After 5 sail days we finally arrived in Tahiti. Where the ship docks you are in short walking distance to the town. We had booked an Island Adventure Tour with Patrick. Everything here is so laid back that you remember that you’re back in the Pacific Islands... Although just flicking back through the photo’s we couldn’t believe the early morning traffic trying to get into town.
All I can say is, Patrick was fun... and I think we laughed ourselves silly the entire day.
So the 8 of us climb into the back of Patrick’s 4 wheel drive..... Hmm good, padded seats!! Off we go racing through town.... First stop is petrol.. second is to purchase lunch. Patrick is very good ... if we didn’t have francs he paid and said, “you remember and pay me later...”
We drove around the coast until we got to the road that takes us to the centre of Tahiti... hey that was smooth, this 4 wheel drive stuff is not too bad!! Hmm but I guess we are still on bitumen.
We stopped just as we turned off the coast road and this is where our education began...Patrick stops the car comes around to the back and the pop quiz starts... Patrick told us about the flora and the fauna of this island along with lots of questions that had to be answered before we moved on... Trying to guess what the right answers were was hard.... but lucky we had our brains trust Bev who would cotton onto the clues he gave us... I was really impressed when he placed a fern onto the leg of my shorts, thinking he just wanted to see how pretty it was.... then he slapped it.... “ouch that hurt” but it did leave a lovely print on my pants.... he was a little gentler when he smacked it on my forehead....
Because of the high rainfall in this area, as we worked our way into the mountains we saw some spectacular waterfalls. Tahiti has plenty of fresh water and we passed several Hydro electricity plants and the reservoirs that feed them. Tahiti generates about 40% of its own electricity.
The weather got worse as we headed up into the mountains....The waterfalls were in abundance and unfortunately the rain made for poor visibility. There were times where you looked out and you could see a lot of falls at once... The road was starting to get a little rougher now with pot holes you could bathe in, but it was when you started climbing and descending the steeper parts that things started getting bumpier.
The rain water was starting accumulating on the roof of the truck, and on certain bends or accelerations it would come pouring in the open sides... Combine that with 8 people being thrown around all over each other and we couldn’t help but kak ourselves laughing to the stage where it was not water running down our faces but tears...
Patrick thought we were jinxed as whenever it stopped raining and he stopped so we could jump out to take a photo the heavens would open up again and back into the truck we would scurry.... There was a lot of water on the road or should I say pot holes that as you can see from the photo’s that at one stage Patrick had to take desperate measures.
We stopped at a little spot where we had to trek through the bushes to come to a small rock pool at the bottom of a waterfall... Getting there was not for the feint hearted and Patrick made it look so easy..... I decided to go along to take the pictures but on that very last descent down those slippery rocks, the higher vantage point was good enough for me....
I watched with envy in the drizzles as the other 4 frolicked around in the water....
Because of the rain we didn’t spend a lot of time at each of the stops and we had a little time up our sleeves.... Patrick added another attraction... the blowhole.....
Being back on the coast we were sure that we would be safe from the rain...... nup..... sunny skies but the minute we hopped out of the truck down she came again.... taking refuge under a tree waiting waiting waiting for it to pass..... we even jumping back into the truck to trick the rain into stopping ...... At a light sprinkle we piled back out again.... Patrick sent the others up the road and told them to have the camera ready.... He then took me to the other side of the road, placed me in a spot , told me to take my sunny’s off and stand there.... Puzzled as to what caper he was up to again, my thoughts were answered when this big gust of wind came through a hole in the ground and nearly knocked me off my feet.... It seems as the water enters the hole on the other side of the road it blows all the air out of hole where I was standing....
We really had a fun day even with the inclement weather, which in some cases actually added to the laughs.... So yes I would recommend Patrick’s Adventure Tours for Papeete......
We did have about an hour and half to kill before we needed to be back on the ship... so we went for a little walk through the market and the shops.... Luckily we didn’t have any Francs as everything was so expensive.... We ran into our tour buddies at a bar and found that they had to mortgage the house to buy a round of drinks... so we decided if we were paying this much for the drinks we were taking the glasses with us!
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