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Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles – This page is all about Moorea, Fench Polynesia on our around the world trip.

Stop 5 - French Polynesia

Moorea Island - French Polynesia
Round The World Trip Journal

Text By Jo & Photos By Mike

(4th – 12th June) French Polynesia - Mo’orea
Onto the next stage of our Polynesian adventure: we caught a small Twin Otter plane, that only seated about 20 passengers, from Tahiti to Mo’orea. A 10 minute flight in a small, loud, non-air-conditioned twin-prop plane – quite an experience! Our fears were soon forgotten though once we saw the views – Mike had worked out we should both sit on the left side of the plane and boy was he right. This was one of those moments when our jaws hit the deck in sheer awe. If you’ve ever seen the aerial shots of the islands with the white waves breaking on the reef, circling the bright turquoise lagoon enclosing the lush green mountainous island in the centre – well it is even more stunning in real life and literally took our breath away. Tahiti was stunning, but as we came into Mo’orea it was even more impressive if that’s possible. The shortest flight we’ve ever done but definitely the most scenic - a real highlight of our trip! We were still buzzing from the flight as the shuttle bus dropped us off at our hotel - The Club Bali Hai located at the bottom of Cooks Bay. And more was to come - we have never been so overwhelmed by the location of a hotel room. We had an overwater bungalow with unobstructed views right across the bay and of the green mountain peaks and gorges opposite. We even had a window in the floor of our lounge area to view the fish under our bungalow! Even at night we were able to enjoy watching the fish from our terrace as we had lights under the bungalow that attracted all sorts of sealife. We were so excited and never expected to experience such a location on our tight budget. We have to thank Jo’s godmother Sue and her husband Lou for putting us in touch with one of the owners here, Jay. He looked after us so well and made our stay even more special here. A very big thanks guys! Mo’orea is completely different in character to Tahiti. It is smaller and less populated and the roads are much quieter and more relaxing to drive round. Since there are fewer people there are also fewer houses and buildings so you get much better views of the coastline. Again there is only one road around the island. This is definitely our favourite island of the three we visited and we spent the most idyllic 8 nights here in total paradise. This is how paradise should be! We went to a Polynesian Dance Night at our hotel and met up with our American neighbours, Vince and Betty Bollier from California, and since we shared the same interests we subsequently spent a lot of time with them discovering the island and snorkeling. They were great company and after they kindly invited us over to share their surplus of fresh tuna, we spent some lovely evenings with them eating, drinking Maitai’s and chatting on the terrace while watching the fish below us and the Milky Way and Southern Cross above us. We’re really looking forward to meeting up with the two of them again when we get to California in late August. Polynesian dance is quite similar to the Maori dance we saw in New Zealand – lots of male flesh on show and lots of bottom wiggling by the women. The show here, however, was complemented by the backdrop. The dancers performed on the grass with the mountains and lush gardens as a background. Everyone joined in the dancing here – even Mike was up shaking his groove thang! For us, Mo’orea will always be associated with the best snorkeling of our whole trip so far. We spent part of every day on a different beach and snorkeled every day – Mike was usually in at least 3 times daily – he couldn’t get enough of it! It’s just so accessible here – right off the beach. We did a couple of boat trips out deeper too (see Motu Picnic Trip entry) but for Jo it was ideal because she had such clear visibility over white sand and was still within her depth – although she was well spooked with her first sighting of a stingray! Mike decided this wasn’t enough for him though, so we went off to visit the Lagoonarium – we had to take an outrigger canoe out to a motu (island) (see photo of Vince and Betty on the canoe) where they have an enclosed area containing loads of tropical fish, stingrays and (best of all for Mike) sharks. And you can go out into the water and snorkel amongst them all! Couldn’t believe it was safe but we went ahead very cautiously and, oh my god, but it was scary to start with. There were about a dozen black and white tip reef sharks of various sizes and a couple of other varieties too – how nerve racking is that when they swim towards you and then underneath you? We also had a close encounter with a moray eel poking his head out of a hole in the rock! Jo was on the edge of a panic attack the whole time but Mike loved it. He said that Jo’s eyes were like saucers after our first snorkel – she was so petrified but thrilled at the same time that she’d actually done it! They also had some turtles but we couldn’t swim with them because they bite. This was the first place we got to stroke stingrays – they are so soft and velvety and are really curious – especially if they think they might get fed! The next day we went snorkeling out in the lagoon near our hotel and Mike saw a fully grown wild black tip reef shark – he said it was just as surprised to see him as he was to see it when he came within 4 feet of it while swimming between 2 stacks of coral. It just turned and swam off fortunately but Mike thinks he might have swallowed his snorkel if it had swam towards him instead!

(The pic that looks like a bunch of sticks is actually the toilet at the Lagoonarium, excrement ran down a pipe and straight in to the sea, posh eh! Nemo is starring in one of the pics too, click on the coral pic and you'll see his funny face staring out of the anenome at the bottom)

Gap year travel journal from our round the world trip

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Moorea, French Polynesia - Round The World Trip Photos

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Highlights of our round the world trip: