Better late than never

Here are some pictures that Duncan took of our trip to Tahiti - I have been complaining that I have very few pics with me in them.

Believe it or not, there were seat belts (too small for me)

Up on the rim of the cone looking down on Moorea

Not an atoll, but some coral reefs have formed

Me and David, the driver. This is the bit we back up. Look at the state of the road!!

The vanilla farm was under cover to reduce disease cover. This had just been picked and a few of the vanilla orchids were just staring to flower again.

Over the seas to Moorea

Wednesday was relocation day. Our shuttle to the 3 times daily catamaran that travels regularly between Tahiti and Moorea was at 11am. While waiting in the lobby there was an interesting sculpture, done by school children, of a whale with plastic bottles in its tummy. Not surprising as we have had plastic bottles of water pressed on to us on many occasions

When we got to Moorea we had a private transfer to the Intercontinental. The lovely (french) Morgane greeted us, and told us our room was not quite ready, so we headed to the poolside bar for a small snack and a drink.

Yes, Duncan really enjoyed the full strength beer, while I had a Panache

 Once we got to our bungalow, I had to ponder on the artwork for a while - but Duncan wasn't worried at all!

 The whole complex is lovely,and we get settled in, stock up the fridge, and book some tours. Our bungalow has a bedroom, bathroom, lounge, deck and small infinity pool. When I hop in it makes quite a wave over the edge!!

Next morning it is off  on our Adventure tour. We are picked up by an old jeep to explore the volcanic landscape.

I wailed -"my seat belt doesn't fit"- we were sitting in the canopied tray of  the jeep. "I will drive carefully" said our guide. But I was really worried about the state of the road - basically a concrete track. We went up and up and up. Finally we turned around and backed up and up. and More finally we got out and hoisted ourselves up a path with a rope to hold onto.

Backing up

 Now we were on top of the cone. Quite a bit of the walls of the cone have eroded, but in other parts there is still a large section of the volcanic wall.

The view out over the coral reef was magnificent.

Some of the eroded part

 Then we drove down into the cone where pineapple plantations had been established.

 The Polynesians could not see the benefit  of tending a plantation of pineapples so Chinese labourers were imported - now the Chinese are big in terms of commerce. After visiting the plantation we went to a pineapple distilling factory which sold a lot of cocktails in tetrapak form. We weren't tempted to get any.

 Some people (mainly half our age) had opted to explore on 4 wheel bikes

 Being a Volcano in the middle of the sea virtually all animals are introduced except for seabirds and marine mammals. The habitat is overrun by hens and roosters.

This is our mode of transport.

 Then we went to the remnants of a marae where manlihood was measured in terms of your archery prowess.

This is the remains of the marae area where the competitions were held. When Christians came they demanded that all the Marae areas be destroyed as the polynesians did have there own Gods.

 Next it was off to visit a vanilla plantation. I got some vanilla and pineapple concoction to put on our french bread at lunch times.

Vanilla Pods just before harvest and drying.

Being August the first - the day we met 49 years ago we went to the posh restaurant. It was appalling. My meat was not properly prepared so it had a tough skin around it. I couldn't cut it let alone eat it. We had wine by the glass - and Duncan's was corked. They offered us 10% off the bill, but it was our only bad experience in the trip.

Tours In Tahiti.

We were still a bit dazed next morning, but managed a hearty breakfast - since that was part of the hotel rate that we had already paid. Then we got the shuttle into Papeete which is the biggest town in French Polynesia, located on the Island of Tahiti.
Unfortunately Papeete has been built in a rather haphazard way, not realising that footpaths are usually horizontal, not with slopes, steps or ruts. We trundled our way around the town, and bought in supplies of wine, beer and food.

The Maire (Town Hall) was an attractive building

The Catholic Church had a nice Polynesian vibe.

 We walk down by the port and stopped to have a beer. (A shandy is called a panache), and then just as we had about 10mins until the shuttle picked us up, we spotted the Pearl Museum - what a shame we didn't manage to get to it.
The Hotel Intercontinental was a wonderful setting, this is the view from our balcony looking towards the restaurant and pool area.

 After a nap and a swim we sat out on our balcony and had the light meal we had bought from town and a few wines, with the sounds of the Tahitian Cultural show wafting over the lagoon

View from the balcony looking over the lagoon area.

