Pitcairn. Home of the Bounty mutineers. And their descendants.
A rocky speck in the great South Pacific ocean, it’s thousands of kilometres from Chile to the east and New Zealand to the west.
The closest neighbour is Mangareva, one of French Polynesia’s Gambier Islands, a mere 500km or so distant.
Tahiti is over 2000km further away.
Pitcairn has no airstrip – there isn’t enough flat land in its 5 square kilometre area – the only way to get there is by boat.
It’s a very difficult place to visit.
So the opportunity to get there on the Aranui 5 was irresistible!
The Aranui 5
The Aranui 5 is a cargo/passenger ship that regularly cruises to the Marquesas Islands delivering freight and giving tourists a close-up encounter with those remote places.
It’s a beautiful ship with a great crew
See my blog of the Marquesas journey here.
See my video of the Marquesas cruise here.
In early 2019
Aranui organised two very different itineraries with stops at seven new islands including Pitcairn. I was lucky enough to snag a cabin on the second of these.
Pitcairn was the prime destination for most passengers including some Pitkerners who were going home.
The Aranui 5 journey begins
It was raining as we boarded the ship but by the time we set sail at midday the weather had cleared a little so people could stand on the wet deck and watch cloud-covered Tahiti disappear behind us as we headed for the Tuamotu Archipelago.
The Aranui and the Tuamotu Islands
There are about eighty Tuamotu islands, most of them atolls with sandy earth on top of coral reefs surrounding a lagoon. (Atolls don’t have central volcanic rock islands.)
The Aranui 5 was visiting two of them, Anaa and Amaru.
Anaa
In the distant past Anaa was uplifted by tectonic activity so that its eleven islets (motu) sit on layers of ancient fossilised coral called feo and the lagoon is very shallow.
It’s brilliant green colour is so intense that you can see its reflection on the clouds from several kilometres away.
There are no passes into Anaa’s lagoon so the Aranui 5 drifted out at sea while we took barges to the wharf. That’s the way we landed at all but one of our island stops – much more exciting than walking down a gangway.
At the town hall local schoolchildren greeted everyone with flower garlands.
Then, while a ukulele band played and small girls danced, the deputy mayor (a real showman) talked, sang and bestowed a local name, Te Kura, on the Aranui company managing director, Romati Wong.
This was Aranui’s first visit to Anaa and the locals clearly hope it won’t be the last.
Primary school children played a big part in welcoming us to most of the islands we visited but usually there were no older children – they all have to go to schools on larger islands when they are ten or eleven years old and often they are away for long periods.
A Polynesian feast
Anaa put on a Polynesian picnic feast for us in a sheltered recreation area at the edge of the lagoon, ideal for swimming, eating and relaxing.
The food was prepared and served up on woven kikau plates with coconut shells acting as dishes for different types of food; fish (especially local delicacy poisson cru), meat, vegetables, salads, with fruit and poke (pronounced po-kay) for dessert. This is not the Hawaiian fish poke but a gelatinous fruit pudding usually made with banana or pawpaw.
Getting to Anaa
Anaa has an airport with one flight a week from Papeete. Three boats a month bring cargo and passengers.
KURA ORA II E-mail: kuraora@mail.pf
There are no hotels and no plans to build any but locals operate guest houses and bungalows and there are several shops selling food, drinks and other necessities, as well as a bakery.
Normand Schaefer of Far and Away Adventures recorded Mavic Pro drone footage of most of the islands. Drone footage of Anaa is here.
Amanu
The lagoon at Amanu is much deeper than Anaa’s. There was a strong current flowing through the passage our barges took to enter the lagoon and local lads were taking advantage when we arrived by paddling out and surfing back again.
We walked from the wharf the town hall for our official welcome. In the square tiny children and dressed in rauti (leaves and grass skirts) took each of us by the hand and led us to a marquee where we were given a coconut drink – in the coconut of course – and offered a wide array of local fruits and also some jaggary and molasses. Delicious.
A string band was playing at this time but once we’d all arrived the children began their performance. The older ones were quite polished but the tiny tots hadn’t quite got all the moves.
Still, they were very much better than most of the visitors who joined in the ura piani (invitation dance) that comes at the end of every island dance performance. The exception was a Tahitian woman who clearly knew the song and the movements.
Getting to Amanu
There is no airport on Amanu and very few cargo boats visit. Most tourists come on their own yachts.
Far and Away Adventures video of Amanu
The Gambier Islands
After leaving Amanu we sailed for a day and night, through a heavy swell, south-east to the Gambier Islands, the easternmost part of French Polynesia.
The Gambiers only just qualify as tropical island paradises – they lie slightly north of the Tropic of Capricorn and they’re quite different from the Tuamotus as they are the remnants of a volcano that blew its top millions of years ago.
Mangareva
Mangareva is the largest of several rocky islands, all surrounded by a fringing reef.
We anchored in the lagoon and barged to Rikitea, the chief town – in fact the only town – on Mangareva.
