Teahupoo in Tahiti will play host to the the 2024 Paris Olympics surfing event. Photo / Getty Images
Teahupoo in Tahiti will play host to the the 2024 Paris Olympics surfing event. Photo / Getty Images
Across the sea is a land where the tricolour flies, where you are greeted with a smiling bonjour, and baguettes and roquefort cheese are likely to feature on the lunch menu.
I should not have been so surprised at how French Tahiti is - the clue is there in the words “French Polynesia” on the map - but here we are. And I hadn’t been there for more than a few hours before I was also surprised that it is not more on the radar of Kiwi tourists.
Tahiti is like getting two countries for the price of one. Despite the heavy French influence, the original Polynesian culture survives. And Kiwis landing in Papeete will quickly find themselves in familiar territory. A short road trip around the coast from the bustle of the capital and its 26,000 residents is Arahurahu, a recreated marae which, for the citizens of early Polynesia, was also the centre of social life.
The Polynesian marae was like a large open plaza built of flat stones. Guarded by two large stone idols squatting in the shade of fruit trees, Arahurahu is striking by the stepped pyramid style of the altar at the head of the marae – a design also seen in parts of Central and South America.
Nowhere on Tahiti are you far from the ocean and its colours and fringed beaches dominate the photo ops of a full-day island circumnavigation. A kaleidoscope of blues flows past the car window, in shades from silver white, where sun rays meet breakers, to glacial-melt turquoise and emerald green in the lagoon, to indigo blue on the deeper waters.
At the Mara’a Grotto the water looks black, emerging from under the rocky skirts of Tahiti’s volcanic peaks. The main grotto looks small - there are in fact three of them – but it’s an optical illusion created by shadow and space. It’s only a short walk through shady ferns to the base of the mountain and I gingerly ascend the slippery steps into the ice-cold water to escape the fast-rising morning temperatures.
Maraa Grotto in Tahiti, French Polynesia. Photo / Getty Images
French and Polynesian influences intertwine at Vaipahi-I-Atehiti or the Vaipahi water gardens, where high ranking members of the local Teva clan were prepared for their final journey to Rohutu-no’ana’a, or paradise. Signs along the gentle path explain the steps the body would take as it was purified and prepared at various points in the gardens. From the Vaipahi waterfall the path unfurls through indigenous plantings and past ponds thickly covered in lilypads.
We continue our anti-clockwise journey around the coast, crossing the narrow waist of the island to visit Teahupoo, where the 2024 Olympics surfing will bring the world’s best wave riders to the most famous reef break on Earth.
It’s a 20-minute walk from the car park along a black-stone beach to the celebrated wave. It wasn’t in evidence in our out-of-season visit but the reef was – and I can see why the Olympics Committee describes the feature as “a tricky beast to tame”.
Teahupoo in Tahiti will play host to the the 2024 Paris Olympics surfing event. Photo / Getty Images
We are now more than three-quarters through our journey around this extraordinarily beautiful island and we head inland to the triple cascades of the Faarumai waterfalls. The highest of the torrents plunges 100 metres down the basalt hillside.
It’s a middlingly strenuous walk from the car park to the foot of the falls, following a well-built and maintained track with sturdy bridges over the ravines. Take your sneakers. We walk higher to see all three waterfalls at once, each a narrow rivulet of white threading its way down the black rock.
Casually munching on sliced pineapple and mango freshly chopped from a local’s garden and sold minutes later at a roadside stall, we follow the Faaurumai stream back to the coast, where it emerges near the Arahoho Blowhole.
I stand in the narrow channel of the rock to get blasted by a rush of cool air and spray of salt water from the thigh-sized hole as waves surge into caverns under our feet. The path to the blowhole is wide and well-sealed, my guide explains that it was the original road around the coast before a tunnel was bored through the rock.
