23/2/2026 last day in Tonga

Strangely after last night's earthquake I didn't sleep too well and the anxiety levels were a little bit high, I struggled with the tightness in my chest and the knot in my stomach. I missed Si’s strong comforting presence more than ever and could have really done with him last night.

Breakfast time the topic of discussion was the earth quake obviously but once that was exhausted it moved to much more pleasant things. Klaus ( I remembered correctly) had gone to the Pangaimoto Island and said it was really peaceful, he'd taken the ferry over and was the only one there besides a Tongan family who had taken a small pig over to cook on the fire.  Again, due to the tsunami in 2022 there are no resorts there any more but it does have beautiful beaches and snorkelling opportunities, although all th corl is smashed, there ar signs of the soft coral regenerating. It's the only place that is open on Sundays too. Pangaimoto Island has a large ship wreck that you can snorkel on and it seems like a really pretty place to go. I'm not entirely sure I would have gone even if I didn't have the restrictions, because I don't feel quite as comfortable in Tonga as I have on the other Islands. I could very well be over thinking things! Klaus spent time talking to the resort owner yesterday in the Island, and he said the country had received millions in international aid to help rebuild the tourism industry, but as yet none of the resorts have received the compensation promised them despite having put the paperwork in nearly 2 years ago. This confirms everything that Hamala has been telling me the last few  days. His day is one of meetings with the Cardinal of Tonga, and other high ranking priests from around the Island. He told me a little more about the work they're trying to do here. A lot of the villages are still without running water, and the water storage tanks were all concrete which have obviously not withstood the tsunami , so are leaking and not fit for purpose. Unlike Fiji and Samoa,  where the villages have a meeting house which is the centre of the community and still very much operate on a tribal system, Tonga, because of the noble system does not have that same sense of community, which is really interesting. Family is still everything, but family and community are two different things in Tonga..

I had to make my apologies and leave the table early this morning as Hamala was picking me up at 0900 for my last day. Breakfast was lovely as always but as I was flying later I deliberately kept my eating and drinking to a very low level to make life easier at the airport and on the plane. The things you learn along the way! He arrived bang on time and we set off straight straight away. Our first stop was  Queen Salote College where we’d briefly visited last week to listen to the singing. We arrived mid assembly and the girls were all sitting on the white gloss tiled floor listening to the principal speak. A teacher indicated to one of the girls to bring over two chairs for us to sit on, which was something of a relief.  Hamala translated for me,  and in a nutshell she was talking about the King's upcoming birthday celebrations and that the girls were expected to provide baskets of Ufi which are yams and a very expensive root vegetable to present to the King… another interesting thing, was one of the teachers husbands had died last week and the principal told the girls they had to make donations to her , and the poor woman was back in work. She is my hero. I barely remember the days after Si died but I know I couldn't have managed to go to work, I seem to remember spending a lot of time crying, wearing his clothes and cuddling a big pink unicorn. I could barely hold my shit together. Hats off to anyone who isn't in as privileged a position as I am in and they have to go to work whilst in that amount of pain.

The college has pupils from overseas, and Tongans who now live abroad send their daughters back to the college so they can learn about their culture. The College, as well as the usual curriculum, places emphasis on singing and playing musical instruments, which in itself isn't a cheap pass time,with the cost of the instruments alone being a huge outlay. It teaches the girls traditional skills like mat weaving, tapa cloth making and painting and all the traditional Tongan things that the other schools don't .  

Once the initial assembly was over, the girls with the musical instruments filed out of the hall we were in and gathered out by the gate with their instruments slung over their shoulders. I was highly amused when a small lorry, not dissimilar to Morg's work truck pulled up opposite with a tarpaulin over the top and the girls, and their instruments all piled in, standing room only and then the truck sped off. They were going to do marching practice ready for Saturday's parade. 

Hamala and I stayed and watched as the girls all moved places and got into their positions for singing. The songs were words only with no musical notes to help the girls know what notes they should be hitting and when. The teacher had a brilliant voice, until he tried to hit the high notes and then that didn't go quite so well, it's a good job the girls managed to hit them every time. It was very stop and start as it was rehearsal and he kept making them repeat it over and over until he was happy. It was still incredible, people would pay a lot of money to hear them in concert, I know I would. You'd also need tissues, lots of tissues. And yes the emotion in the music produced tears and snot bubbles, it was ugly and suitably humiliating, but i’m getting used to making twat of myself in public now. 

The older girls in the college are allowed to sit on chairs during the assembly, one of their jobs is to keep an eye on any younger girls who may be misbehaving and not doing what they should be. The girls are tapped on the shoulder so they know that they've been  caught and there will be some sort of cleaning duties for them. Currently the school is undergoing a huge renovation and the boarding quarters are being completely refurbished, the money paying for it is from donations received from last year's departing pupils. No pressure on the girls leaving this year at all. Because the bedrooms/dormitories are out of action, the girls who are boarding are sleeping in the main school hall on the floor, where we were watching the singing. It's a bloody hard tile floor, although I imagine it would be lovely and cool to sleep on during the night. Despite the humidity and heat, the hall had a wonderful breeze blowing through and was refreshing to say the least. 