The town follows the shoreline with neat houses and gardens beside the main road which is, of course, concrete (as are all the major roads in French Polynesia) and heads towards St Michael’s Cathedral, an enormous church for a population of about 1200.
We carried on past St Michael’s until we reached Rikitea CETAD (Centre d’Education aux Technologies Appropriées au Développement), a school dedicated to vocational training in traditional Polynesian handicrafts, music and dance.
These were senior students and the dance they performed was one of the best we’d seen with a storyline about a girl who was abducted by one boy, possibly using magic. The hero then paddled after the pair and fought the villain to rescue the girl. The costumes were of rauti.
The lead singer was excellent, very confident, and it was an all round polished performance.
Students also learn traditional carving methods and their engraved pearl shells sold like hot cakes.
We had only a morning on Mangareva before returning to the Aranui for lunch.
Aukena
But on the return leg of the cruise Aranui 5 stopped in the Gambiers again, this time on the smaller island of Aukena.
Aukena looks like a holiday getaway. No hotels or large buildings but several beach bungalows, a few yachts, beautiful golden sand beaches and surf breaking gently.
The Aranui crew had arrived earlier and set up tables and chairs under ironwood trees that fringed the beach and, while many of us went for a swim, the crew barbecued fish and arranged salads, raw fish, bread and condiments on trestle tables under a marquee while soft drinks, wine and beer were also available.
A very pleasant beach picnic.
Getting to Mangareva
Air Tahiti has two flights a week Tahiti to Mangareva (Sat and Thu). The airport is on a surrounding motu. Each flight is met by boats for the 30-minute transfer across the lagoon to Rikitea.
Once a month the cargo ship Nuku Hau takes a 15-day circuit from Pape’ete to Rikitea in the Gambier Archipelago via a few eastern Tuamotu atolls.
NUKU HAU E-mail: contact@stim.pf
Several guest houses are available in Rikitea.
Far and Away Adventures video of Mangareva
The Aranui 5 reaches Pitcairn
At half-past-six the sun was just rising and lit up the cumulus clouds dramatically.
A tiny pimple on the horizon was Pitcairn, one of the world’s most remote inhabited islands but we had a few hours to go before we arrived. In fact we didn’t start disembarking until after 10am but before then Pitkerners came on board to tell us about the island and stamp our passports.
There was a big swell and that made our barge trip into Bounty Bay, ermm, exciting.
The barges were rolling, pitching and yawing, all at the same time, and often hit the side of the Aranui with a mighty bang, dropping at least a metre as well as swinging to one side.
The strong sailors on the Aranui are experts at this. Two of them grab a passenger’s arms, wait until things line up momentarily then toss the passenger into the arms of two more strong sailors on the barge.
After that the trip to the wharf was relatively straightforward and disembarking was a doddle. And there we were, on the home of the Bounty mutineers and their descendants.
Pitcairn geography
The island is a volcanic rock only 2 miles long by one mile wide and all the way round are steep cliffs with names like Freddie Fall, Robert Fall, Oh Dear and McCoys Drop testifying to their danger.
Actually, McCoys Drop is the place where one of the last four surviving mutineers, William McCoy, killed himself by tying a rock around his neck and jumping. He was drunk at the time.
The Hill of Difficulty leads from the harbour to the top of the cliffs and the paved road continues to Adamstown. The land above the cliffs is hilly but fertile, green everywhere you look.
Whenever a boat visits Pitkerners on quad-bikes offer a taxi service, useful for people with mobility issues but there aren’t many quads – the population of Pitcairn is fewer than 50 – so most people end up walking.
And the hill deserves it name. It’s steep! But every now and again there’s a flat spot, good to pause, and gaze back down at Bounty Bay and the Aranui.
Adamstown
The social centre of Adamstown is the Square, a covered concrete pad. The Public Hall takes up one side of the Square, with the Bounty’s anchor standing outside.
The Public Hall serves as the Court House and Council Chambers and is also used for gatherings and public functions.
Directly across the Square, from the Public Hall, is the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the only church on Pitcairn.
The building on the third side holds the Island Council Office, the Government Treasury Office and the Post Office.
When tourists are on the island the locals set up stalls near the Square selling wooden carvings, jewellery and souvenirs, Pitcairn merchandise such as t-shirts and caps, stamps, coins and postcards.
Also honey products but as we were returning to Mangareva from Pitcairn we weren’t allowed to take these back.
From the Square we continued along Adamstown’s main street where the houses are widely separated and some are quite dilapidated.
We went to the cemetery where there were family grave sections; lots of Christians and McCoys for example, but no mutineers are buried here. Apart from John Adams nobody knows where any mutineers were buried (if they were buried at all – most of them died violently).
Sadly, very many of the headstones are for children or young people.
The Eco Trail
One easy and well-maintained walk is the Eco Trail.
It winds through forests and granite outcrops and every now and again illustrated signs tell you about the plants, wildlife, invasive species and more.
At the end of the Eco Trail a much tougher climb leads up to Christians Cave where Fletcher Christian often sat, possibly to look for ships but more likely just to get away from everyone else.
We were asked not to attempt this climb as it is dangerous after wet weather.
If you spend any time on Pitcairn, walking the various treks and trails is often the way to go.
Getting to Pitcairn
The only way is by boat.
Yachties are always welcome. Cruise ships call in although often only for a few hours. Sixteen were scheduled for 2019.
For a longer stay you need to take passage on the MV Bravo which has room for 12 passengers.
To take the Bravo you must fly from Papeete to Mangareva.
Four day, eleven day and eighteen day sojourns on Pitcairn are available depending on the Bravo schedule. Trips from Auckland to Pitcairn are only available for islanders.
Pitcairn Island currently has 12 registered accommodation providers offering guests a range of home stay and private accommodation.
Far and Away Adventures video of Pitcairn.
Aranui 5’s final group, the Australs
Rapa
Strictly speaking Rapa is one of the Bass Islands which lie several degrees outside the tropics and are the southern-most islands in French Polynesia, but it is usually considered part of the Australs.
It’s what’s left of an ancient volcano after one side collapsed and sea-water flooded the crater.
It’s rugged and hilly and on top of some hills are ruined forts (similar to the Maori pa of New Zealand) a reminder of times gone by when the population was many thousands and tribes used to fight each other.
The Aranui zig-zagged cautiously through shallow water into Haurei Bay and tied up at the wharf where a colourful group welcomed us with singing, dancing and speeches.
The wharf is a couple of kilometres from the main village of Haurei and since the sun was shining and the weather warm we enjoyed a leisurely stroll there.
A large number of cruisers joined the hike to Morongouta’s fort, one of the hilltop ruins.
This was definitely not a leisurely stroll.
We walked along the coast road until we reached a very muddy turn off which, naturally enough, led uphill along a wide path.
The higher we went the narrower the path became but there were some wonderful views and on the steepest parts steps had been cut thank goodness.
Farewell to Rapa
We remained at the wharf overnight and next day, a beautiful sunny Sunday, some people visited one of the two churches on the island (a large protestant and a small catholic) to listen to the singing while others just enjoyed a morning stroll.
Meanwhile back at the wharf a big crowd was gathering to farewell local footballers. They were on the way to Tahiti on the Aranui to take part in ‘Festival des iles’, Tahiti’s version of the World Cup for soccer, beach socer and futsal.
Footballers say goodbye
The young men and women put on a fantastic display of singing and dancing to thank their friends and families for support and we were privileged to be able to see it.
Rapa dance is quite different from other styles in French Polynesia. The hip and leg movements are earthier than you’re likely to see in ‘island shows’ designed for tourists.
Thirty-one island teams competed in the festival and the Rapa men’s team are now the futsal champions for the second year in a row.
Getting to Rapa-Iti
There is no airport on Rapa so the teams may be on Tahiti for some time. To return they’ll need to take a cargo boat, the Tuha’a Pae IV which only visits Rapa ten times a year.
TUHAA PAE snathp@mail.pf
Far and Away Adventures video of Rapa
Raivavae
Raivavai is a beautiful volcanic island with a large lagoon and surrounding coral reef.
The population of about 900 (when all the schoolchildren are at home) live in four villages connected by a paved road around the circumference of the island.
The centre is rugged, mountainous and forested.
We had a beach landing here and while a string band played island music, women in red and white muumuus danced on the sand as we were garlanded with flower lei.
Archaeology in Raivavae
Raivavae once had about 100 marae platforms but most were destroyed or abandoned in missionary times. However Aranui organised a bus trip around the island and we visited two archaeological sites.
First ‘the smiling tiki’ sitting in the garden of a private house. It’s the last one on Raivavae although there are two more in a museum on Tahiti.
Next we drove around the island to Marae Pua Pua Tiare (I think), which is beautifully restored and maintained with upright stones set up around different enclosures.
Our picnic lunch was as tasty as ever with local delicacies including delicious uto pancakes supplemented by dishes of chicken, fish and pork from the Aranui.
Uto is the soft, spongy interior of a coconut after it has germinated.
The ‘plates’ and ‘cups’ were all made from bamboo trunks – very environmentally friendly.
We had time for a quick swim – the water was cold – before getting the barge back to the Aranui and setting sail on the last leg of the journey, back to Papeete.
Getting to Raivavae
Air Tahiti has two flights a week, Monday and Wednesday. Tuhua’a Pae IV has two cruises, both of which visit Raivavae.
TUHAA PAE E-mail: snathp@mail.pf
There are several pensions on the island and some of these have restaurants.
End of the Aranui 5 special journey
As we sailed north to Tahiti the weather became noticeably warmer.
Tahiti hove into view in mid afternoon but it’s a big island and we didn’t seem to approach it very fast.
Once the sun started to go down over Moorea the sky became more interesting and lights started to appear in the harbour and town.
At the end of a cruise the Aranui 5 moors on Motu Ita and that means manoeuvering around several corners very slowly.
The Rapans now began to sing. It was beautiful to listen to and as we approached the quay many of those waiting on shore joined in. Spine tingling.
So, it wasn’t the fat lady who sang, but our very special journey was now over.
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