Travelogue June 10 to August 3, 2026

We walked around the hotel complex and did some window shopping before hopping onto our tour bus at 11:00 a.m., meeting our tour guide Male or Mary at a complex called Ancient Tonga with its museum, hibiscus-flower-plant and inner-mulberry-tree-bark weaving demonstrations, kava tasting, plant-remedy explanation, including lemon grass and turmeric, and a below-the-ground umu oven that cooked our lunch of fish, chicken, breadfruit, cassava and taro, while we watched dancing by two girls and two men, one of whom let me take photos of his tattoos. So, what is kava, you ask. It is a ceremonial and recreational beverage made from the root of the Piper methysticun plant and promotes relaxation without impairing cognitive function. It is traditionally served by young women from a large bowl called a kumete into coconut shells.

  

  

We then left to go to a market for souvenirs (where I bought a Tongan fridge magnet) and back to our hotel, which had limited parking space and thus needed the sign you will find in a photo below that said, “Unless you are driving a Ferrari, can you kindly park across the road.” Another sign by the door said “Guests, please accept our apologies as we ask for your understanding. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of labour in Tonga and the Pacific region. As a result, we reluctantly cannot serve the public. Our restaurants and bars are only open to our in-house guests.”

  

  

As we had to replace some of the supplies that had not arrived with us in our absent luggage, four of us walked to the local Chinese store to replenish toiletries. I then returned to our hotel room to work on my photos and at 6:45, we were taken via taxis to dinner at a restaurant that reminded me of New Orleans and entertained us with CDs of Celine Dion. After our return to the hotel, also via taxi, I worked once again on my travelogue, our luggage still not having arrived despite our having been promised it would.

  

  

Friday, June 19, 2026: Tongatapu Island, Tonga

Tongatapu is the main island of Tonga and contains two-thirds of Tonga's population. This morning, we said, Malo e lelei (hello) or Malo a'tau ma'u he pongipongi ni (good morning) and Fefe hake (how are you) to our 23-year-old tour guide Brianna and driver Saia, whom you will see in some of the photos below. Our first two visits around the main island included the Mapu 'o Vaea Blow Holes, which were not quite as impressive as the ones we had seen in Samoa but almost, and Captain James Cook's landing site at the village of Mu'a where he met the reigning Tu'i Tonga in 1777.

  

  

  

A panel on site explains that “the World-renowned Captain James Cook is recorded in written history and in the oral traditions of Tonga as having visited Tonga three times. First in 1773 when he stopped by 'Eua and Tongatapu where he was impressed when he was 'welcomed ashore by an immense crowd of men and women, none of whom had so much as [a] stick in their hands.' The second time, in 1774, he stopped by Nomuka in the Ha'apai group, where he was sought out by name, which indicated to him the presence of a lively and functioning channel of communication amongst the islands. The hospitality, the courtesy, and the non-warlike nature of the islanders in the Ha'apai group, particularly at Lifuka, had consequently earned the group the name of the Friendly Islands. These first visits were brief. His [third] visit [in 1777] lasted for several months, whilst he observed and recorded what became the best and most highly valued documentation of pre-Christian life in the Islands. This site commemorates Captain James Cook's landing place on his third visit in 1777, where he rested under the great banyan tree 'Malumalu 'o Fulilangi', a legendary homestead in the estate of the Tu'I Pelehake. That great banyan tree has now gone, but a young offshoot now stands protected to take the place of the original Malumalu 'o Fulilangi.”

  

  

  

The bird you see in the photos above appears to be a Polynesian triller (Lalage maculosa) and the spider I photographed was on a banana plant at the landing site. Next, we stopped at the ancient tombs of Paepae o Tele'a (or Tele'a's Mound), followed by the Ha'amonga 'a Maui Trilithon - Tonga's Stonehenge - with its massive coral limestone blocks assembled in 1200 AD by the eleventh Tongan King. Recent scientific interpretation suggests that this monument, consisting of two vertical stones about 5m high, 4.25m thick, and weighing between 30 and 40 tonnes, topped by a lintel stone 5.8m long, 1.4m wide, and 0.61m thick, functioned as an ancient sundial, tracking seasonal changes crucial for agricultural and ceremonial cycles. The nearby Maka Fa'akinanga (Leaning Rock), made from the same stone as the Ha'amonga, appears to resemble a human head, shoulders and back, and is where oral traditions claim kings once sat while maintaining safe distances from potential assassins. I skipped the visit to the Anahulu Caves and took time for some photography instead, hence these images of a friendly dog. As an added, non sequitur, cultural note, Brianna told us that in Tongan culture, it is the aunt who gets to choose the names of her nieces and nephew and not the parents.

