Paradise, paradise, paradise!!!

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Ok, its official - this is the most beautiful place that I have ever been in my entire life.

Its stunning and amazing and a perfect postcard of everything that you picture a paradise island in the south pacific to be. But its much more then that, its much more then the forty degree temperatures, the volcanic mountains covered in lush green palm trees, the umteen tones of blue and green of the crystal clear water, the coral reefs that create a beautiful lagoon around the Island, the tropical fish, the french speaking chilled out locals(not to mention the french cooking), the lack of mainstream tourists with over sized cameras and tour buses. Moorea (which I'm told is not even the nicest Island) mixes all this with hundreds of other great bits - like the big ass sharks that you can dive with, being able to hitch hike to a new beach every day...... I could keep going, but you'll just get bored.

Anyways, we arrived on Papeete airport after the five hour flight aboard air tahiti from Auckland. Immediatly at the airport it was like stepping into the brochure, the landing strip was surrounded by palms with the customary flower clad greeting! We caught a cab (an old french banger like every other car on the Island) to the cheapest place I could find on the Island - Teemo, which I think was about $50 or some kind of stupid number of the double matress sized French Polynesian Francs per night! We ate down at the dock out of a crepes van, in the shadow of some massive yachts!!

The next day we wandered around the town and floundered brutally in trying to secure some ferry tickets to Moorea.

Anywho a few hours later we had crossed from one Island to the next and caught a bus around the sparsely populated Moorea to Chez Nelson camping ground on the west/sunset coast. As soon as we seen our room Dulce was delighted that we had shunned the intercontinental!! With a door, two beds and a set of flowery curtains this place was basic! But it was one millioneth of the price and came with amazing beaches etc.

Anyways we spent the next five days not doing very much other then, eating baguettes, sitting in the son, feeding tropical fish in a nursery made of coral, snorkeling around the lagoon to the outer reef, riding and hitch hiking around the island on our moped to different beaches and eating Filet Mignon at the the bus stop restaurant.

We decided that we would have to do something to ensure that this didn't just become a blurry memory of a postcard island, so we hitched to a really expensive and fantastic resort pearlresort and signed up to go Scuba diving with some of the local wildlife on the North side of the Island. I don't have any pics, but it was wicked - There water was so clear that at 26 metres down you could still see over 30 metres in every direction, which was really useful for seeing the blacktip and lemon sharks swirling around you. It was the greatest dive we've had with loads of amazing rose coral, green turtles, hawksbill turtles, sharks, all manner of fish!! I want to go back so badly!!

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Comments

[Governor]

Great photos
I believe you were in a place that you can take good photos and you did. They were great. Kent