Our last visit of the day, after exploring the fascination Museum of Tahiti and the Islands is to Marae Ta’ata. It is a short drive from the museum distance-wise but it takes a long time actually due to the rush hour traffic in both directions. Luckily the people are quite courteous and let you merge into traffic or turn left as otherwise you would be stuck forever. The parking lot is small but surprisingly empty and soon we are on and about exploring.
This is not a new site, as we learn from the informational sign, it was first mapped in 1925 and excavated in 1974 and afterwards before being restored and made into a park in 2011. And it is a beautiful site covering the three marae discovered here.
It is also quite nicely landscaped with many trees that we hope hold some special birds. Unfortunately none are forthcoming even though we are hoping for some special ones like the local fruit pigeons.
Out of the three marae the first one imaginatively named Marae A has a kneeling stone in the middle and a highly sacred altar, at least according to the sign. Unfortunately you cannot get close to either of them as you cannot enter the marae you can just walk around it.
And that is what we do, we walk past Marae A and B and C, all of them are well named 🙂 and enjoy watching the beautiful landscaping while trying to understand what the individual sites are that we are seeing.
We make it to the other side of the marae and the view is quite impressive from here even though the marae are only low walls at this point. You can see how they were situated and how they were united and even some channels and altars are visible. Unfortunately the information here is quite limited so it is more imagination than actual information.
Unfortunately there is no way to get completely round the marae so we have to return via the way we came. This way however we have the opportunity to see a few zebra doves just lounging in the trees, they are quite beautiful even though they are common here. And then it is time to return, slowly, to Papeete to rest and eat dinner before our birding tour the next day.
