Royal

Tonga

travel

A Regular Pim Department

Reporting News Of South

Seas Tourism And Travel

From The Inside

OECAUSE Tonga is in mourning to mid year, the Kingdom’s plans for a splashy entry into the travel trade have been dampened. But by year’s end there will be a coronation and it will be time for

Tongans to rejoice again. King Taufa’ahau

wants visitors in his capital, seen here from the air, for Nukualofa is the best spring board for many of Tonga’s attractions.

These include the surfing beach of ’Eueiki Island, where the King himself, left, is com petent to show the common folk the art of board riding. He owns his own board, im ported from Honolulu. He is also a good man with the aqualung, and has used one to follow the underwater entrance into

Mariner’s Cave, off the northern island of Vavau.

Vavau is also the scene of the Swallow’s Cave, which may be entered by boat (seen on the right). But back on the main island, within a few miles of Nukualofa, may be seen the attrac tive marine landscape of the Houma blowholes (above), where the Pacific rollers expend their energy on a rugged coastline, and the Ha’amonga coral rock trilithon (left), the purpose of which is lost in history. And there are also to be seen the sacred flying foxes of Tonga, which swarm on the iron wood trees at Kolovai, and which none but a member of the Royal family may kill.

And of course Tongan dancers make an attrac tive picture at any time of the year.

In the past accommodation has been a prob lem in Tonga, but some time in the next few months the Government-owned Dateline Hotel will be opened on the waterfront at Nukualofa, and there will be room for everybody. You may reach Tonga by regular Union Company ship from New Zealand or by Fiji Airways aircraft from Fiji. Polynesian Airlines also operate a weekly service from Western Samoa. The money is on a par with Australian.