Ua Pou is our last of the three inhabited Northern islands of the Marquesan archipelago in French Polynesia. The main anchorage in Hakahetau Bay is on the Western side of the island, with beautiful views to the famous chain of pitons (really steep mountain tops) that sits in the center of the island.
We took the dinghy to the dock, and started our stay with exploring the tiny town.
Just a 30 minute hike from the town, is a beautiful waterfall .The day we checked it out, we had it all to ourselves, so a skinny dip was in order. The temperatures are normally around 28 degrees here, both in the sea and in the air. The water temperature of the waterfall was probably only 22 degrees. It was so nice to swim in the refreshing freshwater, in the middle of a hot jungle.
After we were refreshed, we continued our hike to visit the German chocolate man. He is well known amongst cruisers, as he has set up a small chocolate factory in the middle of the jungle. His name is Manfred, and he is originally from East Germany. He moved to Tahiti the day after the wall was tore down in 1989, and have stayed in French Polynesia ever since.
He now lives with his wife on the land she has inherited from her grandmother. We spent quite some time chatting with this couple. It is always so special to get to spend some time with the locals and hear their stories. We ended up buying five chocolate bars from him, all dark and organically grown.
We picked the perfect day to hike to the pitons. They are often covered in clouds, but the day we went to hike them, we had clear skies and lovely views of them all through the day.
The track can be walked as a circular track, which we did. We started the hike walking through the lovely, little town in the valley. As this was a Sunday, the mass in the local church had already started at 08:30. We could hear the hymns being sung by the congregation as we passed, a really nice start to our hike.
The trail is 11.5 kms long with a 700 meters altitude gain. The first part took us on the main street out of town, which turned over to a dirt road and ultimately a path through the lush jungle.
Finding the path through the lush bush of the jungle was not always straight forward, but we managed to do it without any detours. After about 1.5 hours, we found ourselves on a narrow ledge doing the last few hundred meters towards the main piton – Mount Poumaka.
The view was amazing, and the way the rock formations just shot out of the jungle was really spectacular.
We descended on the other side of the crater, and were amazed how different the vegetation was on this side. We hiked through a pine forest, with trees clutching themselves by their roots to the barren ground. It felt so odd to be walking through a pine forest here in the tropics.
After the hike, we had pre-booked lunch at the restaurant in town, Tipiero. The restaurant is in fact located in somebody’s house, which seems to be the case outside the bigger towns all across French Polynesia. Unfortunately, no pictures from the lunch. It was hearty and delicious!
We spent a total of three nights at Ua Pou, and were ready to move on to explore the three inhabited Southern Marquesan islands. We will probably move through these a lot quicker than what we have done here in the North, as we have spent five weeks in the Marquesas now, and we are getting ready to move on to our next destination, the archipelago of Tuamotus. This is truly a sailor’s and diver’s paradise, so we are really looking forward to arrive there.
