Mo'orea

Our mad dash around Tahiti in a day was fun but we were definitely ready for something a bit different. After taking the hire car back to the agency just down the road from where we were staying we waited for a bus. One appeared fairly quickly and took us straight into Papeete proper. We strolled on up to the ferry port and found the slightly slower car ferry was leaving shortly or we could wait a couple of hours for the fast cat type one. We decided to plump for the slow but steady variety.

The views looking back at Papeete and the whole of Tahiti as we cruised out of the port were lovely. It was a beautiful day for it and we had nice seats on the sun deck.






Here's me checking out what's going on inside that big posh yacht.


Moorea in the distance.


The crossing was pretty rough once we were out of the protective reef around Tahiti the hefty ferry was tossed around like it weighed nothing. Clairy clung on to her seat while I headed down the front a few times to see the huge swell crash over the front of the boat.


As we got closer to Moorea you could see the stunning geology as the green hills shoot up out of the ocean.


Approaching the Bay of Vaiare where the ferries dock.


It was great to see the outer reef up so close. We had to snap a few piccies...






...some of the waves crashing on it in the distance looked enormous.


After disembarking I had a quick rekky to try and locate the shuttle bus that is the only public transport on a another fairly large island, and was eventually told that it just meets the express ferries and we would therefore have to wait for the following one to arrive in just over an hour. Ah well. We chilled out and watched the slow pace of life going on around us.

Once on the rickety old American school bus we were soon dropped at our chosen location, Mark's Place Paradise (we soon learnt that this was a fairly good indication of his modesty). He was yet another middle aged American man who was extremely full of himself and his ability to make bungalows. "I make bungalows that people love to stay in...that's what I do". He did have a beautiful garden for us to stick our tent in however, and pretty decent facilities.


Clair loved these little yellow eyed birdies that were endlessly mischeavous and always running around in pairs.


Clairy also insisted we get some pictures of the huge and beautiful Cors Franc Pacifique (Pacific Franc), the currency in the Pacific French colonies. They are pretty stunning, but are so huge they don't actually fit in my wallet.






The 500 francs is a particular favourite




There was some fairly nice dorm accommodation that also included a decent kitchen that we could use. Here we met a nice chap from Dublin called Owen and a pair of well funny Californian/Hawaiian surfer brothers who we had a good laugh with.


Here's me cooking up something (almost certainly involving tomatoes and pasta or rice).


And here's my Clairy with what really made the place for her. A super cute and cuddly little ginger and white kitten.


Oh god yeah. Even though it wanted to eat pretty much everything it saw it was also a fairly content lap-cat.


The next day we hired a scooter and some snorkel gear and headed off round the island. It was a beautiful morning and although we looked a bit of a sight, with Clairy carrying both our day packs on her back and all the snorkel gear poking out of it we soon made it to Pineapple Bay.


It was beautifully clear and you could clearly see the dark patches of coral all around.


We spotted these little beauties called white banded trigger fish living in tiny holes in the sand. Their markings were really striking in the sunlight


The reef was very shallow in places and we had to be quite careful to not touch it.


Beautiful big shoals all around us.


It looked so lovely in the bright sunshine.


There were all kinds of different large coral growths we hadn't come across before.


This one was gurt mahoosive (gurt mahoosive me placed there for scale purposes).


I think this has to be my favourite piccy though. Its a huge clam living in the coral in the picture above. Its blue lips were just incredible up close and were constantly moving in and out.


More interesting corals.






Love the tiny turquoise fishes hiding around this purply beast.




An underwater garden.


Sand dollars.


There were lots of these big openings in the coral providing plenty of hiding space for little fishes.








Another piccy of the white banded trigger fish.


These guys were all around us as we went though the shallower waters.


And just as we were getting out, Clairy spotted this stingray minding its own business.


Oh hi!


We had the whole beach to ourselves as far as the eye could see.






After this we headed on round to the island to another more well known snorkelling point at Hauru Point. After a good half an hour trying to figure out just how to get past the hotels in the way to get to the beach we eventually succeeded by going through the one remaining campsite on the island. Unfortunately we found the water to be really shallow and the visibility wasn't nearly as good.

It was however, still teeming with coral and fish.






Nice big sea slug.




On the way out of this swim the currents picked up rather suddenly and we found ourselves in a rather shallow section (my fault!). Clairy touched a bit of this soft coral with her thigh and got a tingly rash a bit like a stinging nettle. Just what she needed to add to her already vast amount of insect bites.


It was a very beautiful beach, but it wasn't ours exclusively so we hopped back on the scooter and continued on our tour of the island.


We purchased a baguette and some cheese and tried to find a nice spot to eat our lunch. Being rather impatient (as I always am when lunch time is involved), we ended up on a rather grotty little muddy inlet. This did prove to be rather nice after a while though as we got to watch a whole array of crab battles going on around us after they got used to our presence.

After lunch we popped into Woody's Pearl and Sculpture shop where another wacky American was making fairly attractive sculptures of sea birds out of driftwood. He also made jewelery and had a pearl farm near by (I think this was the real reason Clairy insisted on us visiting the place). She didn't manage to find the enormous black pearl she was after here, sadly.

We next stopped in Opunohu Bay. Here I couldn't manage to persuade Clair to accompany me up to the Belvedere (lookout point), so headed up there on my own. She took a couple of pics of the beautiful Mount Rotui from her bench before I left with the camera.


It was very steep, and knowing the fear that is instilled in her as a result of me gently coasting downhill in her Micra, it was definitely a good idea for me to do it on my own. The view was stunning though. Here you can see both Opunohu Bay on the left (where Clairy was relaxing on her bench waiting for me) and Cook's Bay on the right, with the gurt Mount Rotui in the middle. I think it looks like such a fantasy landscape.


