French Polynesia

More Moorea!

Waking up looking at the tall ceiling – the wooden structure with the cross patterns of straws, ahhh it wasn’t a dream, we really stayed in an overwater bungalow!

It was probably the tallest ceiling of all the hotel rooms we have stayed in! Walking out to the terrace, the blue sky and white clouds were still there! While hubby was getting ready, I took a morning walk with my camera:

Fresh air and beautiful view! I looked down and saw a school of yellow fishes, the water was that crystal clear!

I enjoyed my few minutes of having paradise all to myself!

I walked back to our overwater bungalow and hubby was ready to go! We went to the Arii Vahine Restaurant for our breakfast (free cold breakfast if you are a gold or diamond member and supplement for a hot breakfast). The restaurant is in a big hut with huge chandelier made of sea shells hanging down.

The selection of breakfast items were impressive as well! Local made fruit jams…

varieties of breads…

selections of tropical fruits…

muffins, croissants, breads…

cold cut of meats…

and fresh mango juice, pineapple juice, milk, etc

The hot items which need to pay extra…….omelette station:

cooked fish, fried eggs, potatoes and so on….and even Japanese breakfast items:

My breakfast with a cup of fresh mango juice!

We got a voice mail from Hiro about our 4×4 jeep safari last night so after breakfast, we walked to the concierge to call back him. There was a confusion about our reservation! I booked through Francky Franck website and somehow got the reply back via email from Hiro! Hiro said Francky Franck was full and he’s the agent who worked with few tour companies so he booked us with another tour. Well since we didn’t contact him the day before to reconfirm and it was already past the pick-up time, we’ll go with the afternoon tour booked by the hotel.

Walking to the concierge from the breakfast restaurant, we saw only one lily in bloom in the pond:

The tour meeting time at 1:30 so we have the whole morning to take pictures!

How about a little nap on the hammock with this kind of view?

Can’t never have enough of this!

The restaurant on the right where we had lunch yesterday with the amazing view of the overwater bungalows:

There was hardly anyone around, still early so best timing for photo of us two!!! We went back to our overwater bungalow and get our tripod!

I couldn’t help but stop for pictures of the overwater bungalows with blue sky and white clouds!

Here we go, tripod, remote control, action!

It looked like we had the whole hotel to ourselves haha! Actually, there were a few people passed by us and of course looked at us with the tripod hehe. We went back to our overwater bungalow for more photos!

Blue sky? Checked! White clouds? Checked! Turquoise water? Checked! Overwater bungalows? Checked! Mission accomplished! I had my share of postcard perfect pictures and if it rains now, I will not have any regrets!

Next mission: stand-up paddling!

We walked to the pool area and got the paddle, off I go, my first time trying stand-up paddling ahhh!

I sat on the board then slowly trying to stand up one foot at a time wohooo I did it!!!

The waves keep pushing the board to the shore lol, I had to paddle hard to get back onto the water!

I had so much fun!!! There were a couple who tried but kept falling. I passed by and they were amazed that it was my first time 😀 I managed to keep my hair dry hehe! Feeling so great that mission accomplished!

I said to hubby, now it’s your turn! He said, he’ll try next time 😛

We went back to our overwater bungalow so I can shower and then go out for lunch. I read that there’s a cafe within walking distance for less expensive lunch. We walked through the garden bungalows way to the lobby. On the way saw some flowers:

After exiting the hotel, turn right and continue walking for less than 10 minutes!

There’s no side walk so watch out for cars and coconuts LOL!

We arrived at Lilikoi Garden Cafe:

There is so many coconut trees there and hubby picked up a coconut:

Hum…pretty nice to have a full backyard of coconut trees and can have fresh coconuts whenever you want!

Bad news is the lady said they are closed, will reopen on Wednesday (today is Monday)!!! It must be their extended Christmas – New Year holiday closure!!! Double check before you head out days after New Year’s Day! We headed back to the hotel and it was hot hot hot! We stopped by the gym (which is across the street from the main lobby) for some cold water and to check it out for photos!

You can access with your room key, there’s only one guy there working out!

Cold-water!!! I had two cups!

Then we walked back to the hotel…..I decided to order a take out from the restaurant since the chicken wrap I had yesterday was huge enough for two!

Hotel entrance:

It might be weird to order take out from the restaurant instead of room service LOL but oh well! They even wrapped it nicely with ketchup and mustard!