  

  

  

We then went to “No 1 Restaurant & Resort 'Oholei Beach” for a buffet lunch and a single female dancer, after which we climbed down some stairs to the beach itself. En route to the city once again, we were pointed out some ironwood (casuarina) trees where Pacific Flying Foxes (Pteropus tonganus), considered the exclusive property of the Tongan King, and locally known as peka but are actually fruit bats, hang out. Then we passed by the royal tombs complex, containing the bodies of King George I, King George II, Queen Salote, and King Taufa'hau Tupou IV among 18 others, their graves marking nearly two centuries of Pacific royalty. Our final stop was at the royal palace, near this Pacific Reef Heron (Egretta sacra), when we said Malo (thank you) and 'Alu a (goodbye) to Brianna and Saia before visiting the local market again, where I found these two boys, who told me they were 11 years old, the one on the left stating he was Samoan while the one on the right, Fijian. I then visited the tourist office for maps before returning to our hotel room to work on my travelogue. We were still awaiting our bags from Fiji Airways before leaving tomorrow morning for Fiji again, but they finally arrived - after much cajoling and negotiation - at our hotel lobby at around 10:30 p.m. only because our tour leader decided to hire a driver and van to go and fetch them personally from the airport because frankly, he did not trust Fiji Airways' promise to deliver them on time.

  

  

Saturday, June 20, 2026: Tonga to Port Vila, Vanuatu (15.3767° S, 166.9592° E) via Fiji

It is now July 6, and I have not been able to update my travelogue since June 19, so forgive me if I have forgotten some elements. Our itinerary with early flights and more has been so unwieldy that the best I have been able to do is to keep up with the photo editing, unfortunately causing my writing to fall by the wayside.

I think it was today we had our worst flights timewise because having collected our refound luggage from the lobby at 11:00 p.m. we then had to be ready at 2:30 a.m. to grab breakfast boxes before being picked up at our hotel in Tonga for a 5 a.m. flight back to Nadi via Fiji Airways and then an 8-hour wait before flying onward to Vanuatu. There was some confusion about whether we were able to leave the airport and go and check in for the day at a hotel across the street, but since our bags had been tagged to Vanuatu, we were told we could not leave Nadi airport under any circumstances. Luckily for me, my room mate invited me to the Oneworld lounge as her guest, so we were able to take advantage of the complementary food and drink and some comfortable chairs to rest in. It was a long wait, however, and we did not arrive in Vila and its lovely Ramada Hotel until late in the day with only a short time to repack before meeting for dinner at the hotel inclusive of a local culture show.

Unsurprisingly, I was feeling exhausted and my brain was fried. I was seriously contemplating taking tomorrow off and skipping the visit to Tanna Island, but in retrospect am glad I decided to follow the original itinerary after all. Two of our group did decide to skip the next step and rest at this hotel for another night.

The Republic of Vanuatu is an island country in Melanesia (note that we have travelled from Polynesia to Melanesia) located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is 1,750 km (1,090 mi) east of northern Australia, 540 km (340 mi) northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji.

Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island, Espíritu Santo, in 1606. Queirós claimed the archipelago for Spain as part of the colonial Spanish East Indies and named it La Australia del Espíritu Santo.

In the 1880s, France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the archipelago, and in 1906, they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through an Anglo-French condominium.

In the 1970s, an independence movement arose and the Republic of Vanuatu was founded in 1980. Since its independence, the country has become a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, and the Pacific Islands Forum.

The national language of the Republic of Vanuatu is Bislama. The official languages are Bislama, English, and French. The principal languages of education are English and French. The use of English or French as the formal language is split along political lines.

Bislama is a creole spoken natively in urban areas. Combining a typical Melanesian grammar and phonology with an almost entirely English-derived vocabulary, Bislama is the lingua franca of the archipelago, used by the majority of the population as a second language. The growth of Bislama as a first language has considerably encroached on the indigenous languages, whose use receded from 73.1% to 63.2% of the population between 1999 and 2009.

