Los Angeles to Moorea

We were seated quite early but the plane was inexplicably delayed for an hour before takeoff. Will had fallen asleep on me not long after we sat down and he became quite a dead weight. The plane took off and as soon as the seatbelt light went off I put him in the bassinet. He slept for two more hours before waking up. That was all we could get from him and the next five hours were a bit rough for everyone who were trying to sleep - including us. The Air NZ plane to LAX had a Winnie the Pooh game that Will absolutely loved but unfortunately the Air Tahiti Nui plane didn’t have that game which Will requested quite regularly. Needless to say we didn’t get a lot of sleep and we were relieved to finally arrive at Tahiti.


It was 5:30 in the morning when we got off the plane and Tahiti was quite warm even before the sun had risen. We figured out the conversion rate and extracted 20,000 XPF (around NZ$300) from the ATM. Before we left Scotland we had organised our luggage so we would only need one bag in Tahiti and we were happy to find a secure luggage storage facility just outside the airport where we put the rest of our bags.

The local equivalent of a bus pulled up to take us into town: Le Truck – pretty much a giant truck with seats in the back. We drove into Papaete and I was surprised to see the amount rush hour congestion. I thought that we would be able to walk around the island but Tahiti is a lot bigger than I expected. We hopped off outside the ferry terminal and took a quick look around the market before buying tickets to Moorea. We had a good hour to wait before the ferry so we popped into a café for a coffee and some pain au raisin.



The ferry trip to Moorea was smooth and the views were amazing. The water was a brilliant blue and you could see the fish swimming around in the shallow water. After half an hour we pulled into the terminal on Moorea and caught a bus around the island to our accommodation. It was a bumpy ride but it afforded amazing views of the water. Moorea is a much smaller island than Tahiti with a 62 km road right around the island. We arrived at Pension Motu Iti and sorted out our room. The Pension was located right on the waterfront with a sheltered wharf and a small beach and is also a fully functioning Pizzeria! This is very close to my idea of heaven…



The water was calm and clear so we jumped off the end of the wharf for a quick swim in the refreshingly lukewarm water. Will got a mouth full of water and after sampling it he declared “Tasty!” We had a cool shower and we all went down for a sleep. I woke up after an hour or two and left the family to sleep while I caught up on my log outside. A tropical downpour hit and I was impressed with the force of the rain as well as the clear blue skies accompanying it.



After a couple more hours I woke up Lou and Will so their sleeping patterns weren’t messed up and we went for a walk down the road. It was HOT so we headed back and chilled out before dinner. We had a pepperoni pizza and chippies and they were really good. The restaurant was sitting on the water’s edge and as the sun was setting the views of the horizon were beautiful. We crashed into bed early and everyone was asleep by 8:00.