Explore pristine coral reefs and learn about the world’s oldest living culture in Gunggandji Sea Country, Queensland with Dreamtime Dive + Snorkel.
Traditional custodians have passed down their Dreamtime stories over tens of thousands of years including fascinating stories about Australia’s most amazing marine life. The Gunggandji Sea Country experience gives travellers the unique opportunity to gain an insight into a diverse ecosystem on two premium outer reef sites from traditional landowners.
Milln, Flynn and Thetford Reef, located on Gunggandji Sea Country are home to some of the most idyllic snorkelling and diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Travellers can snorkel right off the boat, join a guided snorkel tour or even try an introductory scuba dive. These reefs are chosen for their superior coral quality, colour and overall diversity of reef life.
Located further off-shore away from coastal rivers and streams, outer reefs are found in clean coral sea water with higher coral densities and less sediment (sand) resulting in maximum water clarity in all weather conditions. The Outer Reef Wall is a renowned dive location by local dive enthusiasts and keen snorkelers and reaches depths of over 30 metres.
You’ll be in good hands with the guides who have a special connection to the country, an insider’s knowledge of the reef, and a passion for sustainable tourism and educational adventures. After visiting the reefs, enjoy a live demonstration of traditional dance, and didgeridoo performance on the land. Dreamtime is the only Great Barrier Reef cruise that allows guests to interact with original clap sticks, and fire poles.
It starts with a four-hour drive from Cairns, heading southwest to the Gulf Savannah. Once there, you’ll be welcomed to the country by local Gugu Badhun people and delivered to MacEacherns Camp, your home for the next four nights.
MacEacherns Camp is set on the 70,000 acre Kinrara Station where you will settle into a safari tent, complete with queen-size pillowtop bed and hot shower, on the edge of the wetlands then be ready to explore this immense landscape. Spend most of the day adventuring – swimming in waterfalls, kayaking, birdwatching, hiking, visiting the homestead – interspersed with excellent meals back at camp.
If you want to experience a slice of remote Australia, this is an amazing experience and the cherry on top is that it’s open to just 12 guests at a time during fewer than a dozen expeditions each year.
For a city that prides itself on its beaches, Sydney lets visitors down when it comes to hotels overlooking the waves. Crowne Plaza Coogee Beach is an oceanfront property in the eastern suburbs that isn’t new, but it has had a massive tart-up.
The upgraded rooms have a beachy feel with photos of the local area on the walls. Not that you’ll be paying attention once you pull back the curtains – just outside is the bay, with Wedding Cake Island at its heart.
It’s an easy commute into the CBD, but there’s plenty around Coogee to keep you busy, including long walks and good snorkelling. The hotel even has two restaurants: Shutters (top), with its Miami vibe, and Estate Taqueria.
According to oft-repeated hikers’ wisdom, cotton kills. It’s a dictum that rings true across most of Australia, as anyone who’s ever been caught out in a cold, wet t-shirt can attest. But on the Jatbula Trail, an outdoor-ed teacher named Elly has turned that belief on its head.
With the accumulated wisdom of a season spent in the Top End, she’s hiking across the southern edge of the Arnhem Land escarpment with an infectious grin and a cotton shirt that she drenches at every opportunity. “Cotton cools,” she says, extending her o’s with a laugh as she puts the sopping wet tee back on.
In nearby Katherine the temperature is close to 40 degrees. Here on the bare escarpment the rocky ground radiates the heat back up at us and it’s hotter still. For the first time I can recall, I curse my synthetic moisture-wicking shirt.
“You’re going to get pretty warm,” the grizzled ranger warned me at the compulsory pre-hike briefing. It echoed advice I’d already heard, but I’d also been told repeatedly that it was worth braving the heat for one of the most beautiful hikes in Australia. Our party of five includes Dan, a film producer from Sydney, and his German friend Anne, who lives up to the stereotype by being the most organised of us; Tom, a perpetually smiling hydrologist who has spent much of his career in the South Australian desert; and Chris, a Melbourne-based journalist who insists he’s not a hipster hiker, but who bought a new portable coffeemaker specially for this trip.
Pre-warned of the soaring temperatures, we’re keen to get an early start and rise before dawn on day one. Skittish wallabies form a guard of honour by the roadside on the half-hour drive from Katherine to Nitmiluk National Park. A golden glow is creeping above the horizon and our windscreen frames the fast-rising sun directly ahead.
