It is our last day on Tonga. We have enjoyed the festivities for the king's birthday over the last few days: the Miss Heilala dancing was impressive although with 13 contestants it did go on a while; the military parade was quite small-scale as you would expect for a small kingdom, but the French came along to boost numbers and had some parachutists float down to good effect. The King surveyed his troops from an open-top Land Rover (he arrived in a London taxi, w...

Hello. We have been in Tonga for five days now. On our first proper day here we took a tour of the island (the main island, Tongatapu), in spite of the torrential rain which persisted for all of the day, and the following day as well. There aren't many sites on the island, so you can easily get round in a few hours. We saw the remains of some ancient tombs and other stones lying around in fields! We also saw a huge number of churches of various Christian denomina...

Hello from the Kingdom of Tonga. We have just arrived and are very tired after having to get up way too early for our 7am flight from Auckland. However, Tonga seems a very relaxing place so I'm sure we'll get some rest and recover. We are going on a tour of the island tomorrow and look forward to visiting some beautiful beaches and snorkeling spots over the next few days. We think we have found somewhere where we can watch a replay of the England quarter-final ...