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Published: September 5th 2008
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I woke up with a couple of bites today and Matt had one. I don’t think the net did much other than let mosquitos get trapped into a confined space with us.
We weren’t sure what to do today as it was still windy, so after a bowl of cornflakes (which blew off my spoon as I tried to eat them outside on our patio!) we headed to the shop to buy some more coffee as the coffee we had in a plastic bag had melted in the heat. We couldn’t resist buying a fresh baguette, butter, a chocolate bread and chocolate crepe too as it all looked too tasty!
Then we headed back to our room for the sanctuary of some cool air under the fan. We had some fresh baguette for lunch and debated about what to do to in the afternoon. We knew we wanted to see what other tours and trips were on offer as our resort only offered limited options, but the TIC was all the way in town. Reception said we could go to town and back for about £14 in a taxi but we thought this was expensive. We decided to walk
part of the way as the map showed a second information point about a 50 minute walk away and we thought that might be do-able in the heat. We decided that if we couldn’t get the leaflefts we wanted there we could either hire bikes the following day or go in a taxi.
We set off on the trek around 1pm in the peak sunshine. We walked past lots of nice places to eat, and lots of nice beaches. Before we knew it we were an hour into the walk and it was roasting hot. Too hot. I felt sick and wanted to be home, not in the middle of nowhere walking. We arrived at the information point on the map only to discover it was actually only a good point for taking a photo - there was just an information symbol and a camera symbol on a sign. There were no tourist info leaflets or anything we were hoping for. I was mortified. Matt pointed out it was the same distance to walk back as it was to carry on to town, and if we made it there we could get a taxi home. I didn’t feel good
as it was so hot but we decided to carry on. A bit further along Matt saw a can machine outside someone’s house and put our money it but it didn’t work. A rotweiller type dog came running out at us barking and terrified me. We started walking again and other dogs from across the road ran out at us so we had about four dogs chasing us. I thought one of them was going to bite us at any minute but luckily a car came by and beeped at them as they were in the middle of the road. This seemed to make them all go back home.
The walk felt endless and I felt terrible as it was just so hot. I kept expecting that more dogs were going to chase us as we were well off the beaten tourist track and there were sleeping dogs everywhere, but luckily it was too hot for most of them too and they barely looked up as we walked past.
Eventually we made it into town. It took over two hours in the end and when I saw the sign I was so relieved I could have cried. We
went straight to the TIC and to be honest there weren’t many more leaflets there than we’d already got so we were quite disappointed. We had a quick walk around the shops, which all seemed to just sell black pearls and then jumped in a taxi back. It was such a releif to be back and I went straight to the beach, stripped off down to my bikini and jumped into the water.
It was choppy as the reef edge here is really far away as it’s an older island (the reef was once the base of the volcano and they separated and moved apart - the further apart they are and the bigger the lagoon, the older the island) and it was deep, but even still it was warmer than most of the lagoons I’d jumped in over the past few weeks.
Then we headed in to relax for the evening before heading out for dinner to a place about ten minutes walk away called La Bounty. As we’d seen the menu the previous day when walking past, I knew we’d end up with the speciality which was where you cook the food yourself on your table. We went for a fillet steak oil fondue and a mixed seafood platter so that we could share them both. The restaurant was an intimate thatched place with open sides. We were brought a gas grill and pan of hot oil and given a platter of raw meat and fish with a cooking fork each. Although it was an effort to have to cook everything yourself (after not having done any for weeks!) it was great that everything could be cooked to your liking, and it was guaranteed to be piping hot! It took us ages to work our way through the fillet steak, shrimps, scallops, mahi mahi, tuna and blue marlin (which we suspected was actually salmon). We gave up using the pan of oil to cook the steak as it looked frighteningly hot and kept bubbling right up and spitting even on the lowest setting. We were terrified when the waiter came to take it away as the stove was heavy and if he'd spilled the oil on someone it wouldn't have been good.
I’m glad that we enjoyed the food as it cost us £50 including half a litre of wine without any desserts or starters.
One the way back we stopped off on the beach outside our bungalow to look at the stars. It was clear but there were patches of cloud this time which were in the way. We could still clearly see the milky way and some of the planets and stars we’d seen on Moorea. We still couldn’t see the moon anywhere!
We decided to have an easy day tomorrow as we know we are going to ache after all the walking!
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