The vice principal very kindly came over and welcomed me to the school and when I asked if I could video and take photos she said it was no problem at all. Can you imagine going into a school or college for young teenage girls in the UK, just walking in, being given a chair to sit down on and  allowed to film the pupils and take their photos??, absolutely no way on earth it would cause a riot. The girls seemed really excited to have a snot bubble blowing Palangi there and were all waving at us when we first arrived. It was a lovely welcome. I could have stayed all day as the vice principal said I was very welcome to sit in on their lessons if I wished , which would have been an experience and a half. Obviously if I had known this earlier I would have penciled a day out just to spend at the college. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. However on my next Pacific Island trip (which is currently unconfirmed as there is a cyclone warning for vanuatu and new caledonia on the dates i pencilled in to visit. However it may blow itself out in a week or so and it will be all systems go.) I will look into it before I go and make contact with the school/college to see if it's possible.

I finally dragged myself away from the college as I had a lot more to see before leaving. We drove through the town to the Museum of Tonga, and I was a bit put out, despite having paid Hamala for the tour that I had to pay my own entry fee. It was only 5TOP, £1.50 but that is not the point, it's the principle.

The museum is tiny and photos and videos are prohibited for some reason. There was a display of Tongan weapons, spears and various savage looking clubs. A huge Tapa cloth hung on the wall, which Hamala said is sometimes used as collateral for loans when families are in dire straits. Crime is high in Tonga particularly burglary and theft. The most nickable items being the tapa cloths and the woven mats as they are the most valuable possessions and can be sold for a lot of money. They are given as gifts at weddings, births and funerals and cost thousands of US dollars. Also very valuable are Kiekie  which are formal items of clothing that can cost up to thousands of US$ depending on the intricacy and status of the wearer. They are also very valuable and prized possessions. The museum had on display some of the early Kiekie, which were made out of seaweed. It's a shame that photos were prohibited as there were some nice pieces in there.

Due to the small size the museum didn't take long to get around, less than 10 minutes and we were back in the car. Opposite is a huge sports stadium that was built over a year ago , on the front of it is a big red sign saying it was built with chinese money, but since it was completed no one has ever used it. They refuse to lease it out and it's all going to rack and ruin. As we drove through the car park we were shooed away by security guards, they clearly don't want you in there, again it blows my mind that all these facilities are standing unused. It's also right in the middle of three schools and they aren't allowed to use it either.

Leaving the carpark we drove through the main town, there are only two original buildings left standing after the riots and the place was burnt to the ground. One of them is the Friends Cafe and the other the Langafouna craft centre which sells  hand made crafts from around the country. The building had some beautiful photos of Queen Salote and other dignitaries around the walls and an enormous hand made table in the middle of the room. 

Also on display were some of the traditional woven mats worn for weddings and other formal occasions. There was more in there than in the museum, and I could take photos. 

I didn't need anything from the craft place so we left and went to the Friends cafe.

It was ok, situated right on the corner and was pretty upbeat and modern, but had retained its traditional roots. There was a huge menu but I just had a drink and a rum ball slice. They bought out the whole rumball. It was  the size of one of Neil James' scotch eggs. I was expecting a slice like the label said and ended up taking half back to the hotel. 

I was also supposed to be visiting the market but to be honest I could barely put one foot in front of the other, and as i didn't want anything from there I couldn't see any point in going. Hamala did say that it was a good place for souvenirs, but I explained to him that I don't have any desire to collect stuff. I'm happy with twenty million photos of things instead of having them gather dust in the house now. Besides, the kids won't want any of it when I die so there’s no point in having it is there?  

He offered to take me on some more roads around the island but to be honest I think I'm done with Tonga. I'm too tired and too hurty to think straight so I requested to go back to the hotel. It was 1400 hours anyway which really surprised me as the morning had really flown by. We drove through the downtown, and back up the coastal road to the hotel.  The ocean is significantly more choppy today as the wind has picked up, which makes it more pleasant, but there are a lot of white caps, so I'm glad we snorkeled on Saturday when the ocean was like a mill pond. 

Back at the Paradise Inn I flopped onto the sofa, Me’me made me a cup of coffee and Maria offered me lunch as they were eating. I declined, but it smelt really good. Joe, the lad who picked me up from the airport, started college today and he was very nervous about going as he was concerned about the language because his Tongan isn't very good. What the actual feck? He's Chinese, speaks English fluently, and has clearly mastered Tongan well enough to enroll in school here. I'm impressed. He came back at 1600 and was a much happier bunny coming back than he was going this morning. He's on a real high and it's the most animated I've seen him since I've been here. 

I made sure  to charge the electrical devices when I got back ready for use in the airport as it's a long old wait. I filled in the online declaration for getting back in New Zealand, checked in online, and made sure I had a screen shot of my homeward flight ready for the check in. How bloody organised is that? Very by my standards. 

