Margaret’s Travel Log 1: Tahiti

Arriving in Tahiti is a bit of a shock after leaving Sydney’s winter; it’s hot and very steamy and you soon wish for air conditioning. But that wasn’t to be. Tahiti is an extremely expensive place to visit so, to save funds for later in the trip, we opted for a cheap pensione for the night. It was clean and close to facilities but very basic, so it filled the bill – but only just.
Then there was the problem of finding somewhere to eat. It being 14 July and a French national holiday, choices were very limited and we were forced to the street markets. So, all told, Tahiti could have been a disaster for us. Fortunately it wasn’t.
We decided to spend our one day in the country visiting Moorea, an island between 30 and 45 minutes from Papeete’s port – depending on whether you took the regular or express ferry. It turned out to be an excellent choice.

Approaching Moorea in the ferry, the island presents a series of sharp peaks rising from the placid sea.

Close to shore, the volcanic structure of the island is evident.
Emerging from the ferry we encountered a taxi driver touting the Lagoonarium, a coral islet just inside the reef where we could snorkel amidst pristine coral gardens and also get up close and personal with a variety of fish (sharks and rays included) in a meshed enclosure.

Lagoonarium from shore
Lacking an underwater camera, I was unable to capture any pictures of the coral but the rays in the enclosure were so used to people it was easy to wade in and photograph them. The reef sharks were more reticent. The little islet proved a great place for photographing the Moorea shoreline and the abrupt volcanic peaks behind it. Polarising filters were essential on our lenses to recreate the intense colours of the scene – and also to subdue the reflections on the water.

Lagoonarium – inner enclosure

Ray basking on the sand in the Lagoonarium enclosure.

A breaking wave creates patterns on the rocky shoreline of the Lagoonarium, with the island’s peaks forming an attractive background. Taken with the 10-22mm wide-angle zoom lens.
We arranged for our taxi driver to collect us in the afternoon and take us on a tour around the island, where we visited several viewpoints that overlooked the reef and the sea. The scenes varied as we progressed, starting with the Papeete shoreline of Tahiti as a background and moving along the palm-fringed beaches to Cook Bay (where Captain Cook landed on his voyage to map the east coast of Australia), then up into the higher areas for views over the cloud-capped volcanic peaks and coastline.

Cook Bay
The return trip to Papeete provided some great views of sunset with Moorea in the foreground. The ferry was packed with holiday-makers, exhausted from the day’s activities. Family groups of islanders were singing traditional songs, while obvious tourists were comparing notes on the places they visited. In all, an excellent end to the day.

Moorea sunset, photographed from the ferry on the way back to Papeete.

Exhausted holiday-makers on the ferry.
But first we had to return to the pensione for our luggage, grab a bite to eat at the street market and take a taxi to the airport for our flight to Easter Island – which was scheduled to leave at 12.30 am. An obliging taxi driver looked after our bags while we ate then delivered us to the airport with three hours to kill before check-in. Another potential disaster averted – although the long wait in an airport with no air conditioning and few facilities was not the best place to spend the time we had to wait for our flight.
My next report will be from Easter Island, where we will spend just over two days.