It's incredibly hard to put into words the complete range of our emotions during our whirlwind stay on this small Pacific island (are you sitting comfortably?)...

Let's just say that our early expectations played a large part - we'd planned 2 weeks on the paradise beaches of Tahiti as a last 'treat' before the full-on travelling experience of South America. However, in NZ we bought the Tahiti Lonely Planet which indicated some major factors of which we'd been blissfully ignorant when booking this flight 8 months ago. Armed with this new knowledge we shortened our stay there from 2 weeks to 1 week only, because:

1) all the brochure images we see of Tahiti are in fact photos of the other smaller French Polynesian islands (thatched huts over lagoons, white beaches, etc) - Tahiti may be beautiful and friendly but it is strictly black volcanic sand, which, it has to be said, isn't a patch on your good old white sand when it comes to romantic images.

2) It's incredibly EXPENSIVE (budget traveller's swearword), like, unbelievably expensive (and to top it off they're not big on bargaining/bartering).

We had the most amazing arrival in the capital Papeete, touching down just before midnight in 30° of heat. As our feet hit the tarmac we were all given flowers to wear behind our ears, and then serenaded through Passport Control by a garland & flowery shirt-clad guitar and ukelele quartet. What an arrival! Add to that the fact that we'd just crossed the Date Line, hence somehow arriving the day BEFORE we'd left Auckland, and the magic was complete.

Our first taste of our guidebook's warnings came as soon as we left the airport. We took a taxi for the 6km ride to the cheapest hostel in town, and checked into our "très bon" room - which we'd prefer to call shabby, complete with paper-thin walls and the biggest cockroach we've seen yet (and that's saying something). By now it was very early Wednesday morning for the second time in 2 days, so we celebrated by buying a can of Coke to have with our duty-free rum, and booking in for 2 consecutive nights to allow us to explore Papeete. Please note - at this point we hadn't eaten or done anything else. The damage for 1 short taxi ride + 2 shabby nights in hostel + 1 Coke alone = £90!!! Can you believe it?!

The rum helped stave off bank manger nightmares but in the morning we ran like scalded cats to the Quantas office and manged to change our flights to leave the next day. So our stay had diminished down to 2 days only, and we were already into Day 1! Hot and flowery sums up the rest of that first day - we wandered around the small capital, through the colourful market and along the quayside past the boats and out-rigger canoes, it was 37°, and we practically stood out for not wearing fresh flowers in some way. We were treated to a tropical downpour that evening, so stayed in again with the rum & coke, eventually dashing out to hunt for cheap food at 10pm and finding the streets mainly deserted. So it was an early night, broken at 12, 2 & 4am by our 'neighbours' noisy returns, 5am by crowing cockerels, and 6am by kids.

Determined to make the most of Day 2 we hired a small car to see the rest of the island, and mysteriously got upgraded to a fairly battered 4WD Ute/pick-up truck. So at least we got to see the whole way round the 115km of Tahiti, and around some of adjoined Tahiti Iti (little Tahiti), putting the 4WD of our Chevy Spacecab into use wherever possible. It was a good day - saw lots of black sand beaches, swam in a grotto, visited Paul Gauguin Museum, saw some great views - then drove back to the airport to kill 5 hours until our overnight flight back to Auckland.

We're now back in Auckland, fully recovered from the Tahiti experience (despite losing Friday completely due again to the Date Line), and £140 worse off after 48 'budget' hours there. If we'd have the time, we'd have wanted to explore the other islands, but to be honest, we'd have never had enough money to do so. So - anyone planning a honeymoon or holiday in Tahiti - bring loads of cash, check exactly which island you're going to and get ready for some time travel!

Only 5 days to go until our flight to Argentina... See ya, with flowers on.