Surf to Sand – French Polynesia to the Atacama – Day 2 can be found here.
Now that was a good sleep. We’d set the alarm for after 8 am, but woke shortly after 6 am – I suppose nine hours of sleep was enough.
I was up earlier than some, so I took a few minutes to admire the view and enjoy a coffee:
Eventually the others began to stir, and we set off for a very tasty continental breakfast:
The fresh-baked rolls were particularly good, as was the local pineapple.
Breakfast ran roughly US$15 for an adult and US$7.50 for a child. An ‘American breakfast’ add-on of eggs, home fries and potatoes was available for an extra US$10 and US$5 respectively. We were fine with the continental, so we kept it to that.
Check-out is at 10 am, so we packed up our bags and stacked them near reception. We were grateful that we wouldn’t have another flight until we reached Chile – a lovely change from our Antarctica to Zimbabwe trip, which involved no fewer than 13 flights. So no need to keep liquids out of our carry-on bags!
Our ferry to Moorea didn’t leave til just after noon, so we wandered down to Pā’ōfa’i Gardens. Here the kids found not one but two playgrounds:
While the adults enjoyed the view of the park:
And of the shoreline:
Moorea in the distance – so close and yet so far!
Rather than chance our luck with ferry food, we decided – in true hobbit fashion – to have Second Breakfast at Cafe Moana:
We were accompanied by some very persistent chickens and their chicks:
We started with a pitcher of add-your-own-sugar lemonade and a cappucino. Then the kids had the pancakes:
While the adults had slightly-burnt (but still tasty) Croques Monsier.
It was a lovely breakfast – until we were accosted by a mohawked ruffian hellbent on stealing the children’s pancakes:
With second breakfast under our belt, we returned to Fare Suisse to settle our bill – a mere CAD$500 (US$360) for two rooms and breakfast for four. Heck of a deal, particularly for a single night stopover.
We then boarded their complimentary shuttle, which took us (and our many, many bags) straight to the ferry terminal.
We’d bought tickets in advance, so the clerk directed us to ‘head to the corner’ where the controller would process our ticket. My wife checked our heavier bags, while I waited at the corner for perhaps ten minutes before I realized she might have meant the corner on the second floor.
This was indeed what she meant, so I collected the family, presented our tickets, and joined the line to board the Aremiti ferry.
Boarding opened 15 minutes in advance, and was complete well before the ferry was due to depart. We’d wondered if we’d need to reserve a particular sailing, but there was tons of room – apart from major holidays, I doubt it ever fills up.
Farewell, Papeete!
This was it. We were off on the final leg of our three days of marathon travel.
The ferry ride passed quickly enough – it’s a mere 30 minutes from one island to the next on the express ferry. We had a bit of roll as some of the swells hit us sideways, but not enough that any of us noticed – though I could see this being more of an issue in rougher weather.
They had a full restaurant on board, and it seemed to be very popular. We kept it to lemonade and Fanta, which hit the spot after a long wait in the warm, open-air ferry terminal.
Hello, Moorea!
It was soon time to disembark – a somewhat chaotic process, due largely to the limited real estate with which to unload the checked bags. They would unload a cage full of bags, shift twenty feet further down and unload the next. This was bordered on one side by the staircase to the ferry, and on the other by a narrow street packed with taxis. But we got there in the end.
Fortunately, our villa rental in Robinson’s Cove had dispatched a taxi to transport us from the ferry. Unfortunately, the taxi didn’t have nearly enough room for all of our bags. We thought they might end up splitting us up, but instead they just shifted us over to another much larger taxi. No added charge for that, either, though we did leave the driver a good tip.
It was perhaps a 30 minute drive from the ferry terminal to our spot in ‘Ōpūnohu Bay – which is the actual spot where Cook anchored, as opposed to the Cook’s Bay we passed along the way.
And then – finally – after three days and more than 10,000 km of travel – we reached Beach Villa Cook at Robinson’s Cove Villas:
It was even nicer than we’d hoped. And even closer to the water than its photos made it appear:
The property manager, Alix, then explained the quirks of this particular villas – which were not particularly onerous. Mostly, we need to lock up when we leave and be mindful of the solar hot water tank, which is by no means bottomless. But it’s hot enough already that we don’t expect it to be an issue.
We were also able to rent a car through the villa, a dimunitive little Honda Jazz (the Fit in North America) which is perfectly suited to these narrow, winding roads.
With all that sorted, I’d like to say that we immediately collapsed in piles of intense vacational bliss but we still needed groceries. So we drove off to the nearest grocery store – roughly 10 minutes away – to pick up a few odds and sundry.
Some US$350 later and we had everything we needed for several days worth of cooking – plus a nice bottle of Tahitian rum, and some fine French sauvignon blanc to boot. And even a local pineapple!
And then – then we were able to return back to the villa, have a quick swim (while watching out for stonefish!), cook up a nice meal of spaghetti bolognese, and once more collapse in our beds – grateful to be able to stay in a single location for five whole nights.
But tomorrow would soon be upon us – and with it, the first of three snorkeling excursions.
Continue reading Surf to Sand – French Polynesia to the Atacama – Moorea – Day 4.