Travel day from Auckland to Papeete

27A ( not a typo ) February 2024

Instead of talking about what is going to be a standard ( and possibly boring ) transport day.

Today is the last day in New-Zealand and this first month just went slowly and fast all at the same time.

Slowly because we had long days – following the sun’s pace, and summer days are long – and fast, because I didn’t see the time flew by !

I will come back to New-Zealand, there are new hikes I want to do. This country keeps going back on my bucket list. I want to check out the Papaora Great walk, I loved the vegetation I saw around Punaikaki, I also saw so many great multiday walks in the Mt Aspiring park. Routeburn ( on the sunny days ) was awe inspiring, it really makes me want to do Milford Sound Great Walk to compare.

What I loved during this trip was the colours of the water. Each coast line, rivers, lake or torrent had it’s own nuance of turquoise of emerald green. The colors were particularly vivid on this trip.

I am also grateful for the time spent reconnecting with Stuart and Gayle. It’s always awesome so see friends again, and they gave a lot of advises for us to make our trip better.

On the practical stuff learned:

• For comfort, campervan all the way. The tent would be really comfortable, but we would need to change our mummy style sleeping bag, it’s too narrow for our sleeping style.
• Get a New World tourist fidelity card, we saved between 5 and 15 NZD per grocery run. That’s a lot of hot showers or laundry!
• Load up with sandflies repellent AND sting relief cream. Even with the precaution, you will get a nasty infested campsite at least once!
• Eat pies. They are delicious.
• Check the weather forecast.

In the end, I am almost 800 euro below initial budget ( and we weren’t restricting ourselves ) and we didn’t touch our contingency funds, even with all the stuff that broke during this trip. So that’s going to be extra funds to enjoy the rest of the journey.

27B February 2024

So we flew out of Auckland on 27th February, but we landed in Papeete on 26th February at night.

Therefore, I got to share two stories for 27 February! Arriving in Tahiti went quite well, we had booked a hotel just across the airport so we put our bags into a locker and walked the 8min to get there for the night. Our flight to Bora Bora is quite early tomorrow.

This morning we managed to find a Vini Simcard ( apparently the only phone operator that has 98% coverage across all the islands and that is MUCH cheaper than the tourist options ) at the coffee shop of the airport ! That was good, I had noted in my preparations that there was a real difference in cost if you took anything else but Vini.
Our flights to Bora Bora was in a small ATR plane and then we had to take a boat to reach the main island and the town of Vaitape. A quick 15min taxi ride and we arrive at our hotel where we treated ourselves with an overwater bungalow.

It’s nice, it’s chill and the water is insane. We are going to have a blast here.

This afternoon, we have to figure out what we do in our 3 days in Bora Bora. It’s the only island where we really don’t have anything figured out. 

In the end, we will rent a scooter tomorrow and go around the island, check a couple of beaches and there are some small walking path to see some nice views. 

The day after tomorrow, I have booked a full day boat excursion with lunch on a Motu ( outer sandbars ) and some snorkeling spots.

The last day, we don’t know yet. We will see how we feel.

I knew Tahiti was going to cost an arm and a leg, and unfortunately, I didn’t budget the food right. It’s going to cost us more than double – thank God, we didn’t spend all in New-Zealand. The little bit of extra is going to cover this oversight. Our first meal cost us almost 100 Euro and we had a main, a drink and a small dessert each. Quantities were not that big to justify the price – the other restaurant tonight was about the same unless you decide to eat burgers and pizzas… It would be a shame.

The food we tasted so far is excellent, and the fish so good ! I am going on a Seafood diet for 2 weeks !

We tasted to far the famous raw fish with coconut and lime, and I tried a mahi mahi with a vanilla sauce and sweet potatoe – it was succulent!

Before diner we walked along Matira beach and watched the sunset – what was impressive was to see at the horizon the waves hitting the reef and those turbulent waters crashing in a line of moving white. The weather didn’t seem to be that good far away. Yet in the lagoon, all was calm and quiet.