Sunday 1st April

Touched down at Tahiti airport at 1 a.m. and took a taxi to our hotel, we were tucked up in bed by 2.30 a.m. Linda still woke up early (as she usually does) and we headed for breakfast, to our surprise the restaurant was overflowing as they hold a special "Tahitian" brunch on Sundays, the buffet included oysters (ugh), we just stuck to our usual cereal, fresh fruit and toast. After spending a week in Rarotonga with a consistent breeze blowing it felt strange to have almost no breeze at all, problem is it makes the heat stifling. We started off by exploring the hotel resort, it is spread over 34 acres. There is the usual lagoon which is in a protected area where the water is so clear that it was like looking into a big tank of tropical fish. There is also a choice of swimming pools, a quiet area with a swim up bar and sandy beach or a much larger pool (50m) with waterfalls and lots of kids, guess which one we chose. By mid afternoon we were ready for another sleep before we tackled the evening meal. The meal in the restaurant was absolutely superb but also a bit more expensive than we had paid anywhere else, so we feel that we have found paradise but could not afford to stay here permanently.

Monday 2nd April

After a good nights sleep we were at breakfast by 8.30, we decided to take the local bus , called "le truck" into Papeete which is the capital of Tahiti. The bus is a long wheelbase truck with a bolted on "wooden cage" with bench seats either side, it is air conditioned with open windows, quite an experience. The locals all speak a mixture of French, Tahitian with a little English, Linda's schoolgirl French was going to have to be tried out. Within 30 minutes of walking about town our clothes were quite damp, no wonder islanders have their own pace, the average temperature is 30 degrees and the humidity is high, generally raining every afternoon for about 10 mins. The cost of drinks and souvenirs in town were not much cheaper than in the hotel, everything seems quite expensive after the Cook Islands. By lunchtime we were ready to take the bus back to our resort and chill out by the water for the rest of the day.

Tuesday 3rd April

We have booked a circle Island tour for today and the minibus arrived to pick us up at 9.30 a.m., we then went to another hotel in Papeete where 6 more people joined us, this time though we were the minority as they were all French and spoke no English, the tour guide had to keep switching between French and English. The first stop was at a lookout point over Papeete and the island of Moorea, it was originally called "One Tree Hill" as at one time there was only 1 tree, but now is known as "Taharaa Lookout". We then stopped at Point Venus where there is a lighthouse designed by Robert Louis Stevenson's father. Travelling down the East Coast you see the Pacific Ocean crashing in with giant waves (surfers paradise) as there is no reef to protect this side of the island. Here we stopped at a blowhole, thinking we were going to see the usual water "blowing" through holes in the rocks we were surprised to be taken slightly inland. Every few minutes a huge gust of air blows through a crack in the rocks and very nearly blew us over. At this point the rain started, a few spots, and then an absolute downpour, we headed inland to "The Cascade of Waterfalls" and the driver gave us the option of staying on the minbus or taking a 5 minute walk to the falls, everybody chose to walk, we were all drenched through by the time we got back to the bus. We now had a 40 minute drive to our next stop and headed southwards. Tahiti is like a figure of 8 in shape, the top circle called Tahiti Nui and the bottom circle called Tahiti Iti, the tour only took in Tahiti Nui as there are not many roads on Tahiti Iti. Passing to the West coast the sun came out and we stopped at a local restaurant for lunch before going to the Paul Gauguin museum, we decided to have a short walk and gave the museum a miss as we are not very arty people. Our last stop of the day was at "The Marae de Arahurahu" which basically was an alter for the gods, the Tahitian gods are called "Tiki". The alter was made from volcanic stones that were very hot to touch and according to island history offerings (people) were sacrificed on the alter and then their heads were paraded on sticks. Every year the local "priest" performs a ceremony which gives people the power to walk on the hot stones without burning their feet. The majority of Tahitians are now Christians and one of the public holidays held on March 5th celebrates the missionaries arriving on the islands.

Wednesday 4th April

After all our exertions from the previous day we decided to just rest besides the pool, read a bit and watch the tropical fish being fed. In the evening we had a barbecue buffet followed by a Polynesian Dance Show. The show was very similar to what we had seen in the Cook Islands, but there was less drumming and more music that we would associate with Hawaii. At the end of the performance everybody was invited to go on stage and have their photographs taken with the warriors and dancers.

Thursday 5th April

Up early today as Ron was going diving, he had to be at the dive school (which just happened to be at our hotel) for 8.15 a.m. Luckily for Ron the dive master was fairly good at speaking English and they headed off to the ocean on the other side of the reef. Two boxes of fish carcases were dropped into the water to attract many fish, after a couple of minutes Ron dived into the feeding frenzy that was going on below. He saw many reef sharks - about 4-6 feet in length, a giant napoleon fish that was twice his size and thousands of other fish enjoying their free meal, he says it was very exhilarating. The second dive took place within the lagoon at a spot where an old wooden cargo ship and small plane had been sunk in 1969, it was his best dive for a very long time. On this dive he saw many turtles and different coloured fish, at the end of the dive they came up on a sandy ledge (only 2ft deep) which lay between the coastlines of Tahiti and Moorea. Meanwhile Linda got on with her chores, washing, drying, typing and catching up on emails. The hotel is filling up fast as we approach the Easter weekend, mainly with Americans from a cruise ship and lots of Pacific Islanders with loads of kids!!

Friday 6th April (Good Friday)

Lazed around the pool this morning teaching Ron a few phrases of French, he now knows - Bon Jour, Bon Soir and un bierre s'il vous plait. Later on we walked to the local supermarket (about 1.5 km each way - in this heat it felt more like 10km) where we bought some nibbles to eat in our room and a few "tinnies" for Ron. The evening entertainment today was another Polynesian Dance show, this time though they were a professional dance group and had won awards for their fire dancing skills.

Saturday 7th April

It was much windier today, the wind had finally caught up with us from Rarotonga. At midday we caught 'le truck' into Papeete as we had heard there was a cruise ship in town, sure enough the "Tahitian Princess" was in dock and seemed to dwarf its surroundings. At it was the Easter weekend most of the shops were closed and the market was just packing up for the day. We had a meal at one of the local cafes and headed back to our hotel.. By 4 p.m. the heavens had opened and the tropical rains came down for about 1 hour. The show tonight was called "The Bounty", celebrating the arrival of the Bounty into Tahiti, before Christian Fletcher started his mutiny. The restaurant was decked out with cannons, cannon balls and cargo netting, very impressive.

Sunday 8th April (Easter Sunday)

Lent was over so Linda could now eat cakes and pastries that she had given up for the last few weeks, at breakfast there was plenty of 'pain au chocolat' to eat. We were also each given a little chocolate easter egg, later on there was an easter egg hunt for the children. At 9 a.m. the Polynesian dancers were out again to demonstrate their skills at wiggling those slender hips, making many a woman feel guilty at eating too much for breakfast. It was still a bit windy but at least it cooled us down as the temperature hit the 30's. We have to be a the airport for 7 p.m. to catch our overnight flight to Los Angeles (which incidentally we should have caught yesterday but Air New Zealand changed the flight).

It's now farewell to the Pacific Islands, hopefully we will be back again and hello to the US of A.