We Walkabout in Avea Bay

Avea Bay is beautiful. As I've mentioned, it's my favorite because the bay is beautiful and the land around it is lush, quiet, and primitive.

Our starting point is the cruiser-friendly Le Mahana Resort. They accept our recycle and garbage, they allow us to take showers, and they don't mind if stinky cruisers enjoy a meal and Wifl use.

Lovely Conni strolls ahead along the belt road. Her bag holds her shower gear for showers after our walk.

This is the belt road around Huahine Iti, or small Huahine. There's little traffic, it's always slow traffic, and everyone waves. It's SO lush!

I've posted a few of these photo, just a scene from the road as we strolled by.

This is just a photo toward the bay side of the road, looking through the narrow band of land between the road and the water.

See what I mean? Just an anonymous peak through the trees toward the water.

This beautiful plant is taro, a staple crop to this day. It's a bit starchy for me, but served in most local homes, and everyone grows it.

This is a papaya tree. The fruit stems are hollow and I've been taught to use them as straws for drinking from coconuts.

I'm unsure of the tree's name, but these are adventitious roots. They allow the tree to gather water and nutrients from other than "normal" roots, an advantage.

Homes on Huahine are modest. Most are homemade and have dirt floors and thatched roofs, as does this. Cars are omnipresent since they live at the opposite end of Huahine from grocery stores in Fare.

Breadfruit! Infamous as the living and valued cargo of the ill-fated HMS Bounty. Again, it grows prolifically but to my pallet is starchy and difficult to prepare.

Hibiscus, a local color variety that I enjoy. The plant is used around houses here and is everywhere.

My favorite, the tiare. When I first arrived here, I wondered where the Polynesians learned of the fluorescent colors that they used. Then I saw the flowers and knew: the colors of their world are just that way, and here's a wonderful example.

This is the view from the shade at the Mahana restaurant. I uploaded 4 pages from here but just found time to create this one.