Mo’orea

The second part of our Tahitian adventure begins! Once again up with the lark, to ensure we could catch the ferry across to Mo’orea, another island in the Windward Islands group of the Society Islands archipelago, one of five archipelagos that make up French Polynesia. We left the hotel to cross the road, as the ferry terminal is directly opposite the Kon Tiki hotel. We went upstairs to board, and were promptly sent back downstairs and told to deposit our luggage there. This we did, and received more information from the luggage guy than anyone at the hotel, travel company, or ticket gates had given us! In what was probably his third language, to boot.

We headed to the back, café area of the passenger cabin, and got some beverages before settling in for the 45 minute voyage. We dealt a few bridge hands to practice our bidding, and the journey was over in a flash. Once disembarked, we located our luggage and our bus driver, who held our suitcase back to be put on last. This means we would be first to disembark, I surmised…correctly, as it turns out. A short 5-minute drive and we were at Sofitel Mo’orea. This never happens to me! Invariably, when there’s a bus dropping people off at multiple stops, mine will be the last stop. We checked in, and were told that although our room wouldn’t be ready until 2pm, we could drop off our luggage and take advantage of the bar and restaurant. Somewhat unburdened, we wandered around the grounds to get our bearings, before heading back to the Pure restaurant for lunch. After lunch we waited until our room was ready, then got ourselves sorted and went out for another wander, this time equipped with camera, to photograph the local bird life. This seems to be a little more diverse than in central Pape’ete, with zebra doves, red-vented bulbuls, waxeyes, chestnut-breasted mannikins, and the occasional tern flying overhead.

We're not in a lagoon bungalow

We had a look inside the pearl shop but there was nothing there that took Nicola’s fancy, so we went back to the main reception and booked ourselves onto tours of the island, by land and by sea, for the next two days. That was about as much as we could do, so we headed for a dip in the pool before going to our welcome reception and cocktail at 5:30. Afterwards we stayed in the bar for another cocktail, then had dinner in the Pure restaurant - local fish grilled with salad, and a Thai prawn noodle which Nicola pronounced "not very Thai". There was the occasional peanut and some fish sauce, but that was it.