Vava'u - The Jewel of the Kingdom

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Malo,

The highlight of my visit to the Kingdom of Tonga has been my trip up to Vava'u, the northern group of Islands, about 180 nautical miles further north of Tongatapu.

Dad is managing a new airline - Chathams Pacific, the friendly islands airline - which flies domesticaly throughout Tonga. I of course needed to inspect these services, so took a trip up to Vava'u for 3 nights.

Vava'u is a sailers paradise; with a group of islands, deep water ways, a sheltered and protected harbour called the Port of Refuge, and crystal clear blue water. I would describe it to New Zealander's as a tropical Marlborough Sounds. I was staying in the main centre of Neiafu at a guest house called The Soveriegn Residence. It was the former residence of a Princess and sits above the Port of Refuge with a great view of the harbour. The bedrooms were lovely and the balcony was a stunning place to enjoy breakfast and watch all the activity of boats to-ing and fro-ing.

While in Vava'u I had to head out on the water to see the outer islands and the humpback whales, which gather in great numbers in the sheltered tropical waters to give birth to their calves from July to September. I spent two days out with the Dive Vava'u crew on DevOcean. The first day we did two dives and got to see a spotted Eagle Ray, a large turtle hiding under some rocks, heard whale song while under the water, saw hundreds of clown fish and some great colourful coral. The second day we went out and did some whale watching, where we saw about 15 or so whales throughout the day, and did a spectactular dive into 3 caverns. The first cavern we popped up into a small airpocket at the top, the second contained stunning green seafan coral along its walls and the third contained about 7 baby white tip reef sharks. We also saw a sea snake and 3 larger white tip reef sharks on this dive. The last activity of the day was to swim under rock shelf about 1m down and 3m back into a huge cave called Mariners Cave. I swam through first and loved seeing the others come through from the turquoise blue waters of the outside of the cave in through to the deep blue inside.

On Wednesday evening I went down to Tonga Bob's with the other passengers from the boat to see the Fakalady show. It is what you would call a drag queen shown in Australia. If was very funny, and had us all up on the stage slipping tips for the dancers under their straps.

On the final morning I went out with a guide from the Friendly Islands Kayak Company for a paddle around the harbour. It was a beautiful still morning and easy paddling across clear blue waters. I saw lots of fish swimming around beneath us, plenty of crabs crawling along the cliffs and a friendly turtle who popped his head out to take a look at us as we paddled by. We went out to, and circled the small island just around the corner from Neiufu, Lotuma, which used to be the old miliatary base for Vava'u.

Sadly I had to leave that beautiful part of the world. If there was anywhere in Tonga that I would recommend people to go to it would be Vava'u. It surely is the Jewel in the Crown of the Kingdom of Tonga.

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Photos

The Sovereign Residence
Former residence of HRH Princess Pilolevu

Fakalady show
Me slipping money in under the straps