We would love to have lunch outside our terrace but to avoid mosquito bite, we had our lunch inside our AC room looking down at the fishes from the coffee table! The Pacific Franc bills, they are colorful!

After we finished lunch, it was about time for our 4×4 safari tour, on the walk back to the lobby, we stopped for more photos! I tried to get as much as I can since we’ll be leaving tomorrow!

 

It was still blue sky and white clouds but when we got to the mountain……it was cloudy!!! Our driver/tour guide first stopped at a pineapple field! There were a total of 8 of us from Hilton.

Then our turn to have a photo with the pineapple:

We learned that the pineapple plants will re-grow each time but the pineapple will get smaller and smaller. Once it’s too small, they’ll need to dig out all the plants and then re-plant with new ones. It takes 3 years to grow!

It was so humid and I saw a mosquito that looked like striped legs the kind that carry the virus!  We immediately use the insect repellent wipes! We got back to the jeep and next stop at the school where they raised pigs. The view of the mountain there:

The tour guide helped to take photos of each of the couples, we set the camera in full auto mode before handing it to him 🙂 At least we are in focus this time haha!

More pineapple plants:

And it started to rain! Oh my…..the 4×4 jeep crossed streams, through muds, urg I really don’t know how people can rent a car and drive up the Magic Mountain, probably another road to go up? By the time we got to the lookout, it was pouring hard and can’t see the beautiful view 🙁

Another group from the ATV tour….not a good day for the tour:

The tour guide said the distillery is closed today (probably extended New Year holiday again?) and it’ll be too wet to go up the Belvedere and temple. We went to a juice place instead where we purchased some pineapple jams! Different kind of fruit jams for only 500 xpf (~$5) per jar!

Change back in 50 xpf coins, those were huge! I saved the coins back home as hubby likes to collect unique coins haha!

She also sell fruit juices and ice cream:

Our jeep and pouring rain:

I was wet!!! Since we didn’t get to go to the other two places, the tour guide offered to stop by the supermarket and all of us agreed!

The supermarket was decent in size and has selections of snacks, wines, and Hong Kong styled instant cup noodles! We bought three cups just in case and it was cheap too around 120 xpf each (that’s cheaper than home at $1.20 each)! Then we went back to the hotel…..the two hours trip…for almost $100 for both of us….I guess would be worth it if the weather is great but not so when it rains! Hubby said we were lucky that it rained in the afternoon today and not yesterday or this morning or else we would have not gotten the beautiful pictures of the overwater bungalows! I heard that it rained the whole week last week so we were actually quite lucky!

It was cloudy when we got back to the hotel and didn’t start the rain until we walked back to our overwater bungalow!

The view from our terrace when it was raining!

Couldn’t even see the mountain on the back!

The rain didn’t stop till at night! No complain from me as I had a lot of perfect weather photos and I know it’s the wet season! Dinner…we decided to have the cup noodle we bought from the supermarket just because we don’t want to walk out in the rain. I saw a shark swim by from the glass floor!! We watched drama while having our noodle, the internet inside the overwater bungalow is fast enough to stream videos (free internet if you are a gold/diamond member, love the free perks at Hilton)! Good night Moorea, time just passed too fast, I want more Moorea!

 

13 thoughts on “More Moorea!

    1. Thanks! My husband uses Canon 6D with a 16-35 f4 lens while I use Canon 5D Mark III with a 24-70 f2.8 lens. It’s just so beautiful that any decent camera can capture post-card perfect photos.

  1. Thanks for bringing us along (pictures are amazing and I can picture being there.) A couple of questions, What stabilizer does your husband use? I notice through the posts that he uses one and you don’t. Any particular reason? Thanks!

  2. need info. we travel to Bora Bora this coming Wednesday March 11th. I have looked for luggage weight for Air Tahiti and need to find out is the total 50 per person, say I have a camera backpack that weights 12lbs and my check in luggage weights 38lbs. Is that OK or how do they deal with the backpack camera weight? Thanks

      1. I will not be able to get my backpack (camera gear/computer) any less that 15lbs. My check in weights 38lbs. whats the options? Thanks

  3. If your camera backpack doesn’t look huge and heavy-duty then I don’t think it’s likely that they’ll weight it. The three Air Tahiti flights we took, we never see them weighting anyone’s carry-on so you might be okay!!!

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