Whale Watching

The best-laid plans of mice and men aft gang aglay…

One of the attractions of Tonga as a holiday destination is the annual migration of Southern Humpback whales. The females come to Tonga to give birth to, or conceive, the next generation of whales, and do so in the shallow waters of the greater lagoon which surrounds Tongatapu, the main island. Whale watching is organised from most of the holiday destinations. We thought we’d go along, so talked to the resort manager, who booked us in with Deep Blue Diving. “Oh, you’ve got your own rental car” she said, “just show up at the wharf at 8:30”. Later in the day, however, one of the other staff told us “No, don’t worry about that, they’ll send a taxi to collect you and take you there. Just be outside here at 7:50. There’s some other people going too so we’ll start breakfast early for you as well.”

Easy enough, so we set the alarm (who sets alarms on holiday? Bah! 😉) and had breakfast at 7:00. We were back at reception and waiting for our taxi. One turned up, and the other three piled in. “No worries, there’s another on it’s way for us” we told them as they sped off.

As I said, the best-laid plans…

The manager arrived at 8 o’clock, and was, unsurprisingly, surprised to see us still waiting. After a quick exchange of phone calls, we decided to drive ourselves in and make craven apologies for holding everyone up.

We needn’t have worried. By the time we got there, two things became apparent: the registration and payment procedures were still under way, and we were woefully ill-equipped. We paid for our trip, but then decided, on reflection, it would be better if we equipped ourselves properly. So we decided to go the next day.

On Saturday, then, we repeated the process, with rather better results. Turned up on time, met the crew, and set out for a day's whale-watching. Most of the participants were actually equipped for whale-swimming, which I had understood to be with scuba gear, from the look of all their promotional material, but turned out to be with snorkels. I was a little apprehensive as my previous experience of whale-watching, at Kaikoura, turned out mostly to be watching the bottom of a snack sack. But the water in the lagoon was much calmer, and before long we’d spotted a pod, and come up as close as allowed to them.

After some observation it turned out that the group was a mother and juvenile, and another male who was trying to get frisky with the female. She wasn’t having a bar of it, though, and so the group was moving around quite a bit. Although the snorkellers put out to sea a couple of times, it took a while for them to be satisfied with their sighting. We spent a bit more time searching for, and finding, solo whales, before a call came from another boat – mother and baby, in shallow water, not moving. Pretty much the rest of the afternoon was spent with this couple, as they were very obliging. Tonga, like New Zealand, has laws about minimum safe distances to be kept from whales, but apparently this message hadn’t got through to these two, as the baby in particular kept coming up to have a look at what these crazy humans were doing. The dive groups (there were five on our boat) went out for a second round, and then a third. Eventually, though, the whales tired of us and moved out to deeper water, and the skipper turned the boat around and headed back to dock.

All in all, we had a pretty productive day watching whales. When we met up with the group who’d gone out the day before, it turned out that we’d had much better sightings than they’d had, so delaying by a day was a win for us. One of the crew was a professional underwater photographer, so we decided that we’d buy his package of photos from the day for TOP 60 to augment my surface-view pics.

Nuku’alofa

The following morning we rose with cock crow. If you’ve ever been to a tropical island, you’ll be familiar with this. The cockerels start up at first light, and don’t really let up. Without too much difficulty, we located the restaurant for breakfast. It was slightly busier than the night before, but not by much. Our saviours of the night before were there, so we thanked them again, then looked at what was on offer. There were traditional breakfast goods like cornflakes and weetbix, fresh fruit (papaya, melon and coconut) pancakes and syrup, eggs, toast and marmalade. We got stuck in.

After breakfast, and after pausing to admire the sizeable spider population that string their webs between every available tree and building, we went to the office to check in. The office manager told us that tonight there would be a buffet with traditional entertainment, and did we want to book that? Why the hell not, we thought, so signed up for it. They do this twice a week and it is unfailingly popular.

We had a good look around the rest of the resort, although there’s not much to see. It’s quite a small place, with only 15 beach huts, and not very occupied at the moment as it’s really only the beginning of the season; in fact I later heard it described as “winter” – hah!

We drove into town and succeeded in finding a parking space without any difficulty. There doesn’t appear to be much in the way of organised parking in Tonga, so just park where you find a space. There’s also not much in the way of traffic lights, just the occasional Stop sign, but junctions seem to work on the “be excellent to each other” principle – a bit of patience and a friendly wave seem to get everyone to where they want to be.

