Living on deserted island

Day 122

"And before you know
You're feeling old
And your heart is breaking
Don't hold on to the past
Well that's too much to ask"

It's now start of my 3rd week in Kingdom Of Tonga and already this has been an experience beyond my imagination. The true traveler culture that was so difficult to find in Australia is here, alive and well. Most if not all people are solo travelers, all looking for something different, something beyond the beaten tourist trail. One would think, that by using less than 300 euros for return trip to South Pacific Paradise from Sydney, this place would be crowded like hell...but no, I think Vava'u had about 30-40 tourists in island total and Haapai(where I am now) has 10-15.

That being said, I have just returned to Lifuka, main island of Haapai group, from island of Uoleva where I spent 4 days and 3 nights. Uoleva is the island made famous by Madventures in their season 1. Its truly a deserted island without any tourists, any electricity and any running water. Just beach, palm trees, ocean, stars and bonfire after sunset...paradise. Funny, owner of the place in Uoleva still very clearly remembers summer 2001, when 13 finnish people stayed in his resort for 2 weeks, got drunk every single evening, had massive fight where one girl hit his boyfriend in the head with empty glass bottle, asked him to shoot a bat so they could eat it, etc. ;)

Other than chilling on hammock and reading book, there wasn't anything to do in Uoleva, allthough I liked it that way. Have had plenty of duracell activity in Vava'u so I was more than ready to just chill for few days and swim in crystal clear turqoise waters.

So now I'm back in Pan'ga, capital of Haapai group for 2 more days before heading back to main island of Tongatapu on saturday. Then its another 4 days there before my flight leaves to New Zealand on wednesday.

PS. Don't know when I will be able to upload more pics, might be in Auckland next week.

Living in the South Pacific paradise

Day 116

"How can I ever feel again?
Given the chance would I return?"

It doesn't get more paradise than this.

I have now been in Tonga for 8 days and feeling is still bizarre. I still don't really understand that I AM actually here, almost 19 000km away from home, middle of South Pacific. Life and environment here is so different from home, so different from anything I have ever seen.

Biggest highlight of the week(if not even entire trip) was the whale watching on tuesday. It's getting to be the end of the whale watchign season here so as we stumbled on 2 whales(mother and baby) we just sticked with them cause they were so playful with us. Baby was such a showoff as pictures can tell.

Now, if seeing this massive whale breaching water 30m from boat wasnt cool enough, we went snorkeling into the water with them as well...THAT was COOL! Seeing this massive, giant animal up close in water where visibility was around 50 meters was just stunning! We were snorkeling literally 10m from the mother at one point and feeling was just awesome, you don't realize the size of these creatures until you are in water with them, it was just mindboggling.

On same trip we also visited pretty cool place called Mariner's Cave. Its a cave inside wall of rock and only entrance is 4m long tunnel 3m below surface. We did it without scuba gear and dive was quite exciting since I basically couldn't see where I was going cause of darkness. But the view inside cave...omg, only light was light coming from the entrance tunnel and that made the cave so eerie but beautiful at same time.

Yesterday, thursday, I took day trip to Ofu island. I was told there was ferry service to Ofu daily and as I got to Old Harbour all sweating there was only one ancient "bathtub" boat made from wood that looked like it would sink any second. Well, I was approached by man who said "yea, this is the ferry". Ok...I survived trip and spent day snorkeling, swimming and kayaking in paradise island of Ofu.

Tomorrow, saturday, I am heading of to the least populated island group of Tonga called Haapai. Planning to spend something like 5-7 days there, depends really on situation in island. Problem is that because Tonga hasn't been getting fuel shipments in few weeks, ferries are not traveling from main island to outer islands which means supplies are running low here on Vavau and apparently on Haapai as well. So if living there starts to resemble more or less a typical episode of Survivor, then I might as well take flight back to main island few days earlier. Oh well...we will see, luckily traveler don't have to make decisions too early here, nearly everything can be booked 1 day before.

Tonight peeps are heading to harbour to watch weekly yacht race in Port Refuge harbour. Not sure yet if I am going to volunteer for any ship or just sit in bar and watch them racing.

Malo e lelei!

Day 111

"For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies.
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise."

...which is "Hello!" in tongan. So here I am, Tonga, in middle of Pacific. Really bizarre feeling to be here and I'm struggling to find words so I'll do it the easy way and describe events of past few days, all the way to thursday when I left Australia and landed to Tonga.

