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I arrived in Tonga and got picked up and taken to Heilala Lodge- luxury compared to my last week. My own room, a fan and a share bathroom -with flushing toilet and HOT water!! The next morning I had breakfast (toast and fresh fruit) and got talking to a couple from Brighton Nancy and Stuart (in their early 30s but didn’t look it). I said I was going up to Va va’u which is either a 21hour choppy boat ride or a 100 Pound flight. They decided that they would fly up and so we ended up all booking to go and stay at the same place together. The first flight we could get was early Monday morning (it was Friday).

Saturday was spent getting a small boat over to a small island which we walked round in half an hour. There was a sunken ship really close to the beach that we snorkeled around but the beach and the fish were nothing compared to Fiji.

On Sunday we paid a tenner to go on “Mad Mancunian Tony’s tour” around Tongatapu (the main island). Tonga is mostly covered in rubbish but they were tidying up as the King was about to die and they new lots of officials would be coming over. Tony showed us all the local plants and crops as we drove around which were interesting. Look at the pictures for some of the sights we saw. The blow holes where the best.

(see the next blog for what I did in Vava’u which I will do soon- I’m actually now safely in New Zealand!)

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