Taking Tahiti’s freighter to paradise

ARANUI 3 makes a spectacular sight at tiny Tahuata, the smallest island in the Marquesas.

WHILE holidaymakers by their thousands pile weekly onto the biggest ships they can find to get them to the biggest ports those ships can get into in the closest parts of the South Pacific, there are others taking in increasing numbers to much farther-flung realms of this magical region, and for a cruise of a certainly far different kind.

For they’re heading to islands whose ports make Australian hamlets look like cities, and with onboard travelling companions counted not in their thousands, but 200 or fewer.

And their ship doesn’t scale-in in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes, but at a meagre 3,800 – and is a basically cargo-carrier at that.

Every fortnight this unusual little vessel named Aranui 3 sails 13-nights out of Tahiti’s Papeete for the remote Marquesas Islands, and rather than entertainment aboard being ritzy showroom, an ice spectacular or big bands, aboard this one it’s more an impromptu, after-dinner foot-tapping, drum-beating, guitar-twanging and vocal celebration put on by the ship’s enthusiastic Polynesian crew – who enjoy it as much as do their passengers.

Even better, this “Freighter to Paradise” as she’s dubbed, calls at sixteen ports on nine islands, and remarkably shore-side island excursions are included in the price and can feature lunches in local restaurants, or picnics on secluded, almost-Utopian beaches.

And they can include barbecued reef lobsters, whole pigs baked in underground ovens, raw fish “cooked” by marinating in lime juice and coconut milk, the local speciality of curried goat, and bountiful tray-loads of freshest tropical fruits…

Back on board, enjoy a wine as part of dinner – and because you’ll get hot and possibly sweaty in the tropics, they’ll even do your laundry for you at no cost. Plus they’ve a cooling pool, a gym for working-off cruise-added kilos, and two well-stocked bars – but, sorry, you’ll have to pay at these.

Aranui 3’s initial forerunner started taking mere handfuls of passengers on its lifeline freighter services to the far-flung Marquesas in 1959. When passenger-demand outstripped their then-ship in 1990, the owners bought a larger Aranui 2, and when that too outlived its usefulness, they had Aranui 3 custom-built in 2003.

And next year an even larger, 260-passenger Aranui 5 will be replacing Aranui 3 (she’ll be Aranui 5, because to Chinese island traders, the number 4 is the same as 13 is to Westerners.)

Aranui’s ports of calls are a magic-carpet ride through some of the most remote and picturesque islands anywhere, places of tiny communities whose only visitors are occasional ocean-going yachties and those aboard Aranui, of extraordinarily rugged landscapes with volcanic lava cones frozen like church steeples in eons past, and the most important Tikis (human-like stone carvings) outside Easter Island.

Where skilled woodcarvers, tapa-cloth makers and those who make soaps heavily-scented with the tiare flower (like a gardenia) and perfumes scented with tiare, coconut oil and sandalwood, sell Aranui’s guests their products, and where vast caves, jungle-clad ruins of ancient civilizations, and atolls the largest in the world await the inquisitive…

Guests can visit a replica of artist Paul Gauguin’s “House of Pleasure” (he died from the complications of syphilis, alcohol abuse and a suspected overdose of morphine) and his simple grave under a frangipani tree that’s marked merely Paul Gauguin 1903, walk the island that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s “In the South Seas,” another where Herman Melville jumped ship from his whaler and wrote “Moby Dick,” where Thor Heyerdahl penned “Fatu Hiva”… and Nuku Hiva where they filmed TV’s reality “Survivor: Marquesas.”

Get to understand local culture with locals who’ll happily share tales of their lives, and back aboard Aranui enjoy rainbow cocktails as you count the stars in the clearest unpolluted skies… and dine on a magical blend of Island with French.

With Aranui 3 being replaced in December 2015, Ultimate Travel Group has “farewell Aranui 3” packages on select dates mid-2015. From $8,299pp twin-share ex-Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane includes return economy air, 13-nights Aranui Standard Cabin, all meals, shore excursions and wine with lunch and dinner aboard, 4-nights pre/post cruise accommodation in Papeete with Continental breakfasts, Tahiti transfers, pre-payable taxes, and luxury car transfers to and from Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane airports (up to 35km each way.)

Full package details Ultimate Travel Group 1300 485 846; for details about Aranui, www.aranuicruises.com.au
David Ellis, ellispr@bigpond.net.au