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Hello mates!
So we ventured to the South Pacific and didn't really know what we were going to find! We flew out of a bustling LAX and landed in Faa airport, Tahiti, at 4am. We hung out in the airport until day break and walked up to the road to get "Le Truck". Le Truck is exactly as it sounds, a flatbed lorry with some old school benches nailed down at the back. We hopped on with the locals and were amazed to see the city of Papeete bustling at only 7:30am! We got on the catamaran to the neighbouring island Mo'orea, which was to be our home for the next 2 weeks. The scenery was beautiful and it was great to see the enormous waves break on the barrier reef as we took another truck round to Camping Chez Nelson. The nice old lady at the desk there showed us our room which was basic but cosy. We got unpacked and checked out the local shops.
To sum up our culinary experience at Camping Nelson there is only one item we can name - noodles. I'd never experienced the delight of 2 minute noodles and Craig happily introduced me to the flavours available for 90 CFP (65 pence). Shocked that i had never had Asda 8p noodles Craig set about my education. Positioned on the beach Camping Nelson was a very beautiful place to stay with a white sand beach and quiet coral lagoon. We met a really nice family from Tahiti within the first few days and Fabrice, an English teacher on Tahiti spoke brilliant Englsh and introduced us to his family. Back in the dining hall they saw our poor supply of food and gave us delicious Swordfish and rice, yogurts and even the local brew! Their generousity perked up what looked like a very bleak two weeks of french bread/pasta based/canned meals, and we were extremely grateful. Terrii and Annie, from Fabrice's family, and their daughters left later that week but invited us to join them when we ran out of food at their home at Toahotu - more on that story later.
We met a nice couple from Croydon funnily enough, Jo and Ben who had recently got engaged - congratulations again. They were in a similar position to us and so we hung out together during their stay. We went on adventures to Opunohu Bay (a two hour walk) just to get out of the camp and see more of the island. We also took a trip to The Intercontinental Hotel (the most expensive place on Moorea) and literally walked in. We saw their Dolphins from a promenade and visited the Sea Turtle rehab area. No, these turtles were not addicted but had all suffered some kind of disability which kept them within the grounds of the Hotel. A nice chap doing an internship at the resort introduced us to some turtles and the stingrays on site. We waded in to the man made bay surrounded by posh huts which all had a/c and were very cool to look at. The stingrays swam right up to us and we were able to stroke them which was awesome! We spent most of our days snorkelling, reading and swimming around the bay. I cut myself on some coral and Fabrice told me to rub lemon on the cuts to prevent coral growing out of the wound, i never knew it could even do that! I was patched up by Fabrice's wife and sent on my way.
On our final day Craig and i donned some snorkelling equipment and swam to the neighbouring island called Le Motu. On our way over we saw the most enormous stngray (about 2.5m long!) and it swam right by us! We circumnavigated the large island and came across a moon like landscape on the seeward side. We sat in the channel where Craig was nearly trampled by a visiting tour group departing a boat. Another stingray paid us a visit and allowed us to stroke him whilst begging for fish, incredible. It was great to turn the Camping Nelson locale into our own and gone on mini adventures to the islands.
On our last couple of days we went back to the mainland to visit Terrii, Annie, Anna and Clara Wolher who kindly picked us up from Taravao. The Wolher's were a cool bunch to hang out with and Annie was able to translate anything we didn't understand as well as feed us brilliant meals. The twins Anna and Clara got their mates Tehani and Anna 2 over to play cards and watch Indiana Jones with us which was also good fun. We saw a mixture of weather over the two weeks and rain was warm but sunshine was predominant. We even got taken down to the international surf spot at Teahupoo and bought a T-shirt by Annie! So we'd like to say merci beaucoup to Fabrice and his family and the Wolher's for having us for the last couple of days! Terrii even took us to the airport for our flight!
Now its on to New Zealand to see what we can see!
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