Already on check-in in Sydney international I had good vibes about the trip. I was in queue with 2 gay guys going to Tonga as well and we just had hilarious time chatting. Flight was 4.5h long so not too tough at all. We landed on Tonga at 22:00 local time and immediately as I stepped of plane I knew I was somewhere FAR away from home. Humidity, heat and the smell was something I have never felt before. I got my bag out and headed out to find guy holding sign "Toni's guesthouse"(my pickup) so there I went. 30 minute journey from airport was experience itself driving through surprisingly densely populated main island dodging other cars, kids, adults, dogs, pigs and chickens.

Now, I told in earlier entry that I was finnish magnet and what you know? In Tonga and in Toni's Guesthouse I run into 2 finnish girls again, Tiina and Sara. Later it turns out that they had arrived to Tonga as well earlier the day and they had exactly the same itinerary as I did, even the same exact flight away from Tonga. So needless to say that we teamed up and are now traveling together around the Kingdom of Tonga.

I arrived on thursday and on friday it was Kiran's birthday(english girls who was traveling there with her friend Shawn) so we took her to Toni's famous island tours. Entire day we spent driving around island seeing its major sights which included 37 mormon churches, 28 catholic churches, 3-headed palm tree, blowholes and Captain Cook's landing site. Toni is clearly getting old but he is still funny as hell, his humor is so full of sarcasm. Here are some pics I took during tour.


After tour we started preparing for Tongan dinner show where Toni managed to get us seats. It included buffet menu from local dishes and really great dance show by local village dancers...dont get to experience something like that too often so I was impressed. Great night, great food, great company and great show.

For some reason Shawn, Tiina, Sara and I stayed up that night drinking local booze and chatting all the way till 6am so you can imagine the tropical hangover next "morning". I managed to get myself into town of Nukualofa and ate best bacon panini I have ever had. Otherwise we just chilled at the hostel and waited for our flight to Vavau which we had booked day before at Air New Zealand office in Nukualofa.

So on saturday 3 of us flew to Vavau from main island. It was about 50 minute flight and surprisingly comfortable considering the plane looked like it was ready to crash any second. We arrived at Vavau 18:50 in the evening, found a cab, drove to main town of Nefaia and checked into Tonga's only backpacker place, Adventure backpackers.

To those who care, there are about 70,000 people living in main island of Tongatapu, but only 22,000 in Vavau so its lot smaller. Then again Vavau is also lot prettier than Tongatapu.

Now its monday...on sunday everything is closed in Tonga because this is highly religious country, nothing was open but we were able to find person who was able to drive us on south tip of the island for some swimming at very picturesque beach and turqoise water.

We had quite weird incident on the beach as well...when we arrived there we were only people on beach, kinda what we expected. But then after 30mins I saw warship closing in on the bay. It kept coming and coming and coming until it finally dropped anchor about 100m from shore. Then rubberboat came out, people went in and they started to drive directly toward us. Now, I suppose everyone has heard about stories where pirates/terrorists kidnap tourists in Pacific and demand ransom from their governments. To be honest I was little scared but it turned out it was New Zealand survey ship and soldiers just came to shore to have some RnR. So what was secluded paradise beach was instantly turned into 20-year old soldiers playground with all sorts of watersport equipment, kinda weird.

Today, monday we booked whale watching tour on tuesday(supposedly Tonga is best place in world to see whales), flights to Haapai for saturday(we originally wanted to go to Haapai by ferry but ferry isnt going for next 3 weeks cause they have no fuel...) and walked to hill close to town for some amazing scenery.

So what is my impression of Tonga? It is different than any other place I have ever been to, thats for sure. People do speak very good english here though. They are very friendly for most the time and kids here are just fantastic, I just hope my kid one day would be something close to tongan kids cause they seem so happy and enjoying life...plus they are polite.

Weather here is very humid which makes nights tough to sleep cause we keep sweating all the time. And then there are insects, dont come to Tonga if you are scared of insects or spiders. This place is literally full of big palm-size spiders(they are totaly harmless but huge). But all in all, I love this place. It is so different, so chilled and so fun every single day.

See ya all on other side,
Tero(far away from home)

One More Day

Day 106

"Tomorrow I'll be far away,
Tomorrow is the judgement day
Tomorrow I'll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store"

Theme music for entry

One part of my journey is over, another begins. After months and months of planning this trip eventually shaped itself into 4 parts: Australia 2008, South Pacific, New Zealand and Australia 2009. This first 3.5 month part took the most amount of preparation and planning. Behind me is over 10 000km inside this continent. Days if not even weeks sitting in buses, trains, airplanes and boats.

