King Tupou VI - the present king of Tonga
As regular visitors to this humble Yorkshire blog may recall, the despotic ruler of this little corner of the blogosphere likes his geography and is curious about other places - be they close to home or faraway. Today, we are off to somewhere this blog has never been before - namely Tongatapu.
Tongatapu is the main island of the Pacific nation of Tonga - sometimes known as The Friendly Isles of which there are some 150 inhabited islands.. Around 71% of the entire population live on Tongatapu which is the location of the capital city - Nuku'alofa - home to 25,000. In the Tongan language, Nuku'alofa means "abode of love".
Unsurprisingly, Google Streetview has managed to capture some imagery on the island but coverage is quite sketchy. When I checked it out, I had difficulty spotting any human beings. It was as if they were nearly all in hiding. Perhaps small children had raised the alarm, "Hide everybody! The Google Streetview car is approaching!"
I clipped the following six Tongatapu images from Streetview:-
Ancient burial mound at Mua - allegedly a last burial place for monarchs or chiefs
The Free Church in Nuku'alofa -the most important ecclesiastical building in Tonga
Abandoned house at Hamula
End of the Vuna road
Royal Palace gateway in Nuku'alofa
Where Captain Cook aboard "The Resolution" landed in 1773
A blogpost about Tongatapu would surely not be complete without some traditional Polynesian singing and dancing. The video was shot four years ago at an official reception for The Crown Prince of Norway. The graceful hand movements are everything - telling a story...
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/zq19V87