Best. Honeymoon. Ever.: Moorea Scooter Tour

After two days of rest, our burns have turned into a nice first coat (soon to be the envy of all those that took the time to call us lobsters after the last post!). What does two days of rest entail you might ask, well for starters, we rented a scooter.

Helmets courtesy of George Lucas.

Amanda and I have a red Vespa LX50 that we use to its fullest during the summer months back in Montreal, so we didn't hesitate at the thought of touring the island by scooter. The 60 kilometer circle takes no more than 1.5 hours for those wanting to just lay down some miles, but since we had the bike for 24 hours we took the scenic route. First stop was Belvedere lookout where you can see the two Bays defining Moorea's silhouette.

Panoramic view from the Belvedere lookout. Cook's bay (right) and Opunohu bay (left).

To be honest the view itself wasn't spectacular. To be even more honest, I find going to lookouts to be such an odd human activity. Consider yourself an alien observer, people build roads up mountains, or these giant towers, and then travel in droves to spend 5 minutes at the top taking pictures?? Yes they are beautiful, and perhaps the added height gives you an otherwise unseen perspective on the land, but I still find it one of the stranger human pastimes. After the compulsory 5 minutes we head on back down the switchbacks, fearing for our lives in the event there was a tour bus wandering wide in the upcoming blinded curve in the road.

As with any of our trips we spent a lot of time researching what hotel to stay at. Moorea has quite a few resorts, and even a few budget accommodations (called pensions). We knew that we wanted to stay in an over-water bungalow (well at least I did), and after a few recommendations from travel agents, and reading like a thousand reviews on TripAdvisor we came to the conclusion that the Hilton would be the best place to stay. That being said, we decided that on our tour of the island we would stop in at the other hotels, if anything just to check out their pools for a quick minute and cool off from the sun. Did I mention it was 31 degrees! The Intercontinental had the nicest lobby and probably the nicest pool, but the layout and look of the over-water bungalows at the Hilton were hands down the best on the island. Also, the Hilton looked to be the only place were the Lagoon waters were as clear as the swimming pool.

Amanda's amazing floating head (Hilton pool).

Mishkin?

Poolside at the Hilton.

The bungalows at the Legends resort are also worth noting as they were the only ones not on the beach, but rather nestled up high in the mountains. Not sure I would want to climb that hill though.