In addition, 113 indigenous languages, all of which are Southern Oceanic languages except for three outlier Polynesian languages, are spoken in Vanuatu. The density of languages per capita is the highest of any nation in the world, with an average of only 2,000 speakers per language. All vernacular languages of Vanuatu (i.e. excluding Bislama) belong to the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.

I was in Port Vila, Vanuatu last on December 11, 2015, as part of a Princess cruise. I really enjoyed my day here as I managed to fit in two tours. You are welcome to read about them in another of my travelogues.

Sunday, June 21, 2026: Port Vila to Tanna Island, Vanuatu, the Isles of Smiles

Today meant yet another early departure at 5:00 a.m. and our breakfast was another boxed meal delivered last night after dinner and kept in the fridge overnight. Our local flight with Air Vanuatu left at 7:30 a.m. for an arrival at 8:10 a.m. Luckily, our resort (the Whitegrass Ocean Resort) was only a short drive from the airport and we had the morning to relax in our huts and explore the surroundings, including some new bird species, such as this endemic Vanuatu White-eye (Zosterops flavifrons), several butterflies, and ubiquitous Common Mynahs (Acridotheres tristis), an introduced, invasive pest species that originally arrived in the 1880s when a ship carrying caged birds to Fiji wrecked off Tanna's coast. I also caught this adult male Pacific bluetail skink (Emoia caeruleocauda) on camera. Our friendly Quebecoise hostess, Sophie, leant me a book on the birds of Papua New Guinea, which made me want to visit soon as there are several wonderfully decorated birds of paradise to look for there.

Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons, is an archipelagic country consisting of six major islands and over 1,000 smaller islands in Melanesia, Oceania, to the north-east of Australia. It is adjacent to Bougainville to the west, New Caledonia and Vanuatu to the south-east, Fiji, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna to the east, and the Federated States of Micronesia and Nauru to the north. It has a total area of 28,896 square kilometres (11,157 sq mi) and a population of 828,857 according to the official estimates from 2025. Its capital and largest city, Honiara, is located on the largest island, Guadalcanal. The country takes its name from the wider area of the Solomon Islands archipelago, which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (currently a part of Papua New Guinea), but excludes the Santa Cruz Islands.

The islands have been settled since at least some time between 30,000 and 28,800 BC, with later waves of migrants, notably the Lapita people, mixing and producing the modern indigenous Solomon Islanders population. In 1568, the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to visit them. Though not named by Mendaña, it is believed that the islands were called the Solomons by those who later received word of his voyage and mapped his discovery. Mendaña returned decades later, in 1595, and another Spanish expedition, led by Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, [mentioned above in relation to Vanuatu], visited the Solomons in 1606.

In June 1893, Captain Herbert Gibson of HMS Curacoa declared the southern Solomon Islands a British protectorate. During World War II, the Solomon Islands campaign (1942-1945) saw fierce fighting between the United States, British Imperial forces, and the Empire of Japan, including the Battle of Guadalcanal.

The official name of the then-British administration was changed from the British Solomon Islands Protectorate to The Solomon Islands in 1975, and self-government was achieved the following year. Independence was obtained, and the name changed to ... Solomon Islands (without the definite article) in 1978. At independence, Solomon Islands became a constitutional monarchy. The King of Solomon Islands is Charles III, who is represented in the country by a governor-general appointed on the advice of the prime minister.

While English is the official language, only 1-2% of the population are able to communicate fluently in English. However, an English creole, Solomons Pijin, is a de facto lingua franca of the country spoken by the majority of the population, along with local indigenous languages. Pijin is closely related to Tok Pisin spoken in Papua New Guinea.

The number of local languages listed for Solomon Islands is 74, of which 70 are living languages and four are extinct, according to Ethnologue, Languages of the World. Western Oceanic languages (predominantly of the Southeast Solomonic group) are spoken on the central islands. Polynesian languages are spoken on Rennell and Bellona to the south; Tikopia, Anuta, and Fatutaka to the far east; Sikaiana to the northeast; and Luaniua (Ontong Java Atoll) to the north. The immigrant population from Kiribati (the i-Kiribati) speak Gilbertese. Most of the indigenous languages are Austronesian languages. The Central Solomon languages such as Bilua, Lavukaleve, Savosavo, and Touo constitute an independent family within Papuan languages.

