What a pleasant surprise to pull into Rikitea (the main anchorage) with only 3 other boats!  If you remember from last season, we left when there were 35 boats in the same anchorage.  We found out that there are only 6-7 boats in all of Gambiers which is amazing and refreshing.  I am sure that will change once February rolls around that seems to be the time when the wind provides a better shot to this beautiful archipelago.

The weather was sunny, blue skies, and calm waters.  Rikitea had blue water and not the awful green murky water it’s known for.  Simply beautiful. We went ashore to see if we could find some fresh produce but most of the magasins (markets) were either empty or low on stock and quality.  The supply ships are coming soon.  We made a stop at Phillipe (the brioche guy) to do some internetting as we had been offline for 2.5 weeks and were not surprised by the very slow speeds!  Could not upload a photo to the blog and it took an extreme amount of patience to get to a website. Oh well, nothing new there.

Hike Around Mt. Duff

I am pretty sure Matt hoodwinked me.  He said he wanted to hike around Mt. Duff and hoped to collect some produce.  I should have asked for clarification about the hike as I was not ready for it at all.  It started out nice enough along the main road, behind the huge St. Michael cathedral and up toward the gap that separates Mt. Duff and Mt. Mokoto. 

The main road takes you past the Gambiers cemetery which has a mausoleum (which looks like a small church).  Inside the mausoleum is one grave.

Many of the gravestones have photos of the decease and either flowers or shells adorning the gravesite.

This same road takes you by the recycling area and the gravel yard.  The locals recycle cans, aluminum and glass.  Unfortunately, they do not recycle plastic yet.  If you go further down the road you will come to their dump, I did not think you needed to see that site.

We found a few papayas on the side of the road and loaded them into our back packs. 

Just before the turn off to the main trail we had this pretty view of the anchorage.  Can you see Sugar Shack?

And the view the other way is equally pretty.

Once we reached the trail, we had already walked 3.2 miles (7,865 steps, 30 floors).  Yep, I was tired already and we have not even started the trail.  What did I get myself into?  Clearly, I am out of shape.

A higher view of the anchorage from the trail.  The water color is just magnificent, don’t you think?

The Trail

The locals must have just cleared the trail as it was lovely and easy to walk on.  Usually the trail is covered in raspberry bushes, overgrowth, pine needles and such.  There are a few areas where you still have to traverse across a landslide, climb over a tree, scurry over rocks, and wade through pine needles.  But for the most part the trail was awesome.

Along the first part of the trail (as you go up toward the gap between the two mountains) you will find lots of informative signs about the plants and trees.

Many types of ferns, coconut trees…

Flowering bushes and trees

Huge Elephant ear plants and grass

And more ferns and grass.

We found tons of fresh fruit including papaya, raspberries, chili peppers, pomplemouse, noni, oranges, limes, avocado, tomatoes, lychee, and mangos.  Most of the fruit was not ready for picking so we let it continue to mature.  But we did come away with raspberries, papaya, lychee, and pomplemouse.

You might wonder what lychee is. We had heard about this delicious fruit for two seasons.  This fruit only grows in cool climates like Gambiers and Australs and it only blooms in December.  Lychee is red and you peel it like an orange and then eat the tasty white nectar around the seed.  It is super sweet and divine!

Summit

We finally reach the summit.  Keep in mind that the gap summit is nowhere near the top of Mt. Duff or Mt. Mokoto.  It is tall, but not as tall as the two mountains.  But the views are superb.

Total hike was 6.8 miles, 16,757 steps and 93 floors.    If you look at this map, we took the black road that starts at Rikitea (top right), went down (bottom right), to the orange trail.  Then we took the orange trail up and over back to the red “You are here” bubble which connected back up with the black zig zag line and took us back to town. 

The gap between Mt. Duff (on right) and Mt. Mokoto (left).  We hiked between the two peaks.

By the time we got back to the boat, I was exhausted.  I poured a cold drink, took some advice, hopped in the shower, and then collapsed on the couch where I stayed for the rest of the evening.  Yeah me!

Matt:  My Goat

Matt is truly part goat. I  say that in a loving and admiring way.  He has incredible stamina and can hike for miles and miles and miles without getting tired.  When I work on the blog he goes for a hike or a walk.  Part of me is jealous as I’d love to go exploring with him, but part of me is relieved.  One because I can’t keep up with him and two because he is far more adventurous than I am.

One afternoon I spent well over 5 hours working on the internet (blog, banking, etc…).  Matt hiked over 10 miles around the tip of Mangareva.  He finally came back exhausted, bumped, and bruised, and tired.  It was the first time, in a long time, that I had seen him spent.  The photo says “8” miles but it was really 10!

Events from this blog post occurred around 12 December, 2020.  Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind our adventures.