Tonga, part 2

And we arrived at Fa Fa Island Resort where we spent a very relaxing 5 nights. 

The beach outside of our Fale

 

The Fale

Day Bed.  

 Morning visitors!

Tonga! Part 1

For our Easter break we travelled to Tonga; only a few hours from New Zealand.  We stayed in the capital for a few days, drove a battered jeep about seeing the sights. Lots of Churches, and as it was Easter, nothing was open on the Friday.  Roads were deserted; restaurants, shops, petrol stations, all shut.

After driving round in circles along roads dappled with huge craters, we found the whistling blowholes.  V cool http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJiXAC7Xves

Tonga is not a rich country and behind this extraordinary natural sight was this dilapidated hotel. 

We stopped at this deserted beach to test the water temperature.  Perfect!  

On Sunday morning we hopped aboard a boat and headed for Fa Fa Island Resort.

And there it was.

Camping in the Wairarapa

We are rather behind so here is our update from a month ago. 

  Our furniture was due to arrive the following weekend and we took advantage of the still warmish weather to go camping and hiking in the Waihine Gorge.   It is our new favourite place in the Wairarapa.   The campsite was deserted, very basic.  Run by the department of Conservation.   We arrived Sat am, set up the tent, and went walking for 5 hours, cooked a delicious dinner and watched the stars come out.  Not the warmest of nights; we thought it dropped to about 10'c, but we were glamping and were  fully prepared with soft pillows and self inflating camping mats!   

View over the Wairarapa

Some fishing spots

No fish though!

Our tent!