Commodore
October 4, 2023

Thursday 5 October – enchanting visit to the Botanical gardens

The morning slipped by as Rowan had endless work to catch up on and I did some baking as we were running short on bread. We rushed into town and drove in our hire car to the Gardens about half an hour away. We wondered if anyone would be there, we were very pleased to see the gate unlocked and an old Tongan gent, Haniteli, waiting for us. Turns out he started the gardens in 1972, he is an agronomist with 38 years of agricultural experience, he started the vanilla Industry on the island and was Director of Agriculture and Food within the Tongan government for 18 years. The garden has over 500 plant species, both native and exotic, he owns (or rents from the King on a 50 year lease) the entire bay which has a magnificent beach. Sadly he is getting on and struggles with his knees. Covid, the hurricane and cheap Chinese competition has rather demolished his business here and it is all looking a little rundown. The restaurant where they did Sunday feasts and special Tongan events for Cruise liners, Nat Geographic and the World Arc to name a few, has all closed down. This year has the added problem that they have no water in this dry El Nino year. We were lucky to get a tour with him, it was Rowan’s perseverance at the Tourist Info office that finally got hold of his wife and organised it.

Haneteli was a real character, having been part of the government for many years and well educated he had endless stories. He has been to Rome on 6 occasions and met the Pope 4 times! His wife is Catholic, he was part of the Wesleyan church but fell out with the minister. He has travelled extensively around Europe, with FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations). He was highly educated, passionate about his plants, and their benefits for Tongan people, he knew so much about the geology and history of Tonga, it was fascinating. He says they are descendants of Mongols, which makes a lot of sense. He had such a wicked laugh and sense of humour, we had a great two hours with him. He took us to his closed restaurant, he opened the gates for us and told us to drive along the road to see the far end of his property. It is a stunning beach, we saw a cutting through a coral cliff and gingerly drove through to another gorgeous beach totally enclosed by coral cliffs. It obviously has been a picnic site but has all been closed for a while. It would make a brilliant camp site except for the mozzies!

We returned to the restaurant and Haneteli was waiting for us with three ice cold beers. We got onto the subject of rugby – an absolute favourite conversation here.

We returned to town and handed in the car at the hotel where they were in the middle of wedding festivities, they had managed to transform the room from a building site in time! We rushed back to PolePole as we had invited a Finnish boat, Zelda, for drinks at 5:30pm. We had discovered them on a shared WhatsApp group, they are looking to do the same passage to NZ at the same time as us. They were a really interesting couple and turned out they were friends of our Dutch friends on Pippin, who have also left the World Arc, and are now in Indonesia. We gave Pippin a call and discovered they were on Komodo Island, they are finding it quite touristy and are appalled at the pollution and litter in the sea, which is rather sad. Heikki and Sheryl on Zelda are very competent sailors, they have had Zelda 20 years and obviously have had a great time sailing the Baltic Sea for years. They want to sail for a couple more years but have to get back to work sometime, they are younger than us and not retired. What a great lifestyle they are having.

Haneteli, who owns and started the garden. I think he looks Mongolian, he told us that they have a black mark on their backs that confirms their origins. We didn’t dare ask to see evidence!

Red pineapple

He was very proud of his name plates, this tree IFI, apparently called after wind instruments in an orchestra, because if you eat the nuts you fart like crazy!

He likes everything to grow wild and naturally, we caught a glimpse of their rare Tongan Whistler, endemic to Vava’u

Huge old cycad endemic to a few of the Pacific islands

Love the name of the cycad, Longolongo, it has amazing multiple branches, sadly red listed as endangered

I googled Cycads as we grew up with a magnificent cycad on the farm in South Africa (Zululand), what a surprise to find that cycad is called Zululand/Tongaland cycad – I can’t find anything to say how it got this name but what a coincidence. We were always amazed when our cycad would grow this enormous cone of bright red seeds every 7 years or so

The Tongan Spider orchid

I think this was a heliconia of sorts, very pretty

He grows vanilla everywhere, it climbs on everything, it is not native and all flowers have to be hand pollinated to produce a bean, which sounds a lot of hard work, no wonder it is so expensive