Mark's Pages

"Eager to escape his disgruntled crew, on 17 December Bligh accompanied Moana and David Nelson on an excursion up the Tuauru Valley. The scenery was glorious, with shady groves of breadfruit and coconut trees on the plains, and higher up the valley, small gardens of taro, bark cloth and 'ava plants. The bark-cloth plants were grown on banks ditched around and protected by stone fences, and carefully weeded; while the taro were in irrigated gardens and the yams on high plateaus that had been cleared by fire. The yams were large, sometimes 6 feet long, but because it took so much effort to dig them up, Bligh was told that they were only used when breadfruit were scarce." — Anne Salmond, Bligh

This is the Papenoo Valley; Bligh's tour of 1788 was of the Tuauru Valley nearer Matavai Bay. On contemporary Tahiti the inland valleys are almost completely deserted.