After a short boat ride across the Katherine River, we step off between broad trees and pandanus palms into knee-high grass that shimmers in the early morning glow. Closer to ground level, the view is slightly less magical. A disturbingly large pyramid of dung has been deposited in the middle of the path and, despite earlier voicing his hope for plenty of wildlife sightings, Dan takes one look at the giant mound and declares, “I don’t want to see a buffalo any more.”
The first section of the walk follows the base of the escarpment and we enjoy the shadow it casts even in the early morning cool. It won’t last long; as we walk, the sun creeps over burnt orange rocks, dry yellow grass and spindly white gums with crowns of green. Climbing out of the shade and onto the escarpment, the air seems to hum gently with heat and I’m grateful that the first day is a short one. With only 8.3 kilometres to cover we reach camp by 10am.
By then it’s already baking hot and the sound of running water is like music to my ears. Without hesitation I drop my pack, cast off my clothes and follow the sound to a series of small falls at Biddlecombe Cascades. Despite it being the dry season, they look anything but to me, and I gleefully jump in the top pool then scramble down over the rocks to get a strong massage at the bottom of the falls. Because we’re on top of the escarpment, there’s no need to worry about crocs – we checked, multiple times – but I still start when I hear Chris screaming my name. Rushing back to camp, I find a jagged hole torn in the top of my pack, muesli everywhere and even a few zips tugged open. I shake my fist at six red-tailed black cockatoos sitting watchfully in a nearby tree before a harsh, mournful caw behind me informs me that I’ve accused the wrong birds.
Having secured my bags more carefully, I head back to the cascades. With bubbling spas, placid pools ringed by sparkling sundew plants, rocks perfect for jumping off and even a small cave hidden behind a fall it’s like a private waterpark. And, for a few hours, it’s all ours. One of the great joys of the Jatbula is that it’s never crowded. A maximum of 30 permits are issued each day (15 for self-supported hikers, 15 for tour operators), but we’re walking late in the season and only have four other hikers with us at camp each night.
The trail guidelines ask hikers not to wear sunscreen because it damages the waterholes. Knowing this, we plan to take regular breaks in the shade, but camping next to the falls proves too tempting. After a day spent lounging by the pool, Hollywood Dan looks like a red-breasted robin and serves as a warning to the rest of us throughout the hike.
The waterholes provide much needed respite from the heat, but they’re far from the only highlights of the trail. During the days we walk through stone country, where rocks criss-crossed with fracture lines are surrounded by dry grass the colour of straw. Bloodwood trees ooze bright red sap that crystallises where it falls and sparkles in the sun like piles of garnets. We walk between termite mounds scattered like gravestones in a poorly organised cemetery – over six days they change with the colour of the soil from white to yellow and deep red before turning a tired, dusty grey. The clifftop views from the edge of the escarpment – rocky red bluffs that seem to glow in the early morning sun protecting a broad valley of dry yellow grass streaked with white gum trunks – are worth the days of walking.
Even more arresting is the rock art hidden under overhangs near the track, evidence of the area’s continuing importance to the Jawoyn Traditional Owners. This is unforgiving country and water is essential to survival. It’s why the Jatbula Trail follows a Jawoyn Songline, an ancient route that connects the permanent water sources along the escarpment. These magical spots have hosted countless generations and we get a sense of that longstanding connection at the trail’s most spectacular stop.
The air in the Amphitheatre is still and muggy, but the wide natural bowl offers welcome protection from the sun. Water seeps through large hanging gardens of ferns before trickling down to a thin creek on the valley floor. On the surrounding rock face, more than a hundred open-air art galleries depict Jawoyn People, spirits and animals in ghostly white, mustard yellow and deep red ochre.
Some are recent additions, but others have been here for thousands of years. And they cover every available flat surface. It’s a place of wonder, but also great peace, and we linger for hours before resuming our walk, marvelling at the longstanding connection with Country in a place where past, present and future seem to fuse.
We take our time rearranging our packs before continuing, and our ever-smiling hydrologist uses the brief pause to whip out a book. His propensity to read at every drink break has earned him the nickname Two Page Tom, but there are times when the stultifying heat means I’d happily let him finish an entire novel before emerging from the shade.
