Hey guys, this is my third post!!!!😀 So far, we have been to the blowholes at a mini resort, hiked the newest island in the world, went to a cave with an underwater pool, and went to an island called Ha’apai for screenings (teaching kids how to brush and floss, and give them a check-up), and another one called 'Eua for my mom's birthday.
Cave
We went to a huge cave near the beach. this cave has an underground pool that you can swim in. here are some photos…
…and a quick video of dad jumping in 😄…
Bats
We went to see some bats that hang out on some trees bordering a cemetery during the day. They are the biggest bats in the world! Good thing they are fruit bats, though, huh?😝
Mini Resort
Yesterday we went to a mini resort for the afternoon called Keleti Resort. We had dinner there, and walked down to the beach. if you waded in the water for a few yards, you would come to the blowhole pools. We walked on the blowhole pools and saw some pretty amazing stuff. Here is some photos and another video…
and there was a cat there! active cats or calm dogs are my favorite type of pets (if they aren’t so grouchy)…
Trip to Ha’apai
We went to an island called Ha’apai and stayed at a resort at the tip of the island. (Click —>HERE<— for a link to google maps of the island)
we stayed at matafonua lodge If you looked at the map, you could see the tip of the island were we stayed. You would have also seen an island very near that tip. That island is uninhabited by humans and is so close to the tip of the island that snorkeling from the resort to the island is not too long of a trip! we were there once, and had an appointment with a school for some screenings in an hour. The owner of the resort drove this drone…
…with a note attached saying that it was time to get back!
This will give you a perspective of the resort…
…and here is our Fale {Fa-lay} we stayed in…
Each Fale has a number, and to show the number, they have a statue with the Fale number replacing the face! Here is a picture…
😃
Newest island in the world!
We went to an island called Honga, in fact it’s the newest island in the world! It formed by an underwater volcano that erupted in between two relatively close islands, and connected them (just barely, the only thing connecting them is a beach of black rocks) to form one new, bigger island. We left on the boat at about 9:00 AM, and got to the island 2 hours later. (long trip!) We docked on the other side of the island, between the middle and right islands.
When we got out, we noticed that the sand connecting that island to the new one was not sand, but very light weight, small, black rocks! this extended to where the shore of the island would have been, with no greenery, nothing! just a desert of black rocks barely connecting the two islands.
video
We walked across the desert-like beach and hiked up the new part of the island. hiking up and down the new part of the island was pretty tricky, because there were huge canals cut into the weak crumbling sandstone with a layer of tiny black rocks that easily slipped under your feet. this is what we saw at the top…
>video<
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…and here is a banana plant that someone planted at the first peak…
…and some other cool pictures…
We started heading back at 3:30 PM. So do you remember when I told you that we went to see the whales, and that we tested out our snorkels near an island with some reef? that island is about 20 minutes from Tonga’tapu (the main island), which you could see in the distance if you were there. Since the ride there and back round trip was 4 hours, and the waves were resisting the boat a little, we ran completely out of gas approximately 1,000 yards from that island. Like literally puttered to a stop. We were stranded in the ocean for maybe 30-45 minutes and then someone delivered us 20 Liters of gas to get the rest of the way back home. This is how he filled it up. So imagine one cup sitting on a stair, and another one standing on the stair below it. A huge straw travels from the bottom of one cup to the other. The higher glass is filled with water. Then you cover the top of the cup (letting the straw stick out) and leave 1 tiny opening in your hand and blow into it. Then the water goes through the tube into the other cup! Cool, huh? I personally thought so, because I’m a science type of guy. I actually did this experiment myself.
I would say that that trip was the best thing we have done so far.
Stewart + wheelchairr = wheelie
So when Adaline arrived home from her surgery, one of the elder missionaries provided a wheelchair for her. About 2 weeks after she got it, Stewart had learned to do wheelies in the wheelchair. (truthfully, Stewart uses it more than she does. Adaline hasn’t touched it for about a month or two.)
Tree in the back yard
That tree in our back yard is raining down flowers, especially because it has rained recently. A missionary dropped by for some business, and mentioned those flowers that had recently fell in great quantities due to the storm would make a great Lei. (you pronounce it: Lay) And my mom made just that…
Shyplant
What is Shyplant??? Here is a video…
This is occasionally found in a small flat patch in yards around here. Cool, huh?
Trip to ’Eua
So for my mom’s birthday we went to an island called ‘Eua. (It was my dad who actually wanted to go though.) The plane trip there is the shortest commercial flight in the world! This is how long it was on the way there…
We rode on the same plane with the same pilot as we did flying to Ha’apai there and back. After we landed in ‘Eua, he mentioned that he had seen us a lot, and wondered what we were up to. We told him that we stayed in Liahona (the name of the school campus) and he said that he was married to someone related to the Steak president or something like that. It’s a small world!
When we arrived, the Stake President for the church there picked us up. He was actually our tour guide! First stop, our resort…
Our Resort Room in ‘Eua
(our sleeping there was not to pleasant. As there were no fans, and the walls were solid, it got so hot that we didn’t get a lot of sleep.)
After we dropped off our stuff, we went to some tourist attractions…
Huge old tree
the first place we went to was a huge tree, about 800 years old. Some of its branches grow down from the trunk into the ground, with is why it looks the way it does.
Next stop, Ahu’ahu sinkhole. there is a story about this sinkhole. Once, 2 brothers were wandering around it and both fell in. A rescue soldier repelled down the sinkhole 180 feet (about 51 meters) and found one of them laying on a ledge. The other one was not in sight. The sinkhole kept on going beyond where the first boy landed. the soldier purposefully dropped a lit torch to see how far it went while he was still in the sinkhole, and it disappeared. It didn’t clatter or anything. Kind of spooky, huh? Still, no one knows how deep it is. 👻
Then we went to an overview of the ocean. here is a glimpse…
and then we went to the “rat cave”…
Then we went to see some wild horses, but I couldn’t capture them because the camera I had can not zoom. near by, another bigger version of the hole in the rock was there.
>picture<
On the way there, there were trees with peculiar looking nuts on them…
And the time for the flight back...
And yeah. that was ‘Eua.
(sorry for being so brief, trying to get in another post.)
Other Random Stuff
Some interesting facts:
Most people here have never seen a squirrel or a worm!!
The phrase: Tapu (like in Tonga’tapu, the name of the main island in tonga,) means “No Entry” in english! The islands in tonga were not always unified, and did not used to cope with each other that well.
So yeah, there’s the update. on the way home, we are planning to go through New Zealand to LA. and we are going to disney land! yay. we will stay there for a week, and then head home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t wait!!!!!!!🤗
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