Tahiti’s Lesser Known Sister Isles, part 1 - The Wild Beauty of Taha’a: Polynesian Pleasures on the Looney Front

If you ask people what they know about French Polynesia, you might hear Tahiti, possibly Bora Bora, perhaps even Moorea, the hulking mass of spires and pinnacles just off Tahiti’s coast. But there are several other lesser-known islands in the Society Archipelago just to the west of Tahiti that stand on their own in the wild beauty of their precipitous peaks and lush vegetation.

Like Tahiti, Bora Bora and Moorea, they are ‘tall’ islands, thus called for their mountains, as opposed to those other Edenic Polynesian ‘flat’ islands, the white-sanded, green-fringed, turquoise-lapped wavelet-hugging atolls of the Tuamotu Archipelago threatened with extinction by rising oceans, like Vanavana which I flew over, and Tureia where we landed on a recent flight to the ‘tall’ Gambier Archipelago.

These more off-beat islands in the Society chain are all stunningly beautiful, but Yours Truly, ever truly true to the inopportune, has chosen the wrong time of year - the southern hemisphere summer and rainy season when the heat and humidity are overwhelming. Even native islanders are fanning themselves with magazines.

Such a wondrous island is Taha’a.

Taha'a, at 34 square miles, and Ra'iatea, at 92 square miles, are true sister isles, sharing the same enormous aquamarine lagoon ringed by scores of motus (little tree-girt islets) along the outer reef.

Both are crumpled masses of green-carpetted mountains, pinnacles and spires. Some peaks reach over 3,000 feet.

Taha'a, which has no airport and is reachable by boat from Ra’iatea is the more savagely wild of the two, with an unbeatable view of the world-famous craggy mass of Bora Bora shimmering on the far horizon across the turquoise waters.

The ostentatious profusion of palms and spread-hatted trees rises in layers up the verdant hillsides directly from the azure shoreline.

Although it's rained a little, there's plenty of sunshine and blue skies in this March end of summer, the sea ranges from deep blue to sky blue to iridescent turquoise, and the wildly lush vegetation glimmers like emeralds and every other green gem you've ever seen.

Some say Taha'a is the most beautiful island in all the South Pacific, others Ra'iatea, yet others Maupiti. But the truth is it is absolutely impossible to say one is lovelier than the other – they’re all so paradise perfect.

What of Tahiti itself, with its savage interior of craggy emerald summits and spires, exemplified by the Diadem, a four-spired peak looking like a royal crown! And Moorea with its deep inlets and precipitous ramparts and towers! And Bora Bora with its massive verdant crag looming majestically over its lagoon!

These three, along with the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomons, Fiji and countless others all have their paladins

One thing a lifetime of travelling has taught me: it’s impossible to prioritise one place as the most beautiful – so many place are so stunningly beautiful in their own way.

But what isn't impossible, certain in fact, is that you'll get rooked in French Polynesia. The prices are ridiculous. Some local French are not particularly friendly, while others are, and the Polynesians are generally wonderfully welcoming, but they're all out to chisel you royally. The problem is when you pay an arm and a leg for crap.

On Taha'a a room without bath or basin, without mosquito net and with a fan on a ceiling so high that you barely feel it costs $80, and a meal with fish the quality of blotting paper $40.

But if you go to a hotel on one of the motus, you'll fork out $1,100 a night just for an air-conditioned bungalow on stilts above the water.

The only way I can go round Taha’a and see the sights is with the hotel proprietor for $50 a person, minimum three people. It's low season, they're aren't three other visitors, so I have to pay for three - $150.

I could of course rent a motorbike as I did a few years back in Nieue, another South Pacific island, and damn well almost killed myself, crashing prostrate onto some lava spikes that pierced my helmet nearly to the skull. But I prefer to be $150 out of pocket rather than have a hole in the head, quite literally and not in the Yiddish joke sense.

We visit a cultured pearl preserve on a wooden pier jutting out into the lagoon, a rum and natural oils essence factory, and a vanilla plantation.

The panoramas are spectacular, the views over to Bora Bora splendiferous, the vista over plunging Haamane Bay stunning. The multicoloured flowers and multi-varied trees leave nothing to the imagination.

The little villages for the island’s 5,500 inhabitants nestle tightly in their arboreal bowers.

And there are no cemeteries - people are buried in their front gardens.

[Upcoming blog next Sunday: Polynesian Pleasures, Tahiti’s Lesser Known Sisters - Ra’iatea]

By the same author: Swimming With Fidel: The Toils Of An Accidental Journalist. Available on Kindle, with free excerpts at https://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Fidel-Toils-Accidental-Journalist-ebook/dp/B00IMNWV2W and in print version on Amazon in the U.S at https://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Fidel-Toils-Accidental-Journalist/dp/1496080319/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

And: Bussing The Amazon: On The Road With The Accidental Journalist; available with free excerpts on Kindle and in print version at https://www.amazon.com/Bussing-Amazon-Road-Accidental-Journalist-ebook/dp/B00KNCGD9M