February 8, 2026
NEIAFU is the second largest town in Tonga. It lies in northern Tonga. The population is just over 3,900.From the 1880's to 1900, it was a German coaling station, until Briatian took over in 1900 as a protectorate. Again, we received another festive greeting of song and dance from the locals.
The weather was very humid, gloomy and raining off and on, so we just did a quick port visit here.
VICTOR HARBOR , is a popular coastal town in South Australia, known for it's beaches, wildlife and heritage attractions like the horse drawn tram to Granite Island and their whaling history. It is about 80 km south of Adelaide, and was our third stop on the Viator tour, where we also had a yummy fish & chips lunch included. Below shows the bridge walkway over to Granite Island, it was lovely soaking up the sunshine .
The quaint german village of Hahndorf in the hills outside Adelaide is charming. Back in the 1830's Lutheran families were being pursecuted in Germany, by Catholics, so a wealthy Minister in Australia reached out to them and paid the passage for a family, that had specific trade expertise to move over. He gave them a piece of land to cultivate and after 15 years of service, it was there's to own. Thus the area of Hahndorf and serveral other villages were established.
ADELAIDE the capital of South Australia is known as the " City of Churches " and is a hub for festivals, food and wine, situated between the Gulf of St. Vincent and the Mount Lofty Ranges . It was founded in 1836 and named for Queen Adelaide. They used excellent city master planning, that still holds today, and makes it so welcoming. The City is completely surrounded by protected park lands and contains four large parks within it's boundaries. The City streets form a perfect grid, running from the mountains to the sea and extend out through the park lands, to allow easy flow inand out of the suburbs.