Here we are peeps…onto the final countdown. A mere 15 days to go and Kitesurf Tonga will be leaving on a jet plane to immerse ourselves into our new adventure.
After an intense 8 months of planning, visiting, selecting, making mistakes and bleeding the bank account dry it is time for us to stop thinking, stop analysing, stop dreaming, stop panicking and get on with it! The part we have all been waiting for is finally here – putting all of this into play. Kitesurf Tonga here we come!
From here on in we will be based on the beautiful shores of Uoleva Island, Tonga. First we will make our base camp which will consist of a tent, a composting toilet, a 6m deep well for our water, a 5m inflatable boat for our transport and a work area built out of sticks and tin roof. From this we will begin to create what will be known as Fanifo Lofa, our home and your dream kitesurfing destination in the South Pacific.
hmmm some of the logistics involved….
- Our 4 containers are packed and on the way
- Next stop after their holiday around the South Pacific is downtown Nuku’alofa, Tongatapu
- Monday 14th April – Glen and 7 locals will completely empty the contents of the containers, and re-packet all of the timbers and goods (all 60 tonnes of it) and load it onto the local cargo boat MV Sitka
- Tuesday 15th April – Glen will travel with our belongings overnight for 14 hours to Lifuka, Ha’apai
- Wednesday 16th April – Wake up and take a massive deep breath…five trucks, up to 20 locals, 2 forklifts and we need to move every item down to our friends garden aka storage area
- Thursday 17th April – sleep
- Friday 18th April – we start by assembling our boat and then moving our start up camp down to Uoleva Island
From here on in we are on our own moving all of our building materials needed for the project bit by bit down to our new home…how long this process will take? we have no idea… The building team consist of the Duncan’s, Rach, and a couple of locals. By the start of May we hope to be on our way getting the foundations in for our new home. We are anticipating that building our house will take three months and after which we will move on to start creating the guest fales…we will update you regularly…
Getting to this stage has been challenging and we could not have done it without the help of some good friends. We would like to take this chance to thank the following people:
Ezi World Cargo for all your help!
A big heartfelt thanks goes out to Rachel Von Zalinski for all her hardwork, you have been a godsend and thank goodness you are coming with us 🙂 What would we do without you!
P J Demolition – Jay has been kind enough to donate recycled building materials for our project
John Broekhuysen – for your layout/design work
Scott Simon – sds design – for your architectural and engineering work
Talanoa and Finau Molisi – where do we start? you guys are amazing and have been instrumental in enabling us to achieve our dream.
NZ Boardstore (Brian and Dan) – for kitegear, contacts and encouragement 🙂 and the promise of future customers 😛
Ozone kites and Axis kiteboards for supporting us with world class kitegear!
The Food Vault cafe – for keeping us going with caffeine and amazing food 🙂
Linda at Designwire – thanks for all your help with our website gorgeous – muchly appreciated!
And finally to our closest friends for reminding us that we are indeed completely mad 🙂 Thank you for your support and we cannot wait to have you visit us in our new home, Fanifo Lofa. We will miss you from the bottom of our hearts! A few of you are coming out to give us a hand this year throughout the build which is such a blessing – cant wait to have you out to stay 🙂
Glen, Karen, Tiger (if we can find her), and Lily are almost up up and away….Goodbye New Zealand and HELLO Kitesurf Tonga – Fanifo Lofa.