Thursday, June 25, 2026: Honiara, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, the Hapi (sic) Islands

Our Honiara City tour today, with our guide, Jeffrey, and driver, Jimmy, began at Solomon ports, where we were introduced to the various regions of Solomon Islands through their flags and wooden carved representative tribespeople as well as a monument dedicated to the Solomon Scouts, who aided US Marines during the Battle of Guadalcanal. The only birds I saw here were Eurasian Tree Sparrows (Passer montanus), not native to the islands but a common, established invasive species found in small groups throughout the central business district.

  

  

We next visited the Guadalcanal American Memorial, dedicated to the Americans and Allies who participated in the Guadalcanal Campaign from August 7, 1942, to February 9, 1943, which eventually led to the liberation of the Solomon Islands. Situated on a hill, it provided us with views across Iron Bottom Sound, named for numerous warships resting on the floor of this deep-water harbour, which had provided anchorage for naval operations that ultimately determined the Pacific War's outcome.

  

  

That was followed by a more interesting (to me) private tour of the National Parliament, where we were privileged to see wooden decorations and the assembly chamber as well as several photographs of current and past government leaders and decision-makers. We continued on to the National Museum, which told us that “Solomon Islands is a country made up of approximately 992 islands, including small islands, atolls and reefs, grouped into 9 regions or provinces spread across 1,600 km of ocean.” I read some of the panels in both English and Bislama, remembering especially one that describes how a particular tribe made Red Feather money, using feathers from the Red-Coloured Honey-Eater Bird (which I had photographed in Vanuatu, if you remember). So-called bird catchers cover a stick of bamboo with mulberry tree sap and attach a female honey-eater to it. They then lure the male birds by imitating the female bird sounds. The male birds, attracted by these sounds, become stuck to the glue. Their red feathers are then plucked off by the bird catcher and the birds are then allowed to fly away. Feeling rather sorry for these lovely birds, I asked why one would torture such lovely creatures. The only answer I got was that the feathers grow back! As there was a lot of well-documented information about various tribal practices to read, I could have spent more time here at this well curated museum. However, as time was limited, I hurried to another building to have a look at the National Art Gallery, which had some lovely pieces of art as you will see here. On our way back to our hotel, we made a stop at the artist colony I had attempted to visit last night, and here I took some photos of art and people but ended up buying only a fridge magnet (quelle surprise!).

  

  

After lunch, we were driven to Amazing Grace Cocoa Farm, owned by a widow called Grace, where we were taught how traditional agricultural knowledge had been adapted to contemporary markets. A cacao fruit was cut open for us to see its seeds, which were then removed and sorted by two young men. Yet another dozen coconuts were split open for us so we could drink the water, and yet another demonstration was given of how the flesh was scraped out and squeezed through a cloth to produce coconut milk, although this time the man had a more sophisticated machine made of wood to do the squeezing instead of his own hands. We were then shown drying cacao beans, which smelled delicious, prior to their being roasted and ground up by hand with a large pestle and mortar. We were then offered samples of the resulting chocolate, but we all found it quite bitter and hence unsellable in this state. We were offered other snacks, none of which I tried, but instead wandered down to the beach and photographed some flowers and people and then these two birds that suddenly flew into the property, a Solomon Islands Cockatoo (Cacatua ducorpsii), also known as Ducorp's Corella, Solomons Cockatoo, Ducorp's Cockatoo, or Broad-crested Corella, and a Willie Wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys). On our way back to the hotel, we stopped spontaneously at a roadside market where a church choir dressed in purple and white was singing and dancing. We negotiated and were able to video and photograph their performance as well as take a few shots of the market stalls and people. One young man seen here in the antepenultimate image for today has very stained teeth, most probably from chewing betel nut, which is a habit here.

  

  

This is what Wikipedia says about it: “Betel nut chewing, also called betel quid chewing or areca nut chewing, is a practice in which areca nuts (also called betel nuts) are chewed together with slaked lime and betel leaves for their stimulant and narcotic effects, the primary psychoactive compound being arecoline...It can sometimes include other substances for flavoring and to freshen the breath, like coconut, dates, sugar, menthol, saffron, cloves, aniseed, cardamom, and many others... The preparation is not swallowed but is spat out after chewing. Chewing results in permanent red stains on the teeth after prolonged use. The spit from chewing betel nuts, which also results in red stains, is often regarded as unhygienic and an eyesore in public facilities in certain countries. Betel nut chewing is addictive and causes adverse health effects, mainly oral and esophageal cancers, and cardiovascular disease.” Our dinner was back at the hotel by the pool, a lovely setting where I sipped on a Solbrew, the local beer.

