Kick back in the hotel in the morning and head back to Friends cafe for breakfast. Have a decent full English and then realise we may have a problem. Flights in under 8 hours and we're still one visa short. Head over to the embassy and the immigration office and ultimately were told it's a toss of a coin. No certainty as to wether we'll make it but we should still try and get to the airport. On the other hand we don't want to get to NZ and be stuck in the airport. Conundrums all round.
Not huge amounts we can do so we let the day go on and will see where we end up, when and how. There's one tourist spot we haven't checked out that intruiged as both - the blow holes. Natural formations of holes that blow water when the tide crashes into them. We make our way over and they are fucking spectacular. Unbelievable sight, incredible sound and just peaceful. The entire coast has the blow holes and seeing the waves crash one after the other and then the after math is just Spectacular. The sun was blazing with a low-medium tide. This meant we were nowhere near the water. As hard as we tried to get caught in the cross fire we just weren't able to. We hop back in the car and decide to venture through the jungle, the cows and the potholes to a spot closer to the action.
We get there and become Bear Grylls. We duck and dive, navigate through multiple crab, watch a couple of locals celebrate their illegal catch of an octopus and end up in the rocky water where we get what we need.
A great day ended with an extremely late checkout (6pm), quick beer and a drive to the airport. We stop off for some food and have the best meal we've had in Tonga. Delightful white wine sauce with prawns and rice, great garlic bread, tuna shashimi and a grilled chicken burger. Lovely meal. At this point it's 7pm and our international flights at 9. Were cutting it fine but it's Tonga. Pretty sure they'll be cool.
Get to the airport after a map mishap around 740, and the flights closed. We're fucked. They manage to do us a solid open the flight, check us in but unconvincingly say that the visa issues been resolved. I guess we have to take their word for it. We get to security and realise we'd left a bag full of shit on the other side. Another battle, another struggle and another Tongan miracle. They let us out get the bag, back through security and into the terminal where we pick us a few Ts a massive
water bottle and board the flight.
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