Tonga Part I - Tongatapu and 'Eua

Whilst a fairly easy trip if you live in Aus/NZ, Tonga never found its way onto our itinerary before. It’s only directly accessible from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji and if you’ve made it to any of those countries from the UK you’re probably not keen on travelling even further.

With a time shift of +12 and the most common advice being “leave a lot of time for domestic travel, be patient, and never have travel connections close together” you generally need a good reason and some time to plan an expansive trip to Tonga from the UK. 

The land area of the 170+ islands comprises less than 0.2% of total Tongan territory (there’s a lot of ocean..), and so with that travel advice it takes some planning, patience and good luck to explore the atoll and high island environments here, but it is very worthwhile if you have the opportunity.

Our primary reason for visiting was the humpback whales that gather in Tongan waters for mating and calving during the months of August and September in particular, but as you can see below, we found a lot more than just whales on our visit. This post is on these general aspects, a following post will cover the whales in more detail.

Either side of our whale swimming focus in the Ha'apai group of islands, we spent a few days looking around on the main island of Tongatapu and a few days on the nearby much quieter island of ‘Eua, home to the wild and distinctive ‘Eua National Park. We stayed out of town and didn't spend much time in local villages, so the focus below is more on the natural environment.

A few brief thoughts if you do consider a trip to Tonga:

• If whale swimming, choose your operator and location carefully, the standards of comfort and quality of boats, local conditions (ocean swells and exposure, range of undersea environments), experience of guides, approach to the activity, costs, length of trips all vary. It is also very useful to have a helpful local assisting your arrangements and logistics.

• Plan to get a hire car if travelling any distance beyond a comfortable bicycle ride, travelling by taxi (or other public transport) may not be easy / not possible. Try to get your operator to book ahead for you, cars suitable for your needs may be limited.

• Be prepared that the car may not be brand new and breakdowns can happen. It is useful to have food, water and a mobile that works if travelling in rural areas just in case.

• Consider a local flight booking as an indication of the day the flight will occur, the time of the flight may only be set the day before and may be quite different to the timing indicated at reservation.

• The best approach seems to be to get Tongan Pa’anga on arrival (very difficult to find outside Tonga). Cash is essential for most activities.  

• Things run on ‘island time’, you may have a surprise or two along with the way, it’s useful to think ahead and have a Plan B but also important to enjoy the atmosphere and place as it is!

The landscape in Tongatapu is heavily influenced by which side of the island you are on. Sometimes the land is low lying and gently slopes down to the shore, in other places the cliffs are a lot more impressive.

Mixed up with the beaches are impressively rugged areas of coastline with many blowholes, an impressive sight when the large ocean swells come in and blows occur in sequence along hundreds of meters of coastline.

When the beaches are accessible enough to explore, cave systems can sometimes be found in the rocky slopes and cliffs to the side. Beyond the small entrance on the side of a beach, the Anahulu cave in Tongatapu has deep and completely still pools surrounded by impressive stalactite formations.

Aside from the main island and Ha'apai (see later post), we also visited the smaller island of 'Eua. Although less than 50km away from Tongatapu (a 7 minute flight) 'Eua is distinct from everywhere else in Tonga as a 'high island' with much more elevation than other islands.

'Eua National Park rises abruptly from the ocean on the southeastern coast of Eua. Just a short distance offshore from 'Eua is the Tonga trench, reaching an amazing maximum depth of 10,882m, just a few meters shallower than the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.

Whilst tropical in climate that doesn't mean the weather is placid, the effects of the consistent strong winds can be seen in the rainforest growth at the crest of the ridges here.

Thick lichen growth on the windswept branches of the forest along with the ever changing noises of the wind through the treetops adds to the special atmosphere here.

Wind and weather aside, these forests and cliffs are host to White Tailed Tropicbirds amongst other seabirds, and further out over the shoreline Great Frigatebirds can be seen soaring and swooping in the wind.

Although there are still some beaches, the coastline is much more exposed and rugged with some impressive formations like the Li'anga Huo 'A Maui land bridge.

Similar to Tongatapu the rough lava is cut into shelves, channels and some blowhole formations, with some almost bonsai-like trees on the coast in places.

Inland in the national park there are some lovely rainforest areas...

...but watch out for sinkholes and caverns that can be very deep. This is Ana Ahu, the "Smoking Cave". A fine mist rises from the cave floor (understood to be more than 100m below) when rainfall streams into the sinkhole from the surrounding jungle.

Some of the oldest and most impressive trees on 'Eua are the banyan trees (locally called 'ovave' trees). Believed to be more than 800 years old their size is breathtaking and they are richly covered in ferns and other epiphytic plants.