A plaque at the Mu'a waterfront marks the spot where Captain James Cook came ashore from HMS Endeavour and met the Tongan chiefs in the sheltered waters of the inner lagoon. Cook visited Tongatapu on multiple occasions during his Pacific voyages, and his accounts of the Tu'i Tonga rulers and their court at Mu'a provide the earliest detailed European descriptions of the ancient capital.
The landing site is undramatic — a quiet stretch of shoreline with coconut palms — but the plaque and the lagoon setting give it a certain weight. From here, looking across the inner bay toward the mussel flats, you get a sense of why the ancients chose this sheltered coast as their political centre.