Afternoon around the island...

Once we left the roadside beach, we continued our drive around the island and stopped at the Toatea Overlook. The view was gorgeous. We could see the island of Tahiti rising magnificently on the horizon and it just looked monstrous.

Directly below were the overwater bungalows of the Sofitel Moorea Beach Resort, as well the as the beautiful green-blue lagoon speckled with brown from the coral.

Watching the waves crash from above, Nate snapped a picture of me in all the windy glory. It was always windy!


From the Toatea Overlook, we traveled back down the hill and turned onto a windy dirt road surrounded by a coconut grove, which took us to the Temae Plague Publique, Moorea's finest stretch of public beach. The beach is an extention of the Sofitel Resort beach. One of the nice things about sticking to the resort beaches is that the staff rakes the coral and driftwood from the sand. So at this public beach, it took us a bit to find a "smooth" spot to lay down our towels.

It was nice seeing a few locals in their element, especially for Nate. A couple of topless ladies strolled by in the surf--back and forth a couple of times. There were also a couple of families out enjoying the beach. We only layed out about an hour. It was HOT and we (well, probably me mostly ) were getting hungry and needed to find some lunch.

I had noticed a restaurant called Maria Tapas in our guide book. We had already eaten so much French food at that point, we were looking for something different. What better than Tex-Mex! The restaurants there typically had an outdoor element and this one was no exception. It was entirely outside, with a teeny tiny kitchen and just a handful of tables.


We both ordered a beer, Our first experience with Tabu beer and it was the beer we ended up drinking the majority of the trip. It was similar to a Corona and tasted fabulous after time in the sun.. Ahh! The waiter was nice enough to snap a picture of us with our lunch. Can you tell I'm a little red?

The food was quite tasty and the fresh taste we were looking for. After lunch, we made stops at several gift shops like this one.

The shops sold a variety of merchandise. Every shop had pareos, which were cloth wraps in vibrant colors. The shops also had jewelry, knick knacks, other clothing, lotions and soaps, etc. It was fun tooling around and looking at souvenirs. We also picked up some groceries at the supermarket while we were out. Definitely the way to go to save some money.

We were able to circle the island and see some residences and Moorea's one golf course. One thing I was bummed about was that my travel book talked about a waterfall, but come to find out the waterfall had dried up about a year before, so no waterfall viewing for us. Oh well. When we got back to the resort, we were there just in time to catch the sunset...


and I got to finish the day off just as I would have hoped...curled up in a lounge chair with my book!


We took a shuttle to dinner that evening at Coco d'lle and had our first pizza on Moorea. The restaurant had some different ambiance with it's sand floors and casual atmosphere.



It was a nice ending to our day of exploration.