Tonga trip 2023

Waking at 8am after six hours sleep and having a cold shower, we (or at least some of us) felt somewhat refreshed and ready for breakfast. It was so nice to feel human again.  We had fresh fruit (papaya and watermelon) with our cereal, and spent some time sorting out our surroundings.  Picture this, we're in a big hall, and all of the guys are sleeping on the stage, while the women have a room. There are supposed to be curtains closing the men  off from the main hall, but the rails and runners are a bit broken. Nevertheless, after a bit of perseverance, and a little ingenuity, we reset the rails and re-threaded the curtain hooks - and the curtains could be pulled across. Our first small success of the day! We were invited to James and Mafi's home for lunch, but needed to pick up some vegetables and items from the market on the way.  Water!! It is so warm and humid in the market. We need to stay hydrated, while trying to avoid having to go to the bathroom ...

 What an eventful day for the team!  The team of nine of us: Max, Gillian, Ariana, Abbey, Rodney, Joe, Ben, Jonty and I were finally ready to head off on our long awaited journey.  After waking at the ridiculous time of 2am, we discovered that our SuperShuttle was not going to show. This was very disappointing for us, but HUGE thanks to Jane, Russell and Penny for stepping in and getting us to Auckland Airport with plenty of time to spare. It was really nice to have friendly faces see us off too. It took us a long time to get through security. There were barely any operators, and this was creating a real bottle-neck. It was great to be able to send our baggage straight through to Tonga though.  Finally it was good to get on the plane and fly to Sydney.  Jetstar was as average as ever, but it was good to get a bit more sleep (even if it was really uncomfortable). It was surprising to find that we were landing in a cool and overcast Sydney; however, th...