We've made it! We've finally arrived into Tonga. The flight wasn't too bad, except Ellianah was a pain in the hoo-hoo. She didn't fall asleep until about 5 minutes before we got off the plane. Most of the way she was crying and being whingy, which was kinda annoying really as Nee and I both wanted to get a bit of rest.

We flew with Air New Zealand which was great - were in a Boeing 767-300, much roomier than the small plane (not sure of model) we flew in from Brisbane to Auckland with Pacific Blue. There were practically no passengers on the flight to Tonga, as it is not tourist season (too hot for most people, but great for us Aussies), so I ended up sitting in about 3 rows of seats over the course of the trip.

Ellianah met a potential husband on the flight. He was sitting a few rows ahead of Nee, and I was trying to get Ellianah to stop crying, so I took her up to say hello to this little Tongan boy. He must have been only about 2 years old, but he was so cute!! Ellianah stopped crying as soon as she saw him - it was love at first sight. I placed her on the same seat as him, and she spread her arms out and wrapped them around him. He was unsure what to do at first, but quickly gave her a hug back. Ellianah though it was then time to hook in so she gave him a kiss on the lips. It was so adorable to watch them interact, I've never seen Elli like that with someone else so young before. When it was time to go back and sit in our seats Ellianah chucked a wobbly cause she wanted to stay with her new boyfriend.

Flying into Tonga was incredible. Although Tongatapu (the main island which is host to the international airport and capital "city" Nuku'alofa) is not such a scenic place per se compared to some other islands, flying over the island was great. There were thousands of palm trees covering the surface of the land, mostly what looked like farms as the trees were in neat rows. It was a nice sunny day and just an array of nice soft clouds in the air.

When we landed it was a bit of an experience. The airport is so small, you can't even begin to compare it to other airports. It's about as big as one or two duty free shops that we have in Brisbane. We walked off the plane down some steps onto the tarmac, then into the main building. Customs consisted of a few guys opening up bags at random. All they did for us was unzip the portacot halfway - maybe they'd never seen one of these before?? There were no x-ray machines, or biological sensors like in Auckland. They did have a dog sniffing us when we entered, however I'm not sure if this was a trained dog or a wild one we'd been warned about ;) Maybe he was there to count the number of unshowered people coming through the building.

After we picked up our luggage, we slowly shifted it outside. It was bit of an ordeal and we had to get people to help us. We had 3 suitcases, 3 backpacks, a portacot, a stroller, a massive bike box (with my bike in it, duh!), and a tired sleeping baby. We must have looked so out-of-place as we were one of the only non-native people at the airport, with stunned "deer-in-headlights" looks on our faces. Luckily there was a nice Tongan taxi driver who would gladly take our money in exchange for transport into town, and it was all sorted.

The drive wasn't too long, maybe 20 minutes. I didn't have any pre-conceived ideas of what Tonga would look like, only I was warned by Nee's sister Viena that it was still very much a third world country. Not that anyone was starving, but living conditions are very poor and not many places have running hot water. There are no streetlights, and from what I can tell so far, no road rules either !! Hahaha!!

The place where we are staying is a guy from Couch Surfing, which is another website just like The Hospitality Club which you all should know plenty about. His name is Steve and has been living in Tonga for 3 years. Originally from the United States, he has been working over here and also travelling around the islands during his free time. It's been a real pleasure to meet him, as not only is he very friendly, he has given us some great tips on how to travel in Tonga.

He currently works for Telecom, the phone company over here, so he has have pretty reliable internet, however he doesn't have any running hot water. The gas oven and stove is powered by a big LPG gas cylinder sitting in the middle of his kitchen, and you need to light the oven by throwing a lit match towards the gas at the back - kinda dangerous! So we have very modest accommodation, but he does have one thing we don't have at home - flyscreens! They are essential over here because of the climate, there are so many creepy-crawlies, flies and other crazy insects just wanting to get inside.

Steve wasn't home when we arrived so we let ourselves into his unlocked house and put our bags in our room. After a load of washing we decided to catch up on some sleep while we waited for Steve to come home. Not long after 5pm, I heard the door open and went out and met him. He noticed that there were only 3 thongs outside the door, and he concluded that the wild dogs must have taken one of them. We searched in all of the places he thought they may have dropped it, but only found another unmatching thong. Luckily Nee bought another pair of thongs while we were back in NZ.

We went for a walk to the shops (about the size of our bedroom at home) and bought a few things like bottled water, some fruit and some noodles. Nee cooked some BS omelettes which didn't turn out to be too bad at all. Ellianah really enjoyed herself tonight, running around the house like a chicken with its head cut off. She was very good when having a bath. We used a small plastic container and filled it up with some water from the kettle mixed with some cold water. She was very well behaved which was a relief for us.

This afternoon while Nee was doing the washing, I went for a short walk to get a sense of where in Tonga we actually were. We are staying one block from the water, where we can look out and see a number of smaller islands, some of them containing private resorts. It's just amazing seeing all of this right now.

Tomorrow we are planning to have a look around Tongatapu and book a few things like our plane trip to Vava'u. Tomorrow night we are planning on going to a traditional feast, which includes singing and dancing, and my favourite activity, eating!!! YEAH!!

I'm going to bed now, I have typed enough and my neck is starting to hurt. Sorry I skipped the days between the end of the bike ride to now, but it's not really all that interesting compared to Tonga. I do have a bit more I would like to write about with the bike trip, but I'll save that for another day.

By the way, I didn't end up getting a replacement for our camera. I only realised late last night that it could just be battery that needs replacing. I have already replaced the Lithium Ion battery once before, and the more I thought about it, the more it made logical sense. Unfortunately, by the time I realised this, no stores were open and we left Auckland before the specialty stores opened. I now sorta regret getting a camera that doesn't take AA batteries. Tomorrow I will look for a replacement battery here in Tonga, but I'm doubting I will find anything useful. Fingers crossed.