Unique Places in French Polynesia

It is not uncommon to see Papaya Fruit growing in the trees in Tahiti (well it does help if the tree it is growing in is a Papaya Tree).

In Britain, Papaya is considered a bit of a delicacy, and you pay a lot for it as you can't gow it over here.

In the Pacific reason, it seems to be about as common as apples are here, and it is often used to make into juice. It is quite a watery juice and is very refreshing. Typically the inside of the fruit (and the juice) have a pinky colour.

One of the nice things when you are driving around the island is to come across a local fruit seller on the side of the road. The produce is very very fresh, and is pretty cheap by Polynesian standards.

We bought some small bananas, which tasted so much better than anything you can buy in the shops back in the UK. They had probably only ben picked a few hours before!

If we had had our cooking facilities, we would probably have bought a bit more besides! The bananas do make handy snacks for when you are on the move too.

Coconuts are well known throughout the world. In the west, we may think of coconut as being dessicated and cooked into biscuits or chocolate bars, or we may be familiar with them at a fair ground as hard brown objects that have milk inside.

However when you see coconuts in Tahiti (and elsewhere), they are green (rioening to brown), softer and much bigger, so you tend to wonder at first if they are a different species! They aren't. The two are the same, but what happens is the fibrous exterior is stripped off the nut (to make it smaller and lighter to ship).

Very little is wasted of the coconut. The milk can be drunk, the inside can be made into dessicated coconut, the husk can be used to burn or for making textile materials of. It is therefore considered vry versatile and highly valued.

In case it isn't obvious from the picture, Indian Figs are the common term for talking about fruits on a cactus.

These fruits are very tasty, but also very full of pips. When picking them, they are also very spikey, so take care. I remember helping a friend of mine pick some once in Cyprus, and he had a special implement that was a long stick with a small cup shaped object on the end. You put the cup over the fruit you want, and twist. Off comes the fruit in the cup. He was up a ladder, and was dropping the fruits out of the cup into my hands to catch. After catching one or two fruits, I suddenly realised my hands were full of small thorns, which he found highly amusing, and I found somewhat less so!

Due to the high number of pips, they are very good for making you regular (as a doctor might say!). The fruit is also quite watery so would be a good source of liquid in a dry climate.

There isn't too much that can be said about this, but it is very nice to be strolling along the waters edge, and to see an old coconut sprouting up.

I have no idea how old this was, I would guess about a year or so. Coconuts palms grow all over French Polynesia (although this picture was taken on Moorea), so this is a fairly common thing to see. The baby coconut just sprouts where the old coconut landed when it fell off the tree.

The Breadfruit in Tahiti is famous, and has been for centuries. It is a very starchy melon that can weigh up to 2.5 kilos (so they get pretty big!).

The Mutiny on the Bounty is pretty well known around the world, and this took place in Tahiti. A large part of the reason for the mutiny were that the sailors had fallen for the asy charms and beauty of the Tahitian women and didn't want to leave them. However another factor was down to breadfruit!

Being starchy, it is high in carbohydrates (which are good for giving you energy when you are doing physically demanding tasks). In 1787 when the HMS Bounty landed in Tahiti, breadfruit was therefore considered a good food source for the Caribbean slaves. The job of the sailors on the Bounty was to collect breadfruit plants to export to the Caribbean. This they spent 6 months doing. The sailors liked breadfruit as it tasted like bread. However when they found out that some of their drinking water during the voyage was to be used to water the breadfruit, this caused great unrest and was another factor in the mutiny!

Ironically when the breadfruit trees were finally delivered to the Caribbean on a later expedition, the slaves disliked the taste of the breadfruit so much, they refused to eat it!

Whilst I was wandering around the Ebenezer Church in Moorea, I heard a scurrying sound, and looked about and saw a huge crab disappearing down a hole in the ground. I suddenly saw loads of holes, and a few other crabs disappearing down them. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture, they were all too fast for me, but whilst I wandered around I bit more, I spotted this:

Looks like a few Polynesians had a bit of a party the night before, and left their empties behind afterwards! Looks like Rum and Coke, Tahiti Drink and Bud are the order of the day!

Moorea is famous for its lack of litter, so seeing this was all the more unusual...

This trek starts from the Vaiare Ferry Point and heads up a slope to a ridge between Mt Tearai (770m) and Mt Mouaputa (830m).

The start of the trek is actually rather difficult to spot. There is a rather obvious path that leads from the main road until you reach the forest. At one point, there appear to be a road heading downwards to the RIGHT. DON'T TAKE THAT ONE. You need to climb up to your LEFT. Up you go. When you start seeing plastic markers tied around trees or red paint painted on tree trunks, you are on the right track.

About 1 hour or so later, you should reach a ridge. At the ridge, walk a little to the left and you will emerge and find youself at the foot of these two dramatic peaks. What a feeling!

There are amazing views everywhere on top of the lush vegetation. Behind you, you can see the side of Moorea facing Tahiti island and even Tahiti itself and in front of you, the other spectacular peaks across the island and a glimpse of Cook’s Bay.

Then, the trail drops down a rather steep slope and meander through the woods before emerging at Paopao, on Cook’s Bay. Keep looking out for the plastic markers or red paint.

Route is very steep, both uphill and downhill, and can be very, very SLIPPERY after rain.