Well, was it worth it? Every damn second! Now its time to sum up past 3.5 months. If I say "amazing" it would be understatement. Already past 106 days have been the most life-altering experience one can have. It hasn't always been happy journey, allthough I have never felt like quitting yet, not even close.

I think the toughest and hardest part that took me by surprise was the constant social aspect of it. I mean, you arrive to new place, try to make friends, infiltrate yourself into already established community and generally find your place. Sometimes it was easy(Treehouse), sometimes it was downright impossible(Port Douglas) and sometimes you are just too tired to do it(Brisbane). And...just when you managed to do it, you move on, say goodbye to people you met and arrive to new place where no one knows you and you have to start everything all over again. I think THAT has so far been the toughest thing to cope with.

But...as with humans everywhere around the globe, we build social security networks. We build relationships in where we can rely upon on tougher times. Even when you are traveling alone thousands of kilometers from home, you start to look for social security network. For me that means quality over quantity. I prefer to have just few friends who I really like and trust them. I feel Frankie and Becky(later on Sanna and Susse as well) became the core of my network here.

So what were the highlights so far?

Lets start with highlights and make trip's Top 3 so far. I gave this little thought but in the end it was very easy to pick the three, but impossible to place one of them above the other. All were so fantastic experiences in their own way so I'll just go with the chronological order.

1. Darwin
There was just something about Darwin. Its hard to describe what it is. The whole place just has special vibe, atmosphere and characteristics. Its definetly not a place for everyone, I have been hearing most praise from travelers aged 25-35. Darwin doesn't offer that much to see for tourist, apart from the jumping crocs in Adelaide River, Lichfield National Park and Kakadu...but those 3 more than make up for it. Oh, and that 6m croc was soooo cool!

2. Cape Tribulation
The sheer beauty of this place blew me away. I had seen pictures, I had heard talk but I wasn't prepared how jaw-droppingly beautiful it was. It was like walking into a forbidden paradise where you have to pay 1000 dollars to enter...but instead it was free. There were moments when I just stood at there in awe thinking "I must be breaking some law to be able to stand here and looking at this without paying anything".

3. Whitsundays
I had huge expectations on this trip and...they were exceeded. Fantastic boat, fantastic crew, fantastic scenery and most importantly, fantastic company(thanks Sanna and Susse!).

Honorary mentions: Treehouse, Uluru, Fraser Island and Desert Venture tour.

I will close this last entry from Australia with 2 more pics from Sydney, the Emerald City.

Emerald City

Day 104

"Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?"

Dorothy fell asleep in her home. As she dreamed, her house was grabbed by tornado and thrown into Oz, place where dreams come true. Everything was so different that Dorothy said "I think we are not in Kansas anymore". She arrived into Munchkinland and followed the yellow brick road all the way to Emerald City, the most beautiful place in Oz and home of the Wizard, picking up few friends along the way.

Three and hald months ago I arrived through air and turbulence to Oz and in Perth. Everything around me was different, I definetly wasn't in Helsinki anymore. I too followed the yellow brick road which was considerably longer than Dorothy's. Along the way I too picked up friends allthough most of them had brains(unlike Scarecrow), they definetly had hearts(unlike Tin man) and all were blessed with courage to travel(unlike Lion). But in the end yellow brick road took me to Emerald City, the most beautiful city in Oz, Sydney.

Ok, lets do little timewarp before Emerald City, Hunter Valley. So my 11h bus journey wasn't that tough. I arrived 22:30 to Newcastle to have a decent sleep before heading to Hunter Valley next morning at 8:30. As is common in Australia, bus drivers are generally very nice people and so was this. He took 2km sidetrack from his route just to drop me off at my hostel door, very nice. When I arrived at my hostel I saw a sign with 5 letters. At first I thought it can't be true, pinched myself and looked at it again: S-A-U-N-A. Jumalauta Sauna! Sauna Perkele! V*ttu jee!! Over three months in Australia and there is sauna! Needless to say I went to market, bought 6-pack of beer for evening sauna.