On my map the Jatbula Trail looks like an easy hike. It’s mostly flat and the distances are manageable, but it’s absolutely crucial to take regular breaks because of the sapping heat. The 62-kilometre walk takes five or six days and, as we traverse the sandstone plateau, the environment becomes increasingly tropical. Dry buffalo wallows appear with increasing frequency, along with piles of fresh dung and wafts of pungent urine. It’s a wild landscape, a place where humans seem like the most temporary of visitors, and I keep expecting to round a corner and find a giant beast with wide horns ready to chase us out. But the stillness is broken only by the chirp of cicadas (whose “nit, nit, nit” call gives the park its name) and the attention-demanding screech of a sulphur-crested cockatoo. Occasionally a grasshopper buzzes in front of me, roaring like a biplane as it takes off.
We walk past sharp clumps of sword grass that threaten to slice any exposed skin, beneath lush palms and across bone-dry riverbeds. This is the paradox of the Top End in the dry season – it’s an incredibly fertile landscape with no visible water.
It makes us appreciate the waterholes by each campsite even more. At Sandy Camp, a giant circular pool is ringed by tall paperbarks full of birdlife and grevillea whose flowers resemble long, curling eyelashes. Scraggly blue-winged kookaburras, unrecognisable as relatives of their southern cousins, give a stifled laugh and the iridescent wings of rainbow bee-eaters catch the sun. There are even enough fish to attract cormorants, although they disperse as we gleefully dive in.
“How’s the water?” Elly calls out as she strolls into camp with a grin. It’s perfect, I tell her. A cotton t-shirt might be a surprisingly good outfit on this Australian hike, but fortunately it’s not the only way to stay cool on the Jatbula.
Thirteen days, 160 kilometres and the ancient mountainous region of the Grampians National Park (Gariwerd in the Jardwadjali language) in northwest Victoria. If you're looking for a less vigorous trek, make a plan to tackle Stage One, a two-night, 36-kilometre loop from Halls Gap to Bugiga Hiker Camp and back via Borough Huts Campground. There’s also the option of organising a pick-up from that final site to make it an overnight trip, which is my grand plan.
The hike shows off two of the park’s popular peaks, the Pinnacle and Mount Rosea, each of which comes with a steep climb rewarded with stunning panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and farmland. It’s a real tease, giving you a sneak peek into what will undoubtedly be a special experience when the full trail opens.
I wake early at Plantation Campground, just outside Halls Gap. After fuelling up on coffee at local cafe Harvest, I start my solo trip from the head of the Wonderland Loop trail on a clear, hot summer day. The trail steers out from behind the Halls Gap Caravan Park and quickly enters a beautiful gum forest, before crossing a dry river and meandering beneath soaring sandstone rocks. A steady ascent leads to a series of pools called Venus Baths, which, in rainier seasons, would be filled with crisp, cool water. After a seriously long drought and an already blistering summer, it’s unsurprising that only two pools have water trickling into them. Regardless, I consider the shoulder-deep water enough to warrant a break to cool down.
An exposed rocky path leads up through the Grand Canyon. Ancient sandstone forms boulders and twisted chasms and I have fond flashbacks to visiting this area as a kid. The landscape dwarfed me back then, and it still does.
Families and groups visiting from the city join me on the trail to conquer the Pinnacle as a day hike. After a lunch break overlooking Halls Gap and Lake Bellfield, I quickly lose the crowds as I continue my trek toward Bugiga Hiker Camp, the first of many new camping grounds built to service the Grampians Peaks Trail. After a few hours walking in direct sunlight, the last section between Sundial Carpark and the camp is a welcome relief, shaded, as it is, by tall grass plants and banksias.
Bugiga Hiker Camp is a sustainability-focused stopover consisting of 12 round wooden platforms connected by a boardwalk. Each of the pre-booked platforms has enough space for a tent and faces out to the eucalypt forest or Mount William. There’s a central shelter built from rusted red iron, two pit
toilets and a water tank. Everything else has to be brought in and out by hikers, including between three and four litres of drinking water for each person. Fires are not permitted.
Here I while away the afternoon reading and watching small robins hunt for seeds until the sun slowly sets behind Mount William. Only two other people arrive for the night. The definition of solitude!
