When we researched flights and ferry connections about 2 weeks ago in Fiji, we had a bit of a shock moment, discovering that flights were fully booked and ferry schedules unreliable/not available. It looked as if we had to spend all our time on just Ha’apai OR Vava’u whereas I had always wanted to see both island groups. In the end, we decided to chance it and assume we could make it somehow from Ha’apai to Vava’u, booked our flight out of Vava’u and took the ferry to Ha’apai. If anything went wrong, we would have been stuck in Ha’apai…but well. Sometimes you gotta risk things like this and it did work out, although it almost went wrong when one of the ferries broke down! To our surprise, they efficiently (not very South Pacifican of them…Haha) replaced the broken slow ferry with two fast ferries – and off we were to Neiafu, the main town of Vava’u.

We only had two full days for Vava’u, so decided to stay in Neiafu. One day, we rented a car and drove around the main island. It’s not too big, so by the end of the day we had driven into pretty much every corner that our 2WD car would take us. Unfortunately, the weather was not that great and sometimes rainy, but we tried to make the best of it. In all honesty, there are not too many wow-ing sights on the island. One of the best ones was Mt Talau, a short, steep climb up the highest point awarded us with amazing views in all directions! In fact, we liked it so much that we came back a 2nd time in the late afternoon when the clouds had cleared a little more.

Another really nice spot was a viewpoint on the North coast, close to the airport. We just followed some signs and in the end walked for 1km when the road got too bad. And were surprised to land ourselves at this awesome viewpoint! We were even lucky to be able to watch some whales swimming around in the bay below us.

The rest of the main island was not that interesting and after Ha’apai, we were quite disappointed by the beaches Vava’u had to offer. Maybe there are better ones on the outer islands, but from what we’ve seen during our road trip (and the boat trip next day), I’m not sure.

The snorkelling trip next day brought us through the little bays and between many smaller islands of Vava’u. Unfortunately the weather was still mostly grey and cool, so that we really appreciated the brief moments of sunshine in between, in which the waters glittered in a beautiful turquoise. The maze of islands and bays is definitely beautiful, but Marovo Lagoon is similar – and better, we thought.

During the tour, we first visited Port Mourelle, a pretty bay with turquoise water, but the snorkelling was boring. Dead coral.

The next spot was Swallow’s Cave which was a cool experience to snorkel in: the water deep blue and very clear and thousands of small fish which you could free dive through! There were also some divers at the bottom of the cave which we watched for a bit. Just nearby, there was another little cave with a small swim through, to make up for Mariner’s Cave I suppose (we couldn’t find a tour going there unfortunately).

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By the time we reached the last snorkelling spot, Japanese Gardens, we were freezing like crazy which was too bad since it was quite pretty. But the sun was hiding behind the clouds, the wind had picked up and the water temperatures are not very high in Tonga anyways. So we kept the snorkelling short and were looking forward to our hot shower at our guesthouse!

All in all, we were glad that we spent much more time in Ha’apai than Vava’u since it was so much nicer there. If we had had any more time in Vava’u, we probably would have gone to Ofu Island or so for a day or two, but again, it didn’t look spectacular to me. The snorkelling tour was expensive for what it was, and so was the car rental. It’s sometimes difficult to find out beforehand in the South Pacific, if places are really worth it and what there is to see and do… So I guess it was good we went to Vava’u to see for ourselves, but if we’d have to recommend one of the two island groups, our vote would clearly go to Ha’apai!