Cook's Bay.


Opunohu Bay.


Looking up from the belveder at the mountains behind me.


It started to rain very gently, so I headed back down.


One last look at the lookout.


On the way down I stopped at two points of historical interest. The first was this archery platform.


As per the piccy below, it was actually a leisure pursuit of the elite of the islands and does not seem to have played a part in the fighting that occasionally broke out between the various islanders.


Also some way further down was this Marae similart to the ones on Tahiti.




I particularly liked this piccy on the information nearby depicting the trussed up main course on the floor.


Clairy hadn't been abducted or anything by the time I got back to her and I hadn't crashed the scooter in my absence so we were both happy. We continued on our loop of the island. These pics are from Cook's bay, another very attractive little inlet on the island.






It was only here that I realised that we weren't even half way round the island, and it was staring to rain and would be dark fairly soon. Hmmm...cue pretend grumpy face.


A quality shot, this should be her facebook profile pic.


We tootled on and eventually came to this nice lookout on the main road.


Allowing envious types to glare at what they can't afford. The Moorea Sheraton fancy over water bungalow things that are similar to the uber-monied Bora Bora resort not far away that Tahiti is known for.


After this we had a mad dash to the supermarket to get some supplies and get home before it was proper dark. Sadly we totally didn't make it and had a good 40 minutes of zany barely-any-headlights pot-hole avoidance action. We did make it in one piece though.

The next day we were heading back to Tahiti. I don't think the pusskin really wanted us to be leaving though. She started off in Clairy's rucky...


Before moving over to mine.


Oh hi! Personally I thought this shot was way too graphic for the blog...but Clairy insisted. Lovely garden shower though, I just didn't realise there was a peeping tom about.


Some piccies from the track that Mark's Place was on. We thought it was quite a shame that he was aiming to get rid of the dorms and camping soon as he wanted to focus more on the upscale bungalows. It would mean there was only campsite on the island, and the accommodation if you're not camping is insanely priced. I guess he's just going where the money is mind...the git.

Here's a hefty chicken hutch.


Beautiful jagged hills stretching up behind us.


The dusty track.


A couple more of those naughty birdies.


And my personal favourite character of the island. Chocolate the dog. He was a total softy, and the most useless of begging dogs as he was obviously fed (probably too much) everyday, but would still whine pathetically for some of your food.


Having a chat.


Talking to the animals.


More of those damn birds!


Giant hibiscus flowers outside the main gate.


Clairy getting to grips with a Pomelo. OOooooh yeah.


Some final views as we headed down to catch the bus back to the ferry port.




It was a truly gorgeous place to stay. We were quite sad to leave.

The bus that came was mroe of a truck with a wooden carriage section built on the back. It seemed to have no suspension at all. It was even worse than the scooter of the previous day. That, however, didn't stop me from dozing off almost immediately after this picture was taken.


Clairy snapped some final pics of the island as we bumped along.


Lots of canoes about.












And soon enough we were on the ferry heading back to Tahiti.


This one was the express fast cat variety. It seemed a super smooth ride so I left Clair on deck and headed down to grab us a couple of coffees. Just as I bought them the lady said in English "Be careful...its really rough out there" and I realised we hadn't left the protection of the reef yet. Suddenly we did and the boat immediately started rolling almost on completely over on each side. Having already lost two thirds of the coffee just trying to get some sugar in them I abandoned them in the cafe's sink for fear of how Clair would be doing up on deck on her own.

Unfortunately, having noticed that the walkway to the sun deck seemed to go straight through the bridge of the vessel I hadn't thought that they probably wouldn't want you up there whilst the ferry was underway. Luckily, after some frantic gesticulation I indicated that Clair was outside and I needed to check she was ok and they let me through. The look of abject terror on her face as I pulled myself from seat to seat to get to her was extreme. I tried to persuade her to move a bit further back, and she managed to get back a couple of rows but just had to hang on there for the rest of the trip. It was supremely rough, the waves were way larger than the (pretty massive) ferry and it was banging and juddering hugely on each impact.

After about 10 minutes of hanging on tightly I heard a shout from behind me, and one of the hilariously unfazed staff had what remained of our coffees in his hands and was offering them to me. Somehow I managed to get across to him and grab them, but Clairy didn't really fancy hers at this point, so I drank them both myself.

Shortly after we arrived safe and sound but it was definitely the most extreme of our ferry crossings so far. We decided to chill out for a bit so that we could eat in one of the restaurants that would be open in a little while. In the end we plumped for a bit of very freshly made chinese from one of the food vans that had set up down by the sea front. The food was great and we were served by an extremly cheerful Tahitian chap who was a mahu. This is a fairly common thing apparently where one of a big family of boys is bought up as a girl, and is a totally accepted practice despite the best efforts of decades of missionaries.


Doesn't Clairy look lovely!


It was only after this meal that we realised we had missed the last bus home and a taxi to our guest house would cost 35 quid! In the end we thought we would try hitching (with massive backpacks - a first) from the city, and made a sign saying where we wanted to go and wrote the Tahititian for thankyou on the bottom of it.

We were getting a bit worried after about 20 minutes, even though most locals acknowledged us somehow saying they were heading different ways. Then a big people carrier pulled over and said they would take us all the way. It was three local girls, a teacher and a couple of students. They had passed us previously and took pity on us and went and got their car! They weren't even going anywhere near the 15 miles or so away that we needed to go, as they all lived in Papeete where we were hitching from, but just wanted to help us out. They were a real pleasure to chat to and were very interested in what we were doing. It was a really great inidication of the local generosity and hospitality and we really felt blessed.

The next morning we had a super early flight to New Caledonia. We both really enjoyed Tahiti. The people were lovely, but it did feel a little out of our price range.