I spent the afternoon sitting in front of a powerful fan looking at the photos on the laptop. Whoa, total game changer. I’m amazed at the clarity of the snorkelling photos, for some reason they are really blurry on my phone and I had played around with some of them to see if i could sharpen the images. Now looking at them on the laptop, I can see they didn't need it at all and subsequently deleted the adjusted ones. Note to self go and replace the photos on the snorkeling blog. I think that the blurry photos on the phone could have something to do with me having the device images set to a poor quality to maximise memory space. While I was relaxing I compared the photos to the Fiji snorkelling and coral. I think if I’d had more practice with the phone underwater I may have got better ones but wow, the Tongan Coral and marine life is mind blowing. No blue starfish so it’s not that good!! Pft. 

I also have discovered that I can now download all my photos that are stored on Amazon to icloud which is brilliant news. I need to see if I can do that with Google images and I’m cooking on gas. It will be really nice to have all our photos in one place so I have full access to them all without taxing my brain trying to remember where they are.  My next job is to put them all in albums that are clearly labelled so I can find them easily when I want to relive memories of Si and our trips.   I think I’ll start that in the next day or so when I’m recovering from the Tonga trip but only if it's not sunny. 

I had lovely hugs from Me’me and Maria when they left the hotel for the day. Apparently I’m ‘lovely’ oh how I laughed at that. little do they know I’m a little ball of pure evil with the blackest of heart and soul . (Insert evil laugh here) nice of them to say though.  I even had the request to let Maria know when I get back to Auckland safely!  Joe drove me to the airport. He's like a different boy. He didn’t stop talking the whole journey. He said he was so nervous about going to school that it was making him sick, but when he got there despite being the only Chinese in the class everyone was really nice to him and made him very welcome. The increase in his confidence in just a day was a delight to see, I can’t wait to hear how he gets on. He was telling me that Maria rents the Paradise Inn off an Australian guy , and I can’t remember how much he said but it was a lot.  I’m kicking myself that I didn't write it down. I thought he said 15000 US$ a month but that feels excessive because that’s £11000 a month. She pays two staff full time, runs 3 vehicles, is paying Joes school fees, and paying to fly Me’me cousin over from Fiji to work for her. Who knows, maybe she is making some money. I know I have a different rate on some of the booking apps thanks to rewards so potentially the rate is generally higher. Having now seen the other Hotels on Tonga I think I can safely say I chose the best one. The others are very tired and in need of significant upgrading and that's being kind. 

Joe was driving really slowly and I was starting to worry about the baggage check in. But we made it with 20 minutes to spare. I was taken straight through security, a quick pat down and left in the departures to wait to be boarded. The plane had landed early and therefore we were boarded early. This time there were only 5 of us requiring assistance, the other 4 were all wearing matching teeshirts, in memory of a family member,  I guess they'd been to a family funeral. 

My seat was right at the front of the plane and I had managed to get the aisle seat. The flight was quite empty, and this time instead of being a Mrs Leonard sandwich I was one of two slices of brown bread with no filling, there was an empty seat between me and the skinny Tongan in the window seat. Hurrah for that, I was fully prepared for a flight of being squashed and there I was with all the room in the world. 

The flight passed reasonably quickly but I struggled to move when it came to getting off the plane and it took me ages. Finally in the chair I was rattled through the security and customs, and this time the sniffer dog didn't stop at my bag. That was a relief because I have some bits of volcano squirreled away in the bottom of my bag which I was unsure about. They weren't on the list of forbidden items but who knows. Anyway it seems the dogs can't sniff out volcano pebbles.. 

There was a bit of a shock at customs, the customs officer actually made polite conversation, as in "I see you are a retired police officer Mrs Leonard, how long ago did you retire? I bet you saw some things, did you enjoy it? And how was tonga, what have you got planned for your time in New Zealand” I replied to that one that I was visiting my son, but I was genuinely shocked, they never make conversation, never smile and just grunt at you when they give you your passport back. It actually made me really edgy and other than my rocks I had nothing in the sturdy one to worry about!, so much so I asked the pushing lady about it, and she said in a new directive they are now being told that they have to be more friendly and smile at people. 

My lovely chair pusher pushed me right out to the bus stop as it was her last job of the day, which was very kind of her. I'd unloaded myself onto the bench, and strapped the sturdy one onto my back in readiness for the bus arriving two minutes later. Thankfully it stopped directly opposite me so hauling myself up to standing, I was the first of three of us on the bus, and kept the sturdy one on my back. It made for awkward seating but it was easier than unloading and reloading it back on. I booked into the same hotel as i used before flying out to Tonga as it was cheap and cheerful, and thankfully my room was in the motel itself and just down the corridor from the reception. I unstrapped the sturdy one off my back, put the kettle on, had a shower, made a cup of tea and fell into bed.

I have made it back to New Zealand without any more earthquakes or the volcano erupting. Tonga is definitely a one and done location for me, I won't be going back there, of the Pacific Islands I’ve been to so far it's my least favourite, it has no blue starfish,even if it has the best coral. However I had to go for Si, and I'm glad I've been and it's now ticked off our list, so I hope he's pleased. 

Much Love 

Mrs Leonard

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