Moorea Road Trip

CuriousOyster
Steve & Trish Brown
Sat 26 Jun 2010 01:39
Trish and I took another opportunity here in Moorea to rent a car and tour the island. Other than the road around the edge of the island there are few roads but we did get the opportunity to take some of the inland tracks to see the farms where many fruits and vegeatbels are cultivated, including the local type of pineapple for which Moorea is famous.
Throughout French Polynesia there are many churches, both Catholic and Protestant, evidence of the early missionaries, many of whom were eaten by the locals before the arrival of a new God forced them to lose their taste for "long pig" as the whiteman was then called.
 
The Church on Papanoi has a famous wall mural depicting the conversion of Queen Pomares III, I'm not sure what she would make of the more trendy local kids nowadays!
Church on Sunday is a big social as well as spiritual event and the women and young girls use the opportunity to dress up, with flowers in their hair or brightly decorated hats. Moorea also has an interesting museum that explains many of methods, materials and equipment used by the early Polynesian settlers.