After breakfast at the Lido, we headed out to catch a bus for an independent excursion called Toni’s Tours. I only knew that we were going to a rainforest and to a cave - so we dressed for a bus tour day, knowing there would be no air conditioning. Toni ran another tour to different sites yesterday and a number of Cruise Critic people were on that tour. For whatever reason, a number (15 to be precise) did not show up for today’s tour - and I felt bad for Toni because payment was made today, on arrival.
But we had two buses that set out today. Our bus had 9 guests on it, the other one had 7 people on it, so we had lots of room to spread out.
Our first stop was at Kolisi Ko Tupou is a school for 1,000 boys in Tonga. The religious school operates as a farm growing much of the food they need to feed the 1,000 boys. Boys go to school from Monday to Friday and stay in dormitories during the week, then go home on Friday. Carolyn was a teacher from the school who was our guide for this portion. She told us the boys were middle school and high school and that they worked two hours per day on the farm. The farm grew a variety of fruit and vegetables and had lots of land for cattle and sheep to graze.
She took us to a back part of their property that featured the Toloa Rainforest - the only rainforest in Tonga. Evidently Prince Harry and his wife Megan Markle visited this rainforest as part of their first Royal visit after they got married. Of course Tonga is part of the Commonwealth. Here is a link to the then royals visiting this rainforest (and my ship’s wifi is too slow to play it so hopefully it is the right one!):
Interestingly the farm also raises pigs too and when we went to see the pigs, the workers there wearing “China Aid” shirts told us we couldn’t go in to see the pigs (because of concerns about what we could track in on our shoes - fair enough) or take pictures. So we moved on to see the sheep in the field! It is interesting to note that both China and Japan have played influential roles in Tonga. Japan paid for the only good road in Tonga - paved about 21 years ago. It was China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand who have assisted Tonga in rebuilding after the earthquake, volcano and tsunami in January of 2022.
Our guide Carolyn lives on the school property with her husband, a banker in town. When the volcano erupted, Carolyn removed the drainspout from their roof into their cistern and covered the hole with a pail. As a result, their family had fresh water in the following days while the ash was still settling. Others weren’t so lucky.
At this school, we also visited a small museum, and a large church, called Moulton Chapel on the school property. J could have spent twice as long in the museum! The school was at least 150 years old!
The Moulton Chapel is pictured above.
I had purchased a fruit plate as I boarded the bus - knowing this excursion would take us into the early afternoon (and we are clearly advised we are not to remove any food from the ship). So while we were driving to the Anahulu Cave, I ate my papaya, banana, watermelon & pineapple! A delicious snack!
The Anahulu Cave is a series of limestone caves with fresh water to swim in. Once we arrived at the the Anahulu Cave, we walked down a series of concrete steps to enter into the cave. There was a tight entrance (say 4 feet) and impressive stalagtites and stalagmites adorning the cave! As we proceeded further, we saw pools of water and we were invited to swim in them if we wanted. (This is where I really didn’t read the fine print about what this excursion involved today as we weren’t wearing swim suits!) J was willing to strip down to his underwear and go for a swim; I was not so willing! J did think it was a very cool experience to float on his back and look up at the ceiling covered in stalagtites.
The cave really was the hilight of the bus tour today. The pool was only 100 feet by 20 feet wide but still an amazing body of water (and the only fresh body of water in Tonga, according to Toni).
J in the cave pool!
The cave is situated near the ocean with a small beach that included urchin, mussel, snail and cowry shells. It started to rain as we were leaving so it was really nice to have roof like structure at the top of the stairs with some benches and chairs available where you could sit and stay dry while waiting for the group to congregate.
We returned to the ship and ordered hamburgers at the Dive In - and didn’t eat until about 3 pm.
The Tongans were kind enough to have a police band play under a tent in the rain as the ship was getting ready to leave. They had some Tourism Tongo dancers perform and some school children as well. They probably had an hour of entertainment on the pier that we could watch and hear for our last hour in Tonga! I am so happy we were able to come and visit to inject some badly needed money into the economy.
After dinner, I sat down to write this blog and now can feel the ship moving in rougher seas! We have a sea day tomorrow!
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