Day 2 | Bugiga Camp to Borough Huts Campground, 13.8km
The start of the second day’s hike moves through tall eucalypt forest before opening up to a rocky path that seems to head continuously upward. With a pack on it is definitely strenuous, but I pause frequently to look back across the valley. It’s here I start to appreciate the scale of this national park, which covers more than 1,600 hectares.
Gariwerd is a spiritual place for the Djab Wurrung and Jardwadjali people, as it is central to Dreaming stories and once provided an abundance of food, water and shelter. More than 90 per cent of Victoria’s rock art sites are here, in Gariwerd.
On reaching the vertical lookout at Gate of the East Wind, an expansive view of Lake Bellfield and the surrounding mountains is laid out before me. The path then twists and turns beneath and around boulders, requiring a fair amount of rock hopping and climbing along the ridgeline.
After about two-and-a-half hours following the trail towards the sky, I reach the peak of Mount Rosea, a rocky plateau with an elevation of 1,009 metres and 360-degree views over Mount William and the Serra Range. I bask in the sun drinking coffee and snacking, a few other people nearby doing the same.
After some rest, I embark on the descent, following a series of large rock steps into a banksia- and fern-lined forest. By this point, I’m fairly fatigued, but the path soon becomes an easy bushwalking track shaded by gums. It meanders until it reaches a clearing with a small river crossing and signs for Borough Huts Campground. It’s possible to stay here for the night and take the 14.2 kilometre trail around Lake Bellfield at the base of the Mount Williams Range, finishing at Halls Gap. For me, though, this hike is over. I’ve arranged the shuttle service and my car is waiting for me. Now, I’ll bide my time until December, when the entire trail is due to open.
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In the sticky shade of an oyster hatchery veranda, a pearl oyster is pulled from a holding tank. Rivulets of salty water cascade from the encrusted shell. Beyond the concrete terrace, orange sand dunes bake and mangrove roots spread like giant eagle claws, gripping the edge of an exposed mudflat. Distant water shimmers as the tide prepares to return.
Guide Terry Hunter places the oyster on a rustic wooden table and gently prises open its shell. He explains how tiny pieces of mussel shell and oyster tissue are inserted to stimulate the deposition of pearl shell and form a cultured pearl.
He shows us the meat, which he says he’ll be eating later, and probes around the oyster, finding the pearl sac. As the pearl emerges, I gasp. A large, lustrous orb rests in Terry’s rugged palm.
I’m at Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, on the Dampier Peninsula in Western Australia’s Kimberley, 220 kilometres north of Broome. Terry is the fourth generation of his family to live and work at Cygnet Bay. His great grandfather was a diver and skipper for founder Dean Brown. But his people go way back. Terry belongs to the local Bardi tribe and they’ve lived here for at least 40,000 years.
Terry’s oldest friend is James Brown, the current managing director of Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm and the third generation of his family to run it. James’ grandfather started pearling here in 1946, initially using his wooden pearl lugger to harvest the local pearl oysters, Pinctada maxima, for their mother-of-pearl shell.
Dean Brown scratched out a living in this harsh environment. “He was frowned upon by white people in Broome because he chose to work and live out with the Aboriginal people,” James says. “He paid them, he lived with them and they were his closest friends.”
Cultured pearls were first produced in the Kimberley at Kuri Bay by Japanese technicians, but Dean and his son Lyndon were keen to discover the secret to their success. Living in a paperbark hut at Cygnet Bay, Lyndon eventually produced the first South Sea pearls cultured by a non-Japanese technician. With Lyndon, three Bardi men, Aubrey Tigan, Tom Wiggan and Gordon Dixon, became the first Australian pearl seeders.
In the region’s original mother-of-pearl industry, the relationship between white pearlers and other races was far less amicable. The town of Broome owes its existence to demand for pearl shell that was used for buttons, cutlery handles and furniture inlay. In the 1860s it was mostly collected by Aboriginal ‘divers’, many of whom used no breathing equipment or goggles.
It’s not a career they chose. Slavery was not officially legal in Australia, but traders known as blackbirders would abduct Indigenous people from their country at gunpoint and march them, often in neck chains, for sale in Broome. It is said the women had astonishing lung capacity, diving to 13 metres to collect shells.
Terry has his own confronting links to this deplorable human trade. His great, great grandfather was Harry Hunter, a known murderer and notorious blackbirder who traded Aboriginal slaves. “It’s a dark part of our history, but a part that needs to be told today,” Terry says. “Being part of that Hunter family, it’s really important to share that message.”