  

  

  

Friday, June 26, 2026: Honiara, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands

At our tour leader's talk by the pool this morning, I was understandably distracted by dozens of Metallic or Shining Starlings (Aplonis metallica). Our first stop on our so-called scenic and historical tour, with Jeffrey and Jimmy again, was the Ikichi Memorial, yet another World War II monument but this time honoring Japanese Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki and his regiment, destroyed in the pivotal Battle of the Tenaru in August 1942. The memorial marks one of the large Japanese burial trenches and is situated on the grounds of the Tenaru School, which was frankly more interesting to me as a photographer, but unfortunately, all the students must have been inside their classrooms at their lessons because the only kids I saw were a couple of boys riding around on bicycles. There was a picturesque, painted chapel and some colourful flowers near the memorial, nevertheless.

  

  

  

The highlight of the day for me was our next stop, Hotomai Cultural Village featuring the Bira tribe of Guadalcanal. In typical cultural village fashion, perhaps, we were lured into the grounds by two small children in authentic tribal dress standing at the gate and then out of nowhere suddenly a whole host of small kids appeared shouting at us, yielding spears, and no doubt using threatening language, asking us our business. They were truly frightening but of course we knew it was all for show. We were then invited to sit down among the attractive children and watch as a young woman not in tribal dress explained some of the rituals, had a group of women and children dance for us, and then took us to various stations where women were weaving and cooking, a young man was creating fire from rubbing wood, boys were hoeing gardens where various fruit and root vegetables were growing, and women and children were demonstrating their local ways to carry things. Basically, it was a demonstration of the traditional customs and lifestyles that Solomon Islanders have maintained for centuries. After this we were taken uphill to meet the tribal chief, a middle-aged man who shook all of our hands but didn't say much, and to take a look into his hut, which was pretty sparse with the exception of a few woven mats. We were later told he was the grandfather of the blond girl I was so fascinated with photographically speaking. I asked her name in Bislama, and she said she was Sinta. We guessed her age to be about 6 or 7. The mother you see here with the baby is called Cristina. She is 17 and does not go to school. As we all were, you are probably wondering about the blond hair that many of the children in the village have and no it was not caused by interbreeding with American soldiers. I shall explain in the next paragraph, using information from AI.

  

  

  

“People of the Solomon Islands are one of the only indigenous populations in the world with dark skin and naturally blond hair. About 5 to 10% of the local population naturally express this striking trait... [It] is not a result of European contact or mixing. Genetic research shows it evolved entirely independently from European blond hair.... Researchers discovered that this blond hair is tied to a unique mutation in the TYRP1 gene. A single letter change in the DNA structure of the Melanesian people affects melanin production, creating blond hair while leaving their dark skin pigmentation unchanged. ...The trait is common among youth and tends to darken as the individual ages.” Our local tour guide Jeffrey was wearing a ball cap the entire time we saw him, but he told us that he too had had blond hair as a child although it was now more of a light brown colour.

  

  

  

We next visited Henderson Field and Memorial Garden located at the airport and one of the Pacific War's most strategically important airfields. A number of locals were sitting around on the grass, beneath the tall trees. At least there was a cool breeze and somewhere for us to sit too as others of our tour group wandered around and read the names on many of the crosses.

  

  

  

We then stopped at the Pagoda Tunnel, an underground shelter built and used by Japanese forces as a communication and flight operations command centre during the Battle of Guadalcanal. This too was the location of a bar and toilets, where I photographed this warning against the chewing of betel nut, and the sad-looking girl with the heart on her grey t-shirt. Due to a lack of electricity, we were told to come back later so we headed off to visit the Betikama Museum, an open-air war museum, located on the grounds of Betikama High School, containing yet another collection of rusting war memorial with the bigger bits lying outside on a grassy field and the smaller bits inside an abandoned, falling down building. My positive memory of it was of this smiling young girl carrying buckets.

