Island-Sity

Most Australian visitors spend a week in French Polynesia, staying the obligatory two nights in Tahiti due to flight schedules and then heading to either Moorea or Bora Bora or combining the two in an island-hop holiday. It's the second- or third-time traveller, hankering for the authentic Tahitian experience or a taste of Robinson Crusoe's life, who takes the seas less travelled. Although geographically located between Moorea and Bora Bora, Huahine (pronounced hoo-a-he-nay) seems a million miles away.

Its population of about 6000 has actively discouraged big development. Huahine has one resort, of 41 bungalows that can be visited only by boat. A local boy I meet on a deserted beach at the island's southern tip boasts Huahine is what Bora Bora was 30 years ago. "It's beautiful," he says, "not commercial."

His T-shirt bears a Maohi motif, a proud symbol of Tahitian identity. Huahine has a history of fierce independence and national spirit. Once the centre of Polynesian culture, it has the region's largest and best-preserved archaeological sites, revealing a civilisation dating to AD850. Huahine wasn't sighted by Europeans until 1769, when Captain Cook briefly called in. Its warriors fended off French invaders in a series of skirmishes that lasted from 1844 to 1897, when the French finally annexed the island.

Today, the population is still largely involved in fishing and agriculture, cultivating vanilla, watermelons and taro.

Nicknamed the "savage" island for its wild jungle, Huahine is two mountainous land masses separated by bays and connected by a bridge across a narrow isthmus. It's all encircled by a reef protecting a quiet lagoon dotted with motus (islets). One of the most economical and free-wheeling ways to see Huahine is to book one of the island's two self-catering complexes; both supply a motor boat and car as part of the deal.

The airport, the island's capital, Fare (pronounced far-ay), and a few shops and restaurants are on Huahine Nui (big Huahine) in the north. I'm staying in the quieter, southern Huahine Iti (little Huahine), which has the best beaches. My digs are a garden bungalow at the quaint Pension Mauarii, whose builders obviously had a love affair with wood. My terrace has a huge table hewn from an enormous tree trunk and my four-poster bed is quite the curiosity, its frame fashioned from varnished tree branches.

I drive around in my rented Renault for three days, taking the one coastal road that loops around both island halves and links eight tiny villages - four in the north and four in the south. I barely see another car.

From my village base, Parea, I head to Anini marae, a beachside open-air temple that dates to several hundred years ago. Dedicated to Oro, the god of war, it was once not only Huahine Iti's social centre but the site of sacrifices, including human ones, or so the story goes.

The only village stirring is Maroe, which sits on the edge of the lovely deep-water bay of the same name. A cruise ship has dropped anchor and American passengers are being ferried ashore. The nearby Rauheama Snack, the only independent restaurant on Huahine Iti, is open for business.

I stop for lunch, crunching over the coral floor to sit under pareos (sarongs) hanging from the thatched ceiling. There's no menu; the meal is whatever the French-speaking Tahitian owner is cooking. Today, it's sizzling chicken, poisson cru (the Tahitian national dish of raw tuna marinated in lime juice and coconut milk), salad, vegetables and chips. Crossing the bridge to Huahine Nui, I take a right turn to Maeva, the island's former royal capital, where generations of chieftains ruled long before Europeans came.

The shore and nearby hill are littered with stone structures - old fortifications, house foundations and the remains of temples, their basalt standing stones resembling a mini-Stonehenge. What passