There are a host of small islands in the Vava’u group. Many have steep limestone rims interspersed with beaches of finely ground coral. The shoreline is littered with plastic objects of all colours and sizes, with previous functions as diverse as protecting body parts, keeping food and drink contained, starting fires, tying things up, directing liquids or gases, and stabilizing structures. A fringe of coconut palms lines the beach, then you are immediately plunged into dense green jungle. Soft tracks lead to a village, a small cemetery, or through a village garden where vanilla vines, banana and coconut palms, citrus trees and root vegetables with huge leaves flourish. Along the track there are also creepers with brilliant red berries, and others with backward facing thorns, causing you to pause for an inspection or an extrication. In the coconut plantations, the ground is covered with nuts whose luscious interiors have been devoured via surgically precise holes by crabs. Nick masterfully decapitated green coconuts direct from the palm tops to provide us with milky drinks, and ingredients for a cake that lodged in our stomachs like Besser blocks.

Sows, piglets and boars roam at will, foraging on the exposed reefs at low tide and in the tiny local cemeteries. They look fat and healthy (see photo 040.jpg). They also look pretty good when their honey-brown, roasted bodies form the table centerpiece at feasts. Such was the fate of perhaps thirty or forty piglets at a celebration at the Neiafu cathedral. Before I was shooed away by an old woman, obviously affronted by my sticky-beaking, I saw that the trestles were creaking under the weight of the nose-to-tail pork, plus a huge variety of unidentifiable foodstuffs. No goat, however, in any recognizable form. We stuck with the knowable; that is, Bluey’s Yellowfin, fresh white bread (supplies ran out early in the day – same quaint convention as in my own village back home) and fruit and vegetables from the market. Although there was a limited range of fruit and salad vegetables, and those that were available were quite pricey, large piles of starchy-looking tubers and roots seemed to be the staple food. Here in the markets we observed locals tucking into a banana-leaf wrapped confection - thumb-sized lumps of greyish stuff drowned in a glaucous slime.