I arose today with one thing on my mind…to secure a key to the hotel laundry room and make sure we arrived in Tahiti with clean clothes. Success. After a delicious breakfast in the hotel I went out for a quick walk along the harbor. The view from our hotel window was enticement enough.
The Maritime Museum is across from our hotel, with this huge boat in front, but I wanted to walk along the water.
I crossed the bridge to the Viaduct harbor.
On a night in 1966, Tiri, a “pirate” radio broadcasting boat was planning to set sail to begin broadcasting in the Hauraki Gulf. At that time the radio waves were monopolized by the conservative NZ Broadcasting Corporation and it did not want this boat to be able to go on air. The crew decided to leave the harbor on a Sunday because the bridge was always left open for fishing boats to access the harbor. To try and stop the boat from exiting the harbor they began to lower the bridge. Members of the crew placed themselves under the jaws of the bridge and the closing of the bridge was halted but the mast got caught. Supporters nearby worked to pull the boat free. However, police jumped on board and arrested the crew. At trial the crew was exonerated and a month after their arrest they set sail for Hauraki Gulf to broadcast in international waters. They continued broadcasting from there for 1,111 days before finally being granted a broadcasting license and becoming land based. I crossed the pedestrian bridge.
As I did I heard a loud splash and realized that there was a public harbor pool complete with a diving board. I caught the next diver in mid-jump.
As I headed back to the hotel I saw a sign for Hobson’s Pocket Park, a little park at the end of one of the piers. It had a great view of the land across the harbor.
It also had seesaws that play notes as you go up and down.
I got back to the hotel in time to finish up my packing so Gayle and I could meet our transport to the Auckland airport. Our flight was scheduled for 3:30 p.m. and we were in a car headed for the airport by 11:30 p.m. We figured we would have lots of time to be bored at the airport. However, when we arrived there was already a line waiting just to get in line for Air Tahiti Nui’s ticket counter. We joined the line. The counter opened at 12:35 and we didn’t reach the front of the line for an hour after that.There were no kiosks to allow you to self-check in. It was very old school and quite exhausting. We made it to our gate with only enough time to eat a bag of chips for lunch before boarding the plane.
The flight to Papeete was fine. We arrived at 10:30 p.m. and were greeted in customs by a Polynesian dancer.
The line was out the door but since Gayle had a cane they skirted us around to a much shorter line. Baggage claim was a nightmare….an absolute nightmare, Finally with our bags in hand we went outside to find our transport to our hotel. We have a flight to Bora Bora in the morning so our travel agent booked us in a hotel 5 minutes from the airport. We were greeted with leis and told to wait and someone would come for us. We waited and watched as almost everyone else was picked up. I got a little hot about it and so finally, we were loaded into a van and delivered last. I felt old and unseen and pissed off. But then we entered our room and opened the door to the sound of ocean waves. We were in Tahiti!!
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