The Hughes Zoo

Our first real day off the boat - how exciting! Because of the size of the ship we needed to anchor offshore then take the ship’s tenders (life boats) to shore. That made taking the pram a bit more of a challenge, but we managed.

It was overcast and very muggy. Within a few minutes of being out of the aircon we were sweating. Once we were ashore we didn’t really know what t0 do, so we just wandered into the town to find somewhere to get a drink. We found a nice little ice cream place with great views over the water. The heat and our disorganisation though took its toll and it was  a pretty tense morning. Exacerbated by Jeremy running head-long towards roads and sheer drops.

Ange had read about a restaurant and bar called The Mermaid and took us on quite and adventure t get to it, down a few hundred stairs, over unpaved paths behind boat sheds following hand painted signs. With the pram. We got there eventually though, and were initially pretty disappointed. It looked more like a backpacker’s hangout. But the food was excellent, the vegie tortilla we  shared was better than anything we’d had on the ship in the last week. The staff were really laid back and friendly, though sort of reserved. Suited me down to the ground. Jeremy found a girl a few years older than him to play with and had a great time, much helped by the canon and steering wheel.

Will has really come out of his shell, either that or he just likes Tongan women. Usually he won’t let anyone else pick him up, but he happily spent quite a bit of time with a lady from the ice cream shop and the woman in The Mermaid.

The boys got a couple of shirts coloured with dye made from Tongan dirt and Ange and I got some sun and fresh air. Despite the tension we had a great time.

Photos for the day

Tags: cruise, tonga, vava'u

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 7:39 pm and is filed under cruise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.