Missionaries were among the early influencers on these tropical islands and they brought with them the desire to build great monuments to their God. Their legacy is substantial and lovely churches around the coast and towns from the Church of St Francis Xavier in Paea southwest of downtown Papeete, the Notre Dame Cathedral to the cute pink Getesemane de Mahina on the approach to Point Venus.
Tahiti's only lighthouse was built in 1867. It stands just feet away from the black-sand Pointe Venus Beach. Photo / Getty Images
Many of the colourful churches built throughout French Polynesia are no longer in use or are quietly collapsing in the unrelenting sun into picturesque ruin. But on Sunday mornings, especially in the outer islands of French Polynesia, the churches – old and new - are often packed with worshippers, their singing undisturbed by the occasional dog that wanders by in search of shade.
Point Venus is where the arrival of these missionaries is memorialised. And here we also meet the infamous Captain of the Endeavour, James Cook, who visited Tahiti in 1769 to witness the transit of Venus, an important but rare moment in astronomy. The Venus lighthouse was built on the site in 1867 and still operates – now as a beacon for airplanes coming into Papeete’s Faa’a International airport, as well as a symbol of the first contacts between Europeans and Tahitians.
It takes us about six hours to circumnavigate the 1000sq km main island of Tahiti Nui, in an unhurried circuit from central Papeete. It’s a journey that satisfies all my tick boxes – the culture of the marae, the beauty of old and new architecture, the adventure of a bushwalk, the taste of local produce, and touch of astronomy as a bonus – but now we are re-entering the outskirts of the capital city. Like on Auckland’s Harbour Bridge, the outgoing commuter traffic is managed by moveable barriers that give outgoing traffic two lanes in the evening, leaving us with one as we return to the city.
As we near the centre of Papeete, the island of Moorea looms on the horizon. Its impossible angles look like mountains drawn by a child who has never before seen mountains.
The 100sq km Moorea is a half-hour ferry ride from the large, modern terminal in downtown Papeete. Tourists line the rails when I travel but it is also a commuter/shopping ferry between the two islands.
My Corallina Tours guide Maui greets me at the pier in Vai’are and we are sent off in air-conditioned comfort.
Like Tahiti, Moorea was formed by volcanic activity and then shaped by wind and water. Its peaks are sheer and spectacularly angled but the most famous is Mouaputa, which has a hole through it. Legend has it that the hole was created when the god Pai tossed his magic spear from Tahiti to save the mountain from being stolen. I have my doubts about that story but there is no doubt that the island looks like a woman looking up to the sky, her hair flowing down her back.
Moorea is much smaller than Tahiti so its spectacular views are closer together. It’s a struggle to know where to look – out to sea with its multi-hues of blue or inland at its insane cliffs and rocky precipices clad in multi-hues of green. The roughly heart-shaped island is pierced by two bays: Cooks and Oponohu. The Belvedere lookout offers the best way to see them together. We also climb the steep and scary road to Magic Mountain, 180m above the bay. Due north – Alaska.
Below, the encircling arms of the reef cradle a lagoon dotted with yachts and the looping wakes of jetskis.
Under the surface of that same lagoon a short time later, a turtle joins me, paddling languidly in the warm waters near the channel between Moorea and Motu Fareone. She gets bored before I do, disappearing into the shadows with a swift kick of her flippers. But manta rays are more social, their fat rubbery wings smooth to touch as they sidle close and circle. Even the black-tipped reef sharks come in close enough to touch. Gently slapping the water brings the inquisitive beasts close in the hope of food. Although about a metre long, the sharks are harmless to humans but it still gives me a little thrill of fright to see those unsmiling mouths so close to my fingers.
Back in Papeete, I head to the Vaipoopoo food trucks at Punaauia. It’s a popular place for locals to enjoy a casual night out, eating good food and watching the sun go down. The choices are mostly of the pizza and burgers variety but there are also crepes and the Polynesian marinated raw tuna fish. I people-watch over a fish burger as families and groups of teens wander about making up their minds before also settling down to eat.
And finally, it is time to say adieu to Tahiti or, as I prefer to say: À toute à l’heure.
