At home at RIVERBEND on the beautiful Clyde: Villa Mamana on Telekivava'u Island

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Villa Mamana on Telekivava'u Island

Villa Mamana on tiny Telekivava'u Island in the Kingdom of Tonga is an amazing place. Created as a labour of love in the 90s by Joe and Lola Altenhein, it was sold to a couple of Americans who have so far had little success in running it as the exclusive hide-away they had hoped it to become. Not only are the logistics of operating it overwhelming but so are the difficulties of attracting wealthy tourists who are willing and able to pay the sort of rates which would make it economically viable.

One of the owners, Matt Muirhead (pictured above), emailed me:

"Malo Peter,
Do you know how we can contact Horst Berger? We are still trying to keep Villa Mamana alive.
We will be on Telekivava'u Island on Feb 1 and are working on the roof, painting and building trails that will transit the island. We will be installing new caretakers from Germany in a few months.
Our contract with our website service www.villamamana.com expired and they never contacted us as the new owners. We would love to get it back up and add updated pictures. Any help you could offer would be great. I know that the company who designed our site is in Australia as was the domain company.
I will update you on our progress and send you pictures after our trip.

Matt Muirhead"

It would be wonderful if Villa Mamana could be revived although its commercial success is far from assured.

Telekivava'u is the longish island at the top of the picture

Good luck, Matt! And I'd be glad to help; however, your old website has totally disappeared. I have searched various archives and found bits and pieces which may allow me to resurrect some, if not all, of the old pages and pictures. This sort of 'detective work' can take longer than building a new website and some of the necessary items, photos and style sheets, may be lost forever. The advantage is that you may get the fundamentals of your old website back together without having to go through the whole design process again. So far I have made a start on the Welcome page which I'm temporarily storing on my own server.

I look forward to hearing from you again and seeing those pictures!

In eigener Sache!

Ich wanderte im Jahre 1965 vom (k)alten Deutschland nach Australien aus. In Erinnerung an das alte Sprichwort "Gott hüte mich vor Sturm und Wind und Deutschen die im Ausland sind" wurde ich in 1971 im Dschungel von Neu-Guinea australischer Staatsbürger. Das kostete mich nur einen Umlaut und das zweite n im Nachnamen - von -mann auf -man.

Australien gab mir eine zweite Sprache und eine zweite Chance und es war auch der Anfang und das Ende: nach fünfzig Arbeiten in fünfzehn Ländern - "Die ganze Welt mein Arbeitsfeld" - lebe ich jetzt im Ruhestand in Australien an der schönen Südküste von Neusüdwales.

Ich verbringe meine Tage mit dem Lesen von Büchern, segle mein Boot den Fluss hinunter, beschäftige mich mit Holzarbeit, oder mache Pläne für eine neue Reise. Falls Du mir schreiben willst, sende mir eine Email an riverbendnelligen [AT] mail.com, und ich schreibe zurück.

Falls Du anrufen möchtest, meine Nummer ist XLIV LXXVIII X LXXXI.

Notice to North American readers:

This blog is written in the version of English that is standard here. So recognise is spelled recognise and not recognize etc. I recognise that some North American readers may find this upsetting, and while I sympathise with them, I sympathise even more with my countrymen who taught me how to spell. However, as an apology, here are a bunch of Zs for you to put where needed.

Zzzzzz

Disclaimer
This blog has no particular axe to grind, apart from that of having no particular axe to grind. It is written by a bloke who was born in Germany at the end of the war (that is, for younger readers, the Second World War, the one the Americans think they won single-handedly). He left for Australia when most Germans had not yet visited any foreign countries, except to invade them. He lived and worked all over the world, and even managed a couple of visits back to the (c)old country whose inhabitants he found very efficient, especially when it came to totting up what he had consumed from the hotels' minibars. In retirement, he lives (again) in Australia, but is yet to grow up anywhere.

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And finally, don't bother trying to read between the lines. There are no lines - only snapshots, most out of focus.