After getting our bearings we wandered around a bit, found the King’s palace, got some cash (credit card payments generally attract a 5% charge, so it’s wise to pay for everything the old-fashioned way), then, after a stop for a quick refreshment, decided to walk to the Tourist Information office. This was a little further than we’d anticipated, but, suitably armed with leaflets, we went in search of lunch. Again, this was a little further afield than I’d anticipated, but no matter, we’re getting our daily steps up. We arrived at Billfish in time for lunch, and had fish’n’chips and ota ika which, despite being on the starters menu, was too big for Nicola. We chose a different route back to  the car to take in a supermarket where we could get some supplies for the hut.

By this time we’d walked a little farther than we’d intended, so went back to the resort for a bit of a rest and to lollygag for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening we went to the bar early and availed ourselves of cocktails, watched the sun go down, and admired the view. Then it was time for the evening’s entertainments to begin. A band, who had a lighted sign behind them which said “Band”, struck up, and played some island classic tunes. People got up and danced to this in traditional dances. Then, after a few quick announcements, and a blessing by a local reverend, the buffet was opened, everyone formed an orderly queue and collected their food. Mostly pork-based dishes (including a whole pig roast), with some veges and salads, and local starches such as farro and sweet potato. And jolly nice it was too.

Once everything was cleared away the traditional dancing began. There were a mixture of boys and girls dancing – some dances just for boys, some just for girls, some mixed. Our MC kept us informed about each dance, and there were some from Samoa and Fiji as well as Tonga. The final dance was the fire dance, with the boys doing twirly things with firesticks.

Whilst the dancers were performing, people would come up on stage and stick bank notes to them. The girls, in particular, were covered in a sticky oil which facilitated this. “That’s a bit weird”, we thought. People would either stick the notes to their arms, or tuck them into clothing for the boys (who didn’t, frankly, have many places where money could be tucked). The MC explained that this money helps pay for the girls’ ongoing education. Whether they pool it all at the end of the night and take equal shares, or keep what they’ve had stuck to them, we don’t know. What the boys do with theirs wasn’t explained – the owner made a joke about not needing to keep them on the payroll, but he may have been serious. They probably spend it on cigarettes and beer.

When the organised dancing was over, the MC announced some birthdays, people and cakes were brought onto the stage, whilst everyone sang happy birthday to them.

The evening concluded with the band playing and people getting up to dance. At this stage we decided that discretion was advisable, and went back through the dark to our hut.

Tonga

The Kingdom of Tonga is but a short 2 ½ hour flight from Auckland. It’s a Pacific Island nation, neighbouring Samoa, Fiji and the Cook Islands. It is known for never having been conquered by colonising powers. Like many Pacific nations, there is a large community based in Auckland.

Despite being within range of flights from Wellington, there are no direct flights – presumably as the majority of the demand is from Tongans going back and forth from Auckland. Because of this, it looked like we’d be spending most of the day travelling despite its proximity. We took off from Wellington at 1:45pm, and got to rainy Auckland for our connection. This was slightly delayed, so we were finally airborne again at 6:00pm. The flight was full, and we were at the back of the plane, so thought we’d be last off when it came to landing at Fua’amotu airport…but no! They brought stairs to both ends of the plane so we were able to get off straight away.

Not that this availed us much. We had a bit of wait for our luggage, presumably as it had been checked in at Wellington so was at the back of all the luggage and therefore last out. Nevertheless, by 10:00pm we’d got out, and found the local Avis rental office. They were expecting us there, and with the minimum of fuss, got us into our Toyota and away.

We took a look at the map, decided that Hala Lotu was the most direct way to our accommodation, and set out. The road was marked as paved, and seemed to be one of three such roads that stretched the breadth of the island. And at first, it was.

We arrived at a junction where most of the traffic was turning off to head to the capital, Nuku’alofa. But our resort was up at the far end of the island, so we continued on in a straight line. The road rapidly deteriorated. It was potholed all over. Fortunately, there was hardly any traffic, so we were able to swerve all over the road to try and avoid the worst ditches and crevasses. Still, it was heavy going, and when we finally joined up with a properly paved road, and a point we have since christened “Three Ways”, it was a relief. We were able to once again crank up the speed to the national limit of 50kmh and arrive at our resort. We missed the turn at first so had to turn around and go back, but no matter.

We pulled into the car park. The lights were on, but there was no-one home. No signs of life in the bar, restaurant, or office. In fact, no-one at all. There was a minibus parked, which had numbers on it. I called the land line: “your call is being diverted…” then the line hung up. Tried the mobile number, with the same result.

Bugger! What to do? We were a bit stuck. Another car came along, and into a parking space near one of the beach huts. We accosted the occupants, and explained our predicament. “No problem, I know the owner!” said the man, who was a Tongan American and regularly visited this resort. He rousted someone out who was at least able to get us into our room. We thanked our saviour profusely, and collapsed in a heap on the bed.