I flew to ‘Eua via tongatapu again, the flight from Tongatapu to ‘Eua, was on a tiny 8 seater plane and is maybe the shortest flight I’ve ever been on – only 8 minutes!! It was cool to be on a little plane travelling the 40kms between the 2 islands – my ears didn’t even pop. I stayed at Deep blue lodge on ‘Eua – it’s the accommodation owned by the dive company there – the accommodation has actually just been finished and I was actually their first proper guest – it’s really cool – everything there has been built by Wolfegang , the German dive instructor there! I had 2 main reasons to go to ‘Eua to dive in their cathedral cave and to do some hiking.
On the Friday I was due to do the dive – but unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans, the seas were too rough and Wolfegang wasn’t happy to go with the boat to the dive site – so we went for an alternative dive! The dive was really cool – the visibility ay ‘Eua was amazing – at least 40M and the underwater landscape was amazing – much like at Ha’apai the fish life was nice and interesting but not massively impressive – apparently all the tuna and therefore sharks like to hang out at the cathedral cave – more gutting – ah well as always with diving safety first and it was a pretty spectacular dive nonetheless. Afterwards we went for a spot more of whale watching – as we left the harbour we came across 2 adult whales travelling together and we followed them for quite a while – we did get in the water with them a couple of times – but only for a few minutes as they never really stopped – we did get to see them do some cool fin slapping and fluke slapping and waving. The seas were quite rough and we didn’t actually see any other whales – so we came back to shore and I had a nice relaxing evening!
The following day I set off to do some hiking (my other main reason for visiting ‘Eua) I headed off in search of caves – I didn’t manage to find the right turn off – but also my little toe was giving me jip again – I did get to see some pretty stunning cliff tops but headed back pretty early. My toe was obviously causing me to walk funny because when I got back I had developed a massive blister on my foot – so I just chilled for the afternoon and went to watch the sunset at the harbour. On Sunday my final day on ‘Eua, instead of trying another hike I decided instead to go and find a little beach and just chill out. ‘Eua is not famed for its beaches like Ha’apai but I did manage to find a picturesque little alcove, with a shale beach, a palm tree I just chilled there – completely alone enjoying the beautiful sunshine! And that was my last day in ‘Eua.
Monday morning I returned to Tongatapu where I had hoped to do an island tour – unfortunately they didn’t have any other people – l met some people who had done the tour on Sunday and assured me I didn’t miss too much. I wandered into the town for some food in the afternoon where I met Katka again so we had a few beers for old time’s sake and then my holiday to Tonga was over!

I really enjoyed my holiday in Tonga, obviously the whales were a massive highlight as was completing my advanced open water diving course. I loved the beaches and the people, for some reason Tonga reminded me in some ways of Malawi – I think it might be the fact it’s quite underdeveloped and also that the people are really friendly – that’s true for the locals and all the other people I met travelling – oh also they are the only 2 places I’ve seen pineapple Fanta! It has opened another world of travel destinations to me – I now want to visit more islands in the south pacific – but I think that will have to wait for another trip! I’m now really looking forward to the next few months in NZ, the world cup and then heading off on the second leg of big trip number 1!!