A Quick Lap of Tahiti
Monday, 2 January 2023In December 2022, so just before Christmas, I spent two weeks on the Aranui 5, the iconic cargo-passenger ship which makes a regular run from Tahiti in French Polynesia out through the Tuamotu atolls to the beautiful mountainous islands of the Marquesas. It’s a trip which had been on my bucket list for far too long, so more on that soon.
▲ The Papeete waterfront ‘Memorial to the Victims of Nuclear Testing’ – French nuclear testing, which went on for 30 years from 1966 to 1996, principally took place on Muroroa Atoll which is still off limits to visitors. In the background of my photo the Aremiti 6 ferry departs Tahiti for nearby Moorea.
Before and after my cargo cruise I had a few days to spend in Tahiti (due to airline schedules), an island I had not visited for a long time. It often seems that nobody has a kind word to say for Papeete, the principle city of Tahiti and the capital of French Polynesia: ‘a provincial French town marooned in the Pacific’ is about as nice as it gets. In fact Papeete itself can be pleasant to wander, particularly along the waterfront, there are plenty of bars, some excellent places to eat from the nightly mobile ‘roulottes’ to some choices for fine dining. I had a pizza at La’pizzeria, pasta at La Squadra, just round the corner from the long-running Lou Pescadou, and fine dining at the waterfront Mehirio Tahitian Bistro. Plus a sundowner Hinano beer or two at the Retro Bar, Papeete’s prime people watching location.
▲ So I checked in to the central Tahiti Nui Hotel and soon discovered that some things have not changed at all, the central market, the Marché du Papeete is as colourful as ever. I rented a car (a Romanian-built Renault Dacia) and set off on a 140km circuit of the island. The buses around the island are fine, comfortable, economical, but unfortunately not as frequent as you’d wish. If every stop is going to be followed by a 30 minute wait by the roadside for the next bus to come by you soon look for alternatives. Well forget taxis, they’re horribly expensive, but rent-a-cars are easy to find, reasonably priced and the traffic, once you’re out of Papeete, is no problem.
▲ The James Norman Hall House in Arue
◄ My first stop was the James Hall House & Museum, just 7km east of Papeete. Why hadn’t I visited this fine home of the Mutiny on the Bounty author on a previous visit? Because it wasn’t open to visitors until until 2002. Hall lived here for his entire spell in Tahiti until his death in 1951, but Tahiti has certainly changed in that time. The property ran right down to the sea and the road from Tahiti cut between the house and the ocean. From photographs In Hall’s time it was clearly a quiet rural track, now it’s a busy four-lane divided road. The house would have fronted right on to the road, but they moved it back 12 metres when it was reopened. Clearly things have changed a great deal in almost 100 years.
▲ Nearby I stopped to have a look at the Tomb of Pomare V. In fact the tomb was built for his mother Queen Pomare IV who was a bit of a Queen Victoria figure, she ruled for 50 years until her death in 1877 and the tomb was built in 1879. Pomare V clearly didn’t have much respect for his mom, he had her remains hauled out and took over the tomb when he died in 1891.
◄ My next stop was Point Venus where Cook made his transit of Venus measurements back in 1769, the reason he’d come to Tahiti on his first great Pacific voyage. The cape features assorted landmarks including a memorial to the first English missionaries and this fine 1867-68 lighthouse built by Thomas Stevenson of the productive lighthouse-building Stevenson family.
▲ The lighthouse features a plaque by the writer Robert Louis Stevenson indicating how pleased he was to see his father’s lighthouse here. The author of Kidnapped and many other 19th century best-sellers noted that he was working at his father’s side in the office where he designed this lighthouse.
▲ I drive on right around the island with a stop at the rather fine Botanical Gardens at Papeari, almost directly across the island from Papeete. Unfortunately the Gauguin Museum there is closed and looks like it has been for a long time. The Museum of Tahiti & its Island, closer to Papeete, is also closed and has been ‘depuis trois ans’ although unlike the Gauguin Museum it does look as if work is happening. It’s been an ongoing mystery how long this work is going to take and when the island’s most important museum finally will reopen.
▲ Never mind I stop at the waterfront Marae Mahaeiatea which Captain Cook found particularly impressive. The early Polynesian temple is in a ruined state, but there has clearly been a lot of recent work and lots of signposting about that work, although It’s not exactly well-signposted off the road.
▲ My final island circuit stop was Marae Arahurahu which is in much better shape and features a couple of impressive tikis from the Austral island of Raivavae. I saw more tikis, those close Polynesian relations to the larger moai of Easter Island, when I was on my Aranui 5 tour to the Marquesas Islands.
