Tell me about Tonga

[Pacific Sandy]

Hi - We can do a stopover on our flight to Australia in November, so we thought we would spend 5 or 6 days in Tonga.

 

We have done Tahiti, The Cook Islands (including Aitutaki & Atiu) and Fiji and we are looking for something different.

 

Has anyone been to Tonga?

 

Sandra

[gdlamberth]

We did a 14 day Tahiti to Fiji trip and were in Tonga for a day. We had a great time. Got a taxi driver down town to take us around for the morning. A big part of the southern coast is made up of coral/limestone cliffs (I think I remember that Tonga is not a volcanic island). There are miles of blowholes along this shore. Went to a couple of Tomb sites. One had a Univ of Austrailia archeological team engaged in non-invasive research (x-rays and acoustic imaging I think) and a Dr. Jeffrey (forgot his last name) took 20 minutes or so to explained to us what he was doing. That was pretty cool. Saw a couple of other archelogical sites and the famous fishing pigs of Tonga. I've got a picture link on this site that has a lot of Tonga pics from our cruise, not well labelled but the ones around the blowholes and fishing pigs are Tonga. I understand there are some great beaches for swimming and snorkeling but given our other stops on this cruise (plus we spent a week in Fiji (rented a house on North Shore of Vana Levu)we focused our short time here on land based activities. Also spent a couple of hours at a big outdoor/indoor market. Lots of local arts and crafts and food.

We enjoyed our stop here quite a bit but without doing some more research into the water based activities not sure I could talk my wife and cousin into spending 5 days here. We loved Fiji and Aitutaki. Really enjoyed Fiji snorkeling. But with your experience I sure you know more about Fiji than I do. Tonga sort of reminded me of the Rakiraki area of Fiji. I guess it depends a bit on what you want to do. If someone could chime in that the snorkeling/diving is good also I might consider a week there.

 

Greg