Beautiful Moorea

Moorea is a small heart shaped island off the coast of Tahiti with turquoise lagoons and lush green mountains. Having arrived by plane from Bora Bora we spent the next 4 days in this tropical paradise. The picture above shows views from Moorea across one of the lagoons towards Tahiti in the distance.

We were staying a few minutes cycle ride from the gorgeous Temae Beach where we were able to snorkel from the beach in the crystal clear lagoon. There was a magnificent backdrop of deep green mountains behind. We locked up the bikes (kindly supplied by our AirBnB hosts) and walked along a footpath through palm trees to the end of the beach near to the Sofitel. 

Upping the pace we wanted to see more of Moorea and transferred from gentle local cycling and hired a scooter for 24 hours. We spent a whole day circumnavigating the 37 miles around the island and to Belvedere Point where we had amazing views of the north of Moorea…

Accommodation

We stayed in another AirBnB in Moorea, this time in a tiny log cabin in the garden of our hosts. It had a futon bed upstairs on a small mezzanine floor, a bathroom, fridge and basic cooking facilities. The lovely owners Julia and Teme had stocked the fridge with a large carton of pineapple juice, a couple of beers and cold water. They also supplied coffee, tea, shampoo, shower gel and washing up liquid. 

As mentioned we had the use of two bikes which was great as we could cycle around the local area and to the nearby lagoon for snorkelling.

Making ourselves at home:

On an extended trip we had practicalities to consider such as washing our clothes at least once a week. Here in Moorea we had an outside sink behind the cabin and used this for washing our clothes and doing our washing up.

We cooked some food in the cabin, having stopping off at a tiny little nearby store to buy some supplies. For dinner we cooked pasta with a tin of Bolognaise sauce, a tin of tuna and had grated cheese on the top. We had this with two tins of beer!

For breakfast we had fruit pasties which were also purchased from the store… Mine was a pasty with banana filling and Chris had pineapple in his 🙂 

On the second night we also had pasta, this time cooked with tomato and mushroom sauce, a large fresh pepper and some broccoli purchased from a larger grocery store as discovered on a 7 mile bike ride part way around the island. 

 

It was fun sleeping upstairs in the cabin under a mosquito net although the first couple of nights were noisy with the open windows. I watched gekos snapping at mozzies above our head, heard a loud buzzy insect come in (attracted to the light) and was woken up by screeching cockerels and barking dogs. But overall hearing the crashing waves of the sea more than made up for it. And I slept much better for the second two nights. 

On the night we had the moped we drove to the nearby Sofitel and enjoyed a traditional French Polynesian show. 

We had a real treat on the final night of our stay when we had the pleasure to be invited to our host Julia’s birthday party!