But first I rented a bicycle for the day and went on self-guided wine tour. Managed to visit 5 wineries with full tastings until I called it day. Also managed to get attacked by vicious Magpie. That insane bird chased me for over kilometer doing over 10 swoops hitting my bike helmet each time. Christ, when I arrived to Australia, I didn't realize that the most dangerous wildlife encounters would be with birds, first Cassowary and now Magpie.

Anyway, managed to get back to hostel unscarred and fired up Sauna. Now, it seems I have become some sort of Finnish magnet pulling every single Finnish traveller to me wherever I go. This time her name was Annette. I'm quite proud that I actually picked her finnish accent within seconds. We had nice evening with Sauna and drinking the wines I picked that day at wineries along with her and Tina(little older aussie).

Next day I went touring along with YHA minibus. We had absolutely hilarious tour with our nude model Michael driving and Gay-Bob offering commentary :D On tour I also managed to actually grab some pictures of the fantastic Hunter Valley landscapes.

Evening featured yet another 1.5h in Sauna and wine drinking :)

So...after 2 days being totally wasted in wine country it was time to head Sydney. As Michael was driving me to Cessnock we realized that it was saturday and that ment no buses went back to Newcastle today...crap! So Michael made me new travel plan, bus to Maitland(I had no clue where that place was), then switch to train in Maitland and go to Hamilton(still no clue where that place was) and finally switch trains in Hamilton to go to Sydney. I still haven't looked at the map where those places were but it took me to Emerald City at last...and it is beautiful.

My original plan was to do as little as possible here. I planned to just relax, do "inventory" on my gear, wash all clothes, sort out bank stuff and generally prepare for upcoming trip to Pacific and New Zealand. Oh well, plans are made to be changed. First of all it's almost impossible to not do anything in Sydney, this city is so full of things to do and places to see. Second, Annette came to Sydney as well so we have been spending some time sightseeing together including this picnic at very famous location :)

Gonna try to squeeze in atleast one more entry before heading to Tonga. Until then...greetings from Oz and Emerald City.

Surf and cookies

Day 98

"Who am I?
Can I conceal myself for evermore?
Pretend I'm not the man I was before?"

Byron Bay, the surfer's Mecca of the world. Byron Bay was never very high on my list of must-see places, but it has such big history and reputation that it's just one of those places you can't skip if you are trekking along east coast.

If I understand right, Byron Bay started as this sort of hippie-surfer low-key travel destination some 30 years ago. Over the years as world has gotten smaller, it has overwent change as has every place along east coast, but it somehow still manages to have small-town charm. In a way, Byron Bay reminds me a lot of Broome on West Australia. Allthough its now active travel hub, hippie history is clearly visible here.

So the main reason people come here is to surf. I tried that on first day but I have to say that surf here is not as good as Agnes Waters. Waves are much more unpredictable here and tide affects them much more. There are only hour or 2 each day for good waves, unlike Agnes Waters which had basically constant good waves. Other than surf, town boasts active party scene, nice beaches and famous historical lighthouse.
All in all, this would be nice place but it seems that the more south I get, younger the travelers become. In Byron Bay they are hardly 20, so I feel older than ever here...plus its pretty clear after few chats that I have absolutely nothing in common with these people.

Now, trip to Byron Bay would be for nothing without day tour to Nimbin. The undisputed hippie and drug capital of Australia 75km inland from Byron Bay. There are 2 guys who run tours there, I asked hostel reception which one is better and guy said: "This one is the better one, it has barbecue lunch and swim at the waterfall. This other tour...its more for dope smokers, guy takes you to Nimbin, buys some dope, then takes you to farm and you spend afternoon smoking and eating mushrooms there". Ok...let me make one thing clear, smoking, possession, buying, selling, etc. is illegal in Australia, but for some reason cops dont give a shit about it in Nimbin.

So on we went towards Nimbin with bus driver that obviously wasn't playing with full deck anymore. Here are some exerpts from his speech during the 1h drive there:

"I come from South Africa when things were really rough there. So that makes me perfect tour guide for this trip because I have zero respect to authority and police."

"Drugs are bad and they are illegal...Ok, now that I got the legal shit out of the way I want to inform you of safe dosages..."

"When you buy marijuana in Nimbin, dont buy from teenagers, they will just use the money to buy speed. Buy from adults, that keeps the system running smooth."

"Remember, only half a cookie, take rest with you to Byron Bay. We had irish bloke the other day who ate two and half cookies and guy spent half hour on sidewalk crying cause he couldnt find his legs."

