One day we walked around the entire island which took us about 2 hours. About half of the island has a beach and the other half is rock and coral with no real path. That wasn’t really a problem until my old flip-flops made their last stand about half-way around the island and both gave up in spectacular and irrepairable fashion within steps of each other. This left me in quite a predicament because, of course, we were in the section of island that was not beach-fronted, and the rocks were hard and the coral was sharp! Luckily, Jim had worn socks with his sandals to ward off the sandflies and, these, he generously gave to me. They went a long way toward softening the unpleasant things under my feet. When we got back to our fale it had gotten to be funny – but it wasn’t so funny on the opposite side of the island with a pair of useless flip-flops in my hands!
Walking around the island, failed flip-flops in hand.
Another interesting experience we had on the island was going to church on Sunday. Tonga was apparently a big target for the missionaries in the 1800’s… probably because of the islanders’ canabalistic nature! The missionaries that survived the stewing pot went on to establish more churches than stores and schools put together. The most common church is the Free Wesleyan Church (Methodist), followed by the Mormon Church and then the Catholic Church. In our small island village there were two churches representing the Wesleyans and Free Tongans (Catholics). By chance we attended the Free Tongan service, led to the building by the sound of the opening song! Let me tell you… the Tongans are not afraid to sing – I’ve never heard hymns sung like that in all my life! The priest opened the service with a prayer which, and this is no lie, lasted a full 15 minutes. He didn’t open his eyes or stop for a breath! Of course this was all in Tongan so we didn’t understand a word of it, but the congregation, about 50 people, joined in often and gratuitously with “malo” (thank you) and “io” (yes). When he finished with the opening prayer, the rest of the service consisted of the choir singing hymns, the priest’s sermon – which was delivered with gusto and a very practiced pointing finger, an offering (which we missed the first time around) and a closing prayer, ending with a resounding “amen.” Afterwards, Jim went up to the front of the church and gave an offering which was received by the gracious faces of the church elders. I’m sure it must have been my imagination, but in the days after our visit to church, it seemed like we were greeted by many more smiling friends in the village!
“Our Church”
A large fruit bat flying through the palm trees.
On our last day in Tonga, we travelled back from Atata to Tongatapu and spent the day sightseeing around the mainland before catching our flight back to New Zealand in the afternoon. Again our travel day started off with a bit of excitement… instead of taking the usual boat the resort uses to ferry guests back and forth, we got to take the somewhat more exciting longboat since the resort needed to pick up 2 drums of fuel. Perhaps I should use “tense” rather than “exciting” to describe the boat since that would better describe how it made me feel. It wasn’t that it had no cover, the spray wasn’t that bad; It wasn’t that it had no seats, sitting on the bow was fine; It was the fact that the deck boards all along the starboard side of the vessel popped up everytime we bounced against a wave! It made me shudder to think what was or was not underneath those boards. Jim made the driver put a couple of life vests in the boat before we left – just in case! As it turned out we made it just fine and spent the next several hours seeing the sights of Tonga’s main island: the Royal Tombs where most of the King’s ancestors are buried; the blow holes at Houma; Captain Cook’s Landing Place; the Terraced Tombs, where more of the Royal family are buried including the Prince and Princess who where killed in a widely publicized auto accident in America a few years ago; the Stonehenge-like rock called the Ha’amonga Trilithon erected in 1200 AD; and the Anahulu Cave which looks like a miniature Carlsbad Cavern. Our last stop was the airport where, unbelievably, the Chilean ash cloud was still causing trouble! We left on time but waved good-bye to an unfortunate Australian couple who had left our resort 6 days earlier and were still trying to get home.
Looking toward the main island of Tongatapu.
I guess sometimes the trips you put the least amount of effort into planning come out the best, certainly that was the case with our time in Tonga. After having so much difficulty deciding where we wanted to go and then trying to get an itinerary together that would work to the time frame we wanted, this one just sort of fell into place. I think the next few months will be fairly mundane, probably just a lot of rain and cold weather! But at least we’ll have a few pretty pictures of Tongan sunsets to look back on and remember some warm days in the sun in the not so distant past.
A beautiful Tongan sunset.
See our photos from Tonga at
http://www.jimmello.com/Tonga1/index.html
