Tonga
Kolovai
Flying foxes drape the casuarina trees of one village, sacred and reserved for the Royal Family.
The trees along the road at Kolovai look wrong before you understand why: the branches hang with dark, folded shapes, and now and then one stretches a leathery wing. These are peka, Pacific flying foxes, roosting in the village casuarinas in open daylight.
Kolovai's flying foxes are sacred animals, reserved for Tonga's Royal Family, and their protection reaches the throne: King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV was named Seacology's indigenous conservationist of the year in 1996 for granting the colony royal protection. The roost hangs in casuarina trees beside the village road, so the encounter needs no gate, no hide and no boat. Guided half-day circuits pair the peka with the west coast's other set pieces: the Mapu'a 'a Vaea blowholes, Tsunami Rock, Abel Tasman's landing site and a three-headed coconut tree. Watch from the roadside and leave the roost undisturbed: these are royal animals inside a living tradition.
Solo
Stand under the roost long enough to pick out individual behaviour, grooming, squabbling, resettling, then carry on to the blowhole coast.
Couple
Fold the roost into a west-coast afternoon: bats overhead, Tsunami Rock, then the blowholes as the swell gets up.
Family
Children can watch wild bats in daylight from the roadside; keep voices low and let the colony rest.
Friends
Book the guided circuit and let the peka open a half-day that ends drenched in blowhole spray.
- Kolovai's peka, Pacific flying foxes, roost in the village's casuarina trees, a wildlife sight in open daylight.
- The bats are sacred and reserved for Tonga's Royal Family.
- King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV was honoured as Seacology's indigenous conservationist of the year for granting the Kolovai colony royal protection.
- A guided half-day west-coast circuit pairs Kolovai with the Mapu'a 'a Vaea blowholes, Tsunami Rock and Abel Tasman's landing site.
Kolovai keeps no visitor kitchen; restaurant meals wait in Nuku'alofa, where 12 Seafoods serves 'ota 'ika, the Tongan raw-fish classic.
Tongan feast food arrives on a pola, a plaited coconut-frond tray of suckling pig, crayfish, octopus and umu-steamed vegetables.
Assomada
Cape Verde
Papaya, maize and market din fill the highland town that feeds all Santiago.
Kondoa Rock Art Sites
Tanzania
Ten thousand years of ochre hunters layer the sandstone of a valley few visit.
Braga
Portugal
A Baroque stairway zigzags heavenward through fountains of the five senses.
Palenque
Mexico
A dynasty's whole memory stands carved in temples the forest still shades.
Neiafu
Tonga
The town that once hunted whales now sends swimmers, four at a time, to meet them.
Hunga Island
Tonga
One cliff-walled slot leads inside, where a king once sheltered his people from slave raiders.
Uoleva Island
Tonga
No village, no roads, no shops, and humpbacks calving in the warm shallows offshore.
Kao Island
Tonga
A lone volcanic cone rises 1,009 metres straight from the ocean, Tonga's highest point, entirely uninhabited.