Mo’orea Tour

Up at sparrow fart again – they love their early starts for these tours here in Mo’orea! It had rained overnight, and there was still a few drops falling as we made our way across to Pure for breakfast. An eight o’clock start meant we had to be breakfasted and abluted early, to be picked up by Virginie from Torea Tours. We stopped once more to reach our full complement of eight – two pair from France, one from Australia, and us, then set out on our island tour. Not “round the island” tour, mind – we were just covering the North coast and spurning the blandishments of East, West and South. Presumably because that’s where all the interesting things are.

First stop was in Cook’s Bay (yes, him), and Virginie explained how first the Spanish came, then the English, then the French. She also explained about the face of the woman lying down that formed the profile of the mountain above us, part of the caldera of the volcano that formed the island. The rain couldn’t decide whether it was starting or stopping, but by the time we reached our second destination we thought it had stopped, so rolled up the screens on the side of the truck to let the air in. 

Close Encounters of the Polynesian Kind?

We headed inland to drive through a pineapple plantation, and found out about the food plants of the island. A lot of cultivation is given over to pineapples and sugar cane on Mo’orea, because that’s where the rum distillery is…which we will come to later. We also saw soursop, passionfruit, and avocado growing. We drove on to the Belvedere lookout where, in the distance, our view of the second face of the mountain was obscured by cloud. Ah well. 

Back down to the island circle road, before stopping again, this time at the base of the Magic Mountain. The owner has a little shop-cum-café there. We saw a sample of a vanilla vine: most vanilla grown in FP is done so without public access, as they’ve had problems with imported pests, in particular fire ants. FP’s biosecurity isn’t up to the level of Australia and New Zealand’s, and unfortunately introduced species have caused some problems. So these vanilla plants were for demonstration purposes only, as Virginie explained the growth and production of vanilla pods – a tricky process of pollination, and then drying and massaging the mature pods until they’re ready. It’s a very labour-intensive operation, which is why vanilla is so expensive. We sampled various fruits, and the jams or preserves made from them. 

We were then offered a lemonade drink styled “citronnade avec clitoria”. This is made with the flowers of Clitoria terneata, commonly known as asian pigeonwings, or bluebellvine, blue pea and other names in English. Has no-one told them? Or do they know, but they think it’s funny? Anyway, the petals of the flower dye the drink purple, which looks very striking.    

We headed up to Magic Mountain along a track that was quite precipitous in places. Virginie had warned us before we set out: she used to drive a smaller vehicle up there, but her boss had now got the eight-passenger 4x4, and it couldn’t take some of the switchback corners in one go, so not to worry if she seemed to get stuck and had to reverse to get round the bend! It was all perfectly navigable, she’s done it loads of times, it’s just that the truck doesn’t have the turning circle. It’s also not a one-way system, as we found when we encountered a downcoming vehicle…you have to negotiate your way back to a passing place as best you can. We made it to the top in one piece, and the first thing we found was a pair of brightly-coloured lizards on a plant by the side of the track. These are gold dust day geckos and, like a lot of the wildlife we've seen so far, is an introduced species; this time from Madagascar. 

Having observed them, we then made the final ascent on foot, for panoramic views of the island. We could see where we’d come to the south of the island as well. As we came down we stopped to check in on the lizards – still there – then made the equally perilous trek downhill, hampered somewhat by some drongo pedestrians who wouldn’t get out of the road.

Our final stop was at the rum distillery. They make a lot of products there as well as rum, incuding pineapple wine and pineapple champagne. We had a tasting where a number of drinks were rushed by us in quick sucession, of varying alcoholic strengths, including a ready-made cocktail mix, a rum-and-coconut concoction (ideal for pina colada), full strength rum, and a Bailey’s-like vanilla cream. All interspersed (thankfully) with non-alcoholic beverages of different types. 

That's a very rum distillery

Slightly sozzled, we reboarded the truck and were returned to Sofitel in time for lunch, then lollygagged all afternoon.

The evening meal was a repeat of last night – this time I had a Japanese-styled pavé of tuna, Nicola had crevettes with penne in a tarragon sauce. More adventures tomorrow!