  

  

  

For lunch, since our planned venue was closed due to the electricity being out, we were taken to a Chinese restaurant where the vegetable fried rice (twice as much as we needed) was surprisingly flavourful. I had the rest boxed up and gave it to these two handsome boys, who were hanging around outside the restaurant and seemed quite glad of it. We then returned to the Pagoda Tunnel, and although we had to climb down steps to get to it and then climb up another set of stairs afterwards, the tunnel itself was surprising short and empty so did not seem as though it would fit the purpose described above. My prize photograph here was of this spectacular-looking insect on the toilet door, a Euchromia creusa moth, known solely by its Latin name, apparently. We then headed off to Bloody Ridge, the site of one of Guadalcanal's most decisive battles on September 12-14, 1942, where I photographed this Javanese grasshopper (Valanga nigricornis) as well as an unidentified fly. Our final stop was at Mt Austin Japanese Memorial, dedicated to the 118,700 Japanese soldiers who died in the region, and where this Solomons flag was flying. On our way out, I photographed these boys playing an improvised game of soccer, a much healthier activity I thought than reading about participants of a war I had not personally lived through.

  

  

  

  

Saturday, June 27, 2026: West Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands

Once more with Jeffrey and Jimmy, “our exploration of western Guadalcanal today began at the Vouza Memorial, honouring Jacob Vouza, a Solomon Islands police sergeant who endured brutal torture rather than reveal Allied positions to Japanese interrogators. His extraordinary courage exemplifies how Pacific islanders contributed to Allied victory despite becoming unwilling participants in a global conflict.” Yes, you are right, I didn't write that last bit. It came straight off the tour company's itinerary. I actually stayed on the bus at that stop because I was taking care of some urgent emails, but as it was at a police station, and young recruits were out and about cleaning up garbage, the rest of our group got to chat with them and I missed a photographic opportunity. Oh well. I am sure there will be others today.

  

  

  

We continued westward buying some watermelon at a roadside stop that included an extremely photogenic baby, and a boy on the beach with a slingshot, before stopping at Piaru Beach, where we were encouraged to swim, snorkel or kayak. I chose none of the above and walked the beach in search of nature to photograph. I pursued these two butterflies, a Red-bodied Swallowtail (Pachliopta polydorus) and an Autumn leaf butterfly (Doleschallia bisaltide) and photographed some of the family that owned the property. A young man had come over to the table I eventually sat at carrying a wooden box of coconuts and offered to split one open for me with his large knife, but I refused, not knowing it was included in our beach visit cost (along with the snorkels and kayaks). I noticed his teeth were red so asked him if he chewed betel nut. He said yes and pulled a fresh green fruit of the areca palm from his pocket, cracked it open and extracted the seed, added some white powder from a small plastic bag I had seen on the table and had jokingly thought was cocaine and proceed to chew it. He then posed for me with a freshly cracked open coconut in one hand and a betel nut in the other.

  

  

  

Lunch was a bit further on at B17 Dive Bungalows where the French fries were cold and the fish bony, but I had a coconut there and it was delicious. Guess where we went to next? To the Vilu Outdoor Museum, which was...guess what!...yet another open-air collection of wartime artifacts. Oh joy. At least these artifacts were somewhat better cared for and were set among flowers. I managed to photograph this Black-bellied Cicadabird (Edolisoma montanum), as well as a rather colourful and large spider wasp and this Red grasshawk (Neurothemis fluctuans) aka Common parasol or Grasshawk dragonfly.

  

  

  

A couple of our stops on the way back to Honiara were more spontaneous as we had the extra time. We stopped at two bridges under which were streams or rivers where adult men were washing cars, adult women were washing clothes, and children were jumping in the water and swimming, actually asking us to photograph them, and saying thank you to us when we did. Between these two flows of water we visited Bonege Beach, the site of the Kinugawa Maru, a Japanese WWII wreck that now serves as an underwater memorial and artificial reef. We were privileged to be there during Saturday afternoon when locals were enjoying a day off, picnicking, playing, and jumping in the waves. What super opportunities to photograph locals enjoying life.

  

  

  

 

I will end this visit to Solomon Islands with an unexpected photo sent to me by one of my traveling companions. In it, I am offering to show Sinta the shot I took of her yesterday.

Sunday, June 28, 2026: Honiara, Solomon Islands to Manila, the Philippines (14.5933° N, 120.9746° E) via Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, the Land of the Unexpected