25 August 2010
Papeete
Sunday was spent in Papeete where we overnighted and left for Moorea (2 hr away) at 5:00am the next morning. French Polynesia is still one of my favourite spots in the world. This trip, we took a 4WD up into the caldera which is in the centre of Tahiti. What magnificent scenery...it had rained heavily in the morning and the rich, green rainforest was dripping with water and all the waterfalls were cascading down the sides of the caldera and into the river bed 1 400 m below its summit...breathtakingly beautiful and so fresh and clean and reinvigorating after 2 days in bed.
The island has a Department for diabetes and obesity. In an endeavour to educate children and turn the lifestyle behaviours around, every Sunday they have an outdoor activities fair. The streets on the water front are closed to traffic and opened to bikes and every sort of non- motorised vehicle you can imagine. In the city square, a public exercise program is conducted in a Harbour Festival type atmosphere. From 2:00pm to 5:00pm, there was a non-stop public exercise program being lead by locals...dancing, running, boxing, drumming, stretching... something for every age and ability...it was fascinating to watch...and little kids and families everywhere were bike riding, roller blading, skateboarding, jogging...if it had wheels, someone was riding or pushing it! The Police had a “bike Ed” type course set up and this was really popular with kids of all ages. This was followed by a concert band until 10:00pm... and all this took place just under our balcony!!! We had a ringside seat. Everything ceased at 10 and by 10:30 it was all packed up and the place deserted.
The gangways were down until 4:00am, so as we were retiring to bed around 10:30, the crew were streaming off the boat to begin their R&R. Needless to say there were quite a few visible headaches and tired crew members around the next day. They are contracted on for 10 months at a time and work long hours with broken shifts. Nights on shore are few and far between for them so you can’t blame them for having a good time when the opportunities arise.
Papeete
Sunday was spent in Papeete where we overnighted and left for Moorea (2 hr away) at 5:00am the next morning. French Polynesia is still one of my favourite spots in the world. This trip, we took a 4WD up into the caldera which is in the centre of Tahiti. What magnificent scenery...it had rained heavily in the morning and the rich, green rainforest was dripping with water and all the waterfalls were cascading down the sides of the caldera and into the river bed 1 400 m below its summit...breathtakingly beautiful and so fresh and clean and reinvigorating after 2 days in bed.
The island has a Department for diabetes and obesity. In an endeavour to educate children and turn the lifestyle behaviours around, every Sunday they have an outdoor activities fair. The streets on the water front are closed to traffic and opened to bikes and every sort of non- motorised vehicle you can imagine. In the city square, a public exercise program is conducted in a Harbour Festival type atmosphere. From 2:00pm to 5:00pm, there was a non-stop public exercise program being lead by locals...dancing, running, boxing, drumming, stretching... something for every age and ability...it was fascinating to watch...and little kids and families everywhere were bike riding, roller blading, skateboarding, jogging...if it had wheels, someone was riding or pushing it! The Police had a “bike Ed” type course set up and this was really popular with kids of all ages. This was followed by a concert band until 10:00pm... and all this took place just under our balcony!!! We had a ringside seat. Everything ceased at 10 and by 10:30 it was all packed up and the place deserted.
The gangways were down until 4:00am, so as we were retiring to bed around 10:30, the crew were streaming off the boat to begin their R&R. Needless to say there were quite a few visible headaches and tired crew members around the next day. They are contracted on for 10 months at a time and work long hours with broken shifts. Nights on shore are few and far between for them so you can’t blame them for having a good time when the opportunities arise.
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