"If the cake lady is in town, take only 1/8 piece. We had israeli guy on tour who ate over quarter and he refused to come back in to the bus cause he was convinced there was 25 palestinians inside wanting to kill him."

"If you want to eat real food in Nimbin, remember that everything takes twice as long there...for obvious reasons."

Bus driver warned us that once we step out of the bus, it would take 2mins until someone was offering us cookies and dope. Well, that wasnt quite true, it took me 10 seconds and there was old lady in her fifties walking by trying to sell her cookies and cake to me. Anyway, here is some pics of Nimbin.


...and here some lines locals said to me while there:

"Want to buy cookies? cake? marijuana?"

"...I was really emotionally unstable but this herb here really made me better person..."

We spent 1.5h in Nimbin, but took me only 15mins to realize that this wasn't my cup of tea. I mean, I just cannot imagine myself looking at a mirror spelling GURU out loud(I'm not kidding, they were selling mirrors there with painted text that said "Look in the mirror and spell out loud GURU"), if that ever happens can someone please pull the trigger? You can have many opinions about hippies and smoking weed, but I haven't got anything positive to say. I mean...even the driver said to us that teenagers are buying speed there...Hello!? That should already be a warning sign!

Anyway, trip was definetly worth doing. Now I know that hippie communities will never be my thing. Was more than happy to leave the town since the whole place smelled of weed since people were just smoking joints openly.

So now I am spending last day in Byron Bay enjoying scorchingly hot sun and flawless weather. Frankie and Becky should be coming to town this evening so we might do something in town later on. Tomorrow I have nightmarish 11h bus journey down south to Newcastle where I'll be spending one night before heading to Hunter Valley for some wine touring.

Only 9 more days left in Australia this year, gotta make most out of it.

Big City Lights and Reunions

Day 94

"Distance is covering my way,
Tears my memory
All this beauty is killing me"

Just before I came to Brisbane I realised I hadn't actually been in big city for almost 3 months(I dont really count Darwin or Cairns as cities), which is very very long time for someone who has lived his entire life so far in big city. What was also weird was that didn't have any longing for big city life. So with mixed emotions I arrived at Brisbane on monday evening, after some hassle managed to settle in to Chill Backpackers quite close to Transit Center and downtown. View from their rooftop balcony was quite nice ;)

Well, big city didn't turn out to be so bad experience after all. It was actually scary how easily I was able to get back into hectic city life because Brisbane is VERY hectic city. Like some aussie told me in Fraser Island, "its business city" and it shows. Huge modern 30-story office buildings dominate the skyline while most street corners have wine bars instead of normal pubs. Yes, Brisbane is clearly identifying itself as more poshy, classy and stylistic city. One can argue if such thing makes city nice, but it DOES give Brisbane lot of character and uniqueness and that I like. I like when place has its own style and identity, and Brisbane has that.

Here are 2 pics of Brissy, first during day and 2nd during night.

So what was I doing there for 4 full days? Well, first 2 days I just spent walking a lot. I walked and walked all over city just to get feeling and grab some pictures. Also to scout some shops where I could update my T-shirts, its been now almost 3.5 months that I have been forced to choose between 4 same T-shirts so it was time to say goodbye to few and buy new ones. I also found amazing bookstore where I grabbed last 2 books of the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons.

3rd and 4th day were happy reunion days. When I arrived on monday to Brissy I got message from Sanna and Susse(girls from Whitsunday trip) that they are coming to Brissy on wednesday as well so we arranged meet on a brewery tour to XXXX-brewery on Thursday. Was really great to see them again and had great time drinking all the free beer after tour :)

...on way back there was quite a nice sunset(no, sky is not on fire, its sunset).

Last day Frankie and Becky arrived to Brissy so I went out with them to do some shopping, beer drinking and when sun was getting down we decided to catch a movie at the historical Regent theatre. Movie we chose was Mummy 3...wasnt good :(

So now I am in Byron Bay for next 3 days. First impression? Well, town is full of partying 20-year olds, just exactly the kind of people I am desperately trying to avoid all the time. Nonetheless, even after just 2h here I understand what the fuss about Byron Bay is. This town has lots of charm, identity and characteristics. So far I actually find myself quite enjoying this town(not its people though...) and there seems to be heaps of things to do here(surfing, bushwalking, swimming, surfing, skydiving, surfing,...). One must thing to do here is to take day trip to Nimbin which I'm planning to do on Monday...but more about that place on next entry ;)