In the 1880s, diving with helmets and suits became the norm. Workers and divers were brought from Japan, Malaya, China, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Roti, Timor and the Moluccas. Most workers were indentured labour, forced to pay back debts, including the costs of their transport from Asia – many never succeeded. One in 10 divers would die from what is known these days as decompression sickness.
By 1914 Broome was supplying 80 per cent of the world’s pearl shell, with more than 3,500 people involved in the industry. World War II interrupted its progress, but the growing preference for plastic buttons had already seen demand dwindle.
Northwest Indigenous tribes have had a more enduring relationship with pearl shells. “It’s what makes the Bardi people connect to land, to the ocean,” Terry explains. Remnants of pearl shells from this part of Australia have been found in distant regions like western Queensland and coastal South Australia, traded from tribe to tribe for ochre, spearheads and boomerangs for at least 22,000 years.
In the Cygnet Bay showroom, I see tear-drop shaped shells, mother-of-pearl shimmering, amid carved Aboriginal motifs. These are riji, and black-and-white photos show men adorned with the shells, wearing their own stories.
Each riji story is handed down through a family’s generations. The tradition continues, and Bruce Wiggan is a master carver who still creates riji at Cygnet Bay. “Now the younger generation will shape the riji for him, then watch and listen to the stories as he’s carving it,” Terry explains.
Pearling traditions have continued in the town of Broome, too, but instead of ramshackle tin sheds, these days shiny jewellery stores with harvesting demonstrations and statues of Japanese pearling pioneers line Dampier Terrace.
Broome’s inequitable past has morphed into a multicultural present. Today, the town supports a thriving Chinatown district, and tourists beginning a Kimberley adventure dine in funky Asian-fusion restaurants. Visitors stroll the serene Japanese cemetery, the last resting place of the pearl divers. The Chinese and Muslim cemeteries remember others that died far from home.
The town celebrates its pearling heritage with the annual Shinju Matsuri festival. This year between 29 August and 6 September the event will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. After being opened by Sammy the dragon, it will include events like the long-table dinner on Cable Beach, a floating lantern ceremony and Indigenous art light projections.
Although affected by Covid-19, the pearling industry will bounce back. James explains this is not the first dilemma it has faced, citing the global financial crisis and climate change-induced oyster fatalities.
To survive, Cygnet Bay’s hatchery now breeds from from the strongest pearl oysters proven to endure the warming ocean. In 2009 Cygnet Bay diversified into tourism, offering a variety of accommodation, including stylish eco-tents, complete with en suites and glorious morning birdsong, overlooking the ocean.
The company also changed its model and moved away from wholesaling. “There are a lot of substitutions, and factories that are chemically altering low-grade pearl products,” James says. He wants people to understand the provenance of their pearls, so the business is now vertically integrated, encompassing pearl production, jewellery making and retailing.
After Terry’s harvesting tour, my learning continues at a hands-on pearl grading lesson with Tamika Michie, who tutors us on the five virtues of pearls: size, shape, colour, surface and lustre. Among the jewels we scrutinise is Terry’s freshly harvested orb. Tamika concludes it will retail for $1,120.
Aside from pearling tours, James wants his guests to understand the Kimberley marine environment that nurtures these masterpieces, and I find myself on an amphibious vehicle, trundling across expansive tidal mudflats.
We transfer to a speed boat, and Indigenous skipper Dennis ‘Balla’ Davey tells us traditional stories as we zoom beneath mighty eagles and past bobbing sea turtles. His legends are enhanced by science, as marine biologist Ben Leeson explains the extreme tidal forces here that buffet our boat and facilitate pearl oyster growth. “Every six hours, 66 billion litres of water fills or drains nearby King Sound, and Escape Channel is one of the main exit points for that water,” he explains.
At Waterfall Reef, the falling tide pours out of an ancient, living reef, creating a cascading wall of seawater. Before returning, we pull alongside the pearling team’s boat as they check on panels of seeded oysters suspended in the ocean.
Experiences like these may soon be even more popular – later this year the unreliable Cape Leveque Road will finally be sealed, providing an easier link to Broome.
The road will also deliver more tourists to nearby Kooljaman, a remote wilderness camp owned and run by the Bardi Jawi community. When I ask James if increased tourism will damage Indigenous culture, he explains that tourism has actually helped preserve it: “You’ve got people who have created really amazing businesses from tourism, and it’s all based around their cultural integrity.”
With the support of his friends, Terry has also started his own business, Borrgoron Coast to Creek Tours, operating from the pearl farm. James hopes to assist other Indigenous tourism and aquaculture businesses. He says the Dampier Peninsula could be a case study of how to make significant differences to the lives of First Nations people by working together. “The only thing that works is empowering people,” he says.
Cygnet Bay may one day employ a fifth generation of the Hunter family. “My third oldest boy is interested in pearling and cultural tours,” Terry says. “Problem is, a lot of Indigenous kids are very shy.” It’s astounding, but this problem apparently plagued Terry himself. He assures me he got over it with the right support. “I’m not so shy any more,” he says and laughs. With partnerships like these, the multicultural future of pearling is almost assured.
The name really says it all. This little slice of heaven is located on a 26-hectare private plantation on the Fijian island of Vanua Levu, and is accessible only by boat (and that’s after both plane and car transfers). It’s a long journey with a huge payoff though, as guests arrive in what can only be described as a true tropical paradise. A traditional kava ceremony and refreshing drink kick off the glorious welcome party, followed by an in-room foot massage.
The secluded villas, of which there are just eight, are luxurious and modern in a way many Fijian resorts aren’t. And let’s not forget each one has a plunge pool, outdoor bathroom, enormous daybed and breathtaking ocean views. If you manage to tear yourself away from these lavish confines, there’s more than enough to keep you busy. Kayaks, SUPs and snorkel gear are available to use, plus there are weekly cooking demonstrations, village visits and farm tours. Scuba diving at nearby Rainbow Reef can be arranged, as can swimming with manta rays, spa treatments, special dining experiences and castaway days at a secret beach.
Get around this new spot on Brunswick Street brought to Melburnians by Shayne Dixon – he’s a co-owner of Beermash over on Smith Street – and brewer Adam Betts.
They opened this dark and moody spot just before the pando hit, which is not great, especially when the concept is this solid. There are 27 beer taps, but only a dozen are pouring froffs (interesting crafts brews from around the world in case you were wondering).
On the others you’ll find beer-focused cocktails, natural wines and cold-brewed coffee. When we went to press, Ides chef Peter Gunn was rustling up the food – pickled oysters, fried chicken wings, wagyu pies – but the kitchen will be taken over by someone new every three months.
Live out all your Castaway fantasies – minus the whole plane crash/being lost for four years/only friend is a volleyball sitch – in luxurious bliss on Haggerstone Island.
This tiny private island, off the coast of furthest Far North Queensland (it’s so far north it’s closer to Port Moresby than it is to Cairns), has just five beachfront villas, all with a luxe-rustic, Africa-meets-PNG style more often associated with chic safari camps. They’ve been created by owners Roy and Anna Turner, who arrived here in 1985 and built the entire resort by hand.
Daily excursions in the 45-foot speedboat take guests to reefs where they can snorkel or try to catch their own dinner, either with a line or speargun. For something really special, call in the big guns for a helicopter ride to waterfalls, deserted cays or rivers filled with fish. The delicious meals consist of what comes from the ocean or is grown in the island’s plentiful orchard. This really is the epitome of desert island living.
Of the 172 islands that make up Tonga, only 36 are inhabited. The rest are pristine landmasses of varying sizes that remain virtually untouched by the outside world.
While exploring them all in one go is a bit of a stretch, on a sailing trip with Sunsail you’ll come pretty close to feeling as though you’ve clocked the archipelago. With an impressive fleet of both yachts and catamarans, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a salty sea dog or landlubber whose idea of boating is a booze cruise on Sydney Harbour – there’s a vessel and itinerary to suit.
Our favourite skippered route is one that circumnavigates the northern Vava’u group, a collection of islands best known for its isolated lagoons, limestone cliffs, dazzling coral gardens and white-sand beaches.
A typical one-week jaunt generally consists of hopping from one deserted island to the next, checking out the best bars, dropping anchor when the urge to swim, dive or kite surf hits, and stopping by a local village to enjoy a traditional Tongan feast. If you’re lucky, you may even find yourself in the company of the humpback whales who migrate annually to frolic in Tonga’s warm waters.
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