Tonga! Tonga! Tonga!

Malo e lelei! That's the Tongan greeting. Our trip started out with Nicole and I heading north to Auckland in the relocation car, but not without her almost smashing up our car and taking out a few mirrors before leaving town. Luckily none of that happened. We got to see some awesome scenery on the way up there. We drove through Tongariro National Park, which is where I did the Alpine Crossing a while back. It was really cool to see the volcano and other peaks from the other side of the park. About half an hour from the airport I get a phone call from Air New Zealand letting me know that my flight to Tonga has been delayed by two hours. How fantastic! Nicole and I could have totally taken our flight and had plenty of time. Oh well, we got to see some cool things. So we met up with Mary in the airport and spent our time eating, watching Miranda, and playing cards.

We finally boarded the plane around midnight and oh lucky us, the plane was delayed for another hour. We didn't get to Tonga until around 4:30-5am as they're an hour ahead. It felt so good to walk off the plane into hot air. It was so windy, but it didn't even matter. The airport is tiny, which makes customs take a while to get through. We didn't get to our accommodation until just before 7am as it was about a half hour's drive from the airport. The three of us crashed the second we walked into our fale and slept till around noon.

Unfortunately when we woke up the weather wasn't so great. So no beach for us that day, but we were desperate for food. Unfortunately by the time we were ready to go for the day town had pretty much closed, we had missed lunch, and our only option was to walk down the street to a convenience store to grab some food. We hadn't gotten a chance to grab any cash yet so I asked the lady at our place if they would take our debit cards. She said no, but let us borrow some money. Because it had been dark when we drove in, we didn't get a chance to see what the convenience store looked like. I immediately felt stupid for asking about the debit card when I saw the place. It was basically a small cinder block building with a large window in front covered with bars. You had to tell the lady what you wanted, and she would slide your purchase through a small hole.

So we made some lunch and explored the grounds a bit. The place was pretty small, but it was great. There was a building that housed the kitchen, bar, and restaurant, and off to the side of that were the fales and bunk houses set up in a garden like setting. The beach was maybe a thirty second walk from our fale, which was extremely convenient. Because the place is so small, the beach was always pretty open with not many people on it at all. Our fale was basically just a bedroom with enough room for our beds, a bathroom, and a veranda with a hammock. It was nothing fancy, but it was great nonetheless.

We walked down the beach to another resort for dinner that night where I had amazing lime drizzled garlic prawns. They were damn good. We decided to walk back on the road, but when it gets dark in Tonga it is dark. Street lights are non-existent, and Mary was the only one with her phone that has a flashlight on it. I mentioned grabbing a torch (flashlight) in town, and Nicole was all for it. She really wanted to carry around a torch. Apparently she missed the memo that a torch is just a flashlight and not a torch like on Survivor.

Sunday brought rain and wind all day long. Such a bummer, but we spent the day in our fale reading, playing cards, and laughing. Monday was full of sunshine, but we wanted to head to town first to get to a grocery store. We walked down to the road where we were told the bus would pick us up. There is no schedule for the bus on the island. It is just bound to come as some point. So we stood around for about half an hour. Some guys in a pick-up had passed and were trying to tell us things, but we couldn't fully understand them. Eventually two ladies walked past and told us it was a holiday, and that the buses were not running. The guy who runs the place we stayed at, Sven, had no idea what the holiday was, but he was going to take a van full into town if we wanted to join. So we got a ride, but a good portion of town was shut down. We did manage to get some bread, cheese, and butter from the bakery though. And as for town, well it is pretty tiny, and its really the only town on the island. Everything else is just a village of houses and convenience stores. When we got back, we spent the rest of the day on the beach soaking up the Tongan sun.

Wednesday unfortunately we had to leave, but not until late. We spent the day on an island tour. I'll write a separate blog post just for the tour as it was quite the experience. We left Tonga a little after ten that night and got into Auckland around 12:30. Our flight into Wellington wasn't leaving until 6:40 so we had some time to burn. We grabbed some food and slept on a bench for a few hours. After getting into Wellington, I had to get going right away as I had a lot to do before I left for the South Island early the next morning. Until next time...

Malo e lelei,
Laura