The Marquesas Islands lie some fourteen hundred kilometres north-east of Tahiti, and they are the most remote inhabited islands in French Polynesia. Nuku Hiva, the largest, is a jagged tropical mountain of valleys, ridges and sheer green walls that fall into the sea. Its people carved stone and wood with great skill, and the island still has ceremonial platforms, called paepae, and giant stone figures, tiki, hidden in the forest. The Marquesas are being proposed for recognition as a mixed cultural and natural site, which is where the name of this point comes from.
Taiohae, the main village, lies in a great collapsed volcanic crater that forms a bay, with a waterfront and a cathedral that holds carved wooden panels from several islands. Herman Melville deserted a whaling ship here in 1842, spent weeks in the neighbouring Taipivai valley, and used the experience for his first novel, Typee. Across the island, on the north coast, Hatiheu has a beautiful bay and a ceremonial platform called Kamuihei, and the roads that link the villages rise over passes with wild views.
This is a place where a motorbike is both ideal and unavailable. The island roads are short, steep and winding, some paved and some concrete strips, with sharp hairpins and surfaces that can wash out in heavy rain. Hire bikes are not a given, so look for a local pension that can arrange transport, or travel by four-wheel drive with a guide. The weather is warm all year, with a wetter period from December to April, and trade winds that keep the air from feeling heavy.
Taiohae has a small town centre with a few shops, a market, fuel from a small station, and several family pensions where you eat fish, breadfruit, goat in coconut milk and raw fish in coconut. The village of Taiohae itself is only just over a thousand people, so choose your supplies with care, and expect prices to be higher than in Tahiti because everything arrives by ship. Mosquitoes and the tiny no-no sand flies can be fierce near the beaches, so carry repellent. Respect sacred sites, ask before entering any ceremonial ground, and do not remove stones or carvings.