After another lavish breakfast - we are realising that breakfast and dinner are the only two meals we need- we head out on a Round the Island Tour, which only takes half a day. Our driver, Jean Baptiste, is amusing as well as informative. We are amazed at all the Pacific links which we are familiar with

This is a lighthouse to guide ships through the reef at a spot designated by Captain Cook. During WW2 they painted it as a stand of Coconut Palms, and the Japanese - who were looking for a lighthouse were deceived.

Having been to Norfolk Island this is another link - Norfolk, Pitcairn and Tahiti - in the Mutiny of the Bounty saga with Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian etc

This fetching sculpture of a white whale was made using flattened cans.

 Back on the bus, and to our next stop, a huge waterfall. The Island is tall, being the remnants of a volcanic cone, and catches a lot of rain which cascades down the lush hillsides.

I'm pointing in case you miss the waterfall. LOL.

 The blowholes in the North were not "blowing" today as it was low tide and the swell was from the south, so we drove on around the pretty coastline until we came to the Botanical Gardens.

Duncan amongst the aerial roots of an Indian Rubber tree

 The colours of the flowers were truly outstanding.

We stopped at some caves too - all part of the volcanic landscape.

That evening we went to La Plage for dinner. The eating area was on the wooden floor, but the bar area was on sand. Very pleasant with the sound of the sea, on a warm tropical night. Food was great, and loved the French Cotes du Rhone wine.

Getting There

Getting to Tahiti was one of the more terrifying events of my life. Air NZ postponed our flight on Monday morning so we had no chance of making our connection. They cited possible fog, but really it was operational difficulties = pilots need a sleep in. This meant that we would miss out on two days in Tahiti.
So at 11.20pm we got in the car and drove. Unfortunately I was too doped up with cough medicine to help with the driving, but felt in terms of solidarity, I should stay awake also. About 11.45pm the radio started to play the sound track of a horror movie, with a woman wailing and a violin played col legno (with the wood of the bow) shrieking  like a banshee. Our first stop was in the middle of the Gorge - at Tauranga Bridge. It was so dark I thought I was blind, and so quiet I thought I was deaf, and losing these two senses was very disorientating and frightening.
We stopped in Matamata for a coffee and toilet break at 3am. The guy in the service station was very chatty! Can't have been a busy night.
The traffic jams started about 5.15am, but we got there safely and vowed never to do that again.
After a sleep and breakfast in the Koru Lounge we had a superb flight of 4 and 1/2 hours, and we were very glad we had got premium economy seats.

 Because we had golf clubs we had to get a private transfer, but soon settled in at the InterContinental. We went to the casual restaurant that night, but this is where Duncan reckons he got the best tuna meal

The wine met with our approval, but we were frantically doing the sums on cost - it was the first day, and we soon gave up doing this.

Mine was creamy goats cheese and a red berry pickle in little filo parcels which was also absolutely delicious.

 We soon learnt that the sun goes down between 5.15 and 5.30

From our balcony looking towards the primitive shapes of  Moorea Island.

What we learned about French Polynesia

French Polynesia is made up of 5  archipelagos (Society Islands, Tuamotus, Gambiers, Australas and Marquesas) sprawling the size of Europe and giving France a huge influence in the Pacific. Of the 108 Islands, Tahiti is the biggest. More correctly we should say we visited Tahiti and Moorea (the second biggest). Some of the Islands are tall and volcanic and others are small coral atolls.

Volcanic forms in Moorea

 The land area is about 1% of the area that France controls so you can see that it has a huge sphere of influence, and we saw Naval vessels, a military base and Airforce planes on Tahiti.

Our driver at the monument commemorating the observation of the transit of Venus which allowed Captain Cook to get some estimate of the distance to the sun. Jean Baptiste has obviously been in the "good paddock".

There are two schools of thought on French rule here. Jean Baptiste says that since Mururoa and the Nuclear Testing France has built hospitals, schools and infrastructure and provides US$1.6Billion a year to maintain these, as well as providing generous pensions. Jean Baptiste thinks they may as well take this money.
Our driver to the ferry had the opposite point of view, saying for all that money the french locals and the Chinese (bought to Tahiti  as plantation workers and then became businessmen) seemed to be getting richer while the Polynesians were still struggling. He suspected corruption. He favoured Independence.  They vote in the French presidential elections but now also have "Internal Autonomy" with local government and a local president as well.
French is the main language (and most of the tourists are French) - thank goodness for our schoolboy/girl french, but most tourist places have a smattering of English.
The local languages especially those from the Marquesas are very like Maori. Fare (whare), Fenua (whenua) and everywhere, Iorana (hello) like Orana in  Rarotonga, or we just used Kiaora.