Mike goes ashore to pick up the hire car at 8 am and by 9 am we are on our way. We head inland and immediately start to climb up into the mountains. The views over the bay where we are all anchored are spectacular.
Of course, today I have my new camera so I am snap happy. It seems that every mile or so there is an even better view and I am constantly shouting “Stop! I need to take a photo!” As you can see…..
We eventually make it down to the village of Taipivai, past the little church and to the river which wanders down to the sea. In the muddy banks of this river, wild pigs wallow, along with various wading birds, frigates and chickens.
As we head back the way we have just come, we see Jutta, Jochim and Tom with their guide doing the same thing as us.
The colours all around are so vibrant and the vegetation is so lush that I can’t believe it isn’t constantly raining, but it has only rained once since we have been here, for about half an hour.
We wind our way up into the hills again, this time going north towards Hatiheu and through the mountains. Sometimes I even let people get in the way of a good view but I always make sure you can see enough of the view to make it worthwhile!
On the way down to Hatiheu we pass one of the large ancient worship sites with its numerous terraces built of large blocks of stone and we stop to explore. There is a huge sacred banyan tree here, and by its roots, a huge pit still exists, excavated hundreds of years ago and lined with the same stones that the terraces are built from. In his pit, victims would wait to be sacrificed or just eaten by the cannibals that lived here.
The site here is huge with cooking pits around the other side of the banyan tree and many terraces where the ancients would watch the sacrificial head chopping. It’s eerily quiet here and I can just imagine it all happening all too clearly.
Mike must have done something to upset the ancient gods because as he jumps down from the stone platform, one of the large stones, that has probably been there for hundreds of years, rolls off. He lands safely on his feet but the rock lands right behind him and just manages to knock him off balance, and he falls backwards onto his bottom, earning himself some grazed arms, a very dirty t-shirt and proof that he really deserves his nickname of ‘pig pen’.
We head towards the coast and stop for lunch at a restaurant run by the local mayor, ‘Chez Yvonne’. The food is extensive; Mike orders pork with rum and I have goat curry, a better choice than his but we agree to share half and half so I have to give up my delicious, moist goat for his somewhat chewy pork. Ah well.
Outside I find the view that we searched all day for on Hiva Oa as there was a picture of it on the Hiva Oa page of our guidebook – a little artistic licence on the author’s part I guess.
We head off again, this time without knowing where we are going, and end up round a mountain road where there are herds of goat roaming wild. The road is not paved in any way and is strewn with rocks and we have no idea where it goes, or whether it is just going to end (which happens a lot).
Eventually we turn the car around, go back to town and head out the way we came. When we come to a t-junction we take the other road, again, without knowing where we are heading and it’s like we have been transported to another country. After a couple of miles we emerge into wide open plains, covered in grass with forests of pine trees and lots of horses running wild. It’s like Wyoming ……. or Switzerland. There’s not a palm tree in sight and it is totally weird, beautiful, but definitely weird!
Photo: Wide open spaces – where did they come from?
We start to climb again but the road is not like any other we have seen – we are talking pristine condition and not a stone in sight and no other cars either. The road winds around the mountains in hairpin turns, each one giving us more breathtaking scenery than before – but not what we would expect from a Polynesian island.
We keep going but this road does not appear to be on the map, so after about ten miles or so Mike turns the car round and heads back. It would have been interesting to find out where it ended up but we need to get back back before nightfall as the boats do not have their mooring lights on.
We eventually get back to Taiahae and make a quick visit to the supermarket before they shut, just to get the heavy stuff. As we only took one dinghy in the morning, it takes two trips to gets us all and the shopping back to the boats. We still intend to set off in the morning so we don’t stay up late, although going through the day’s photos and trying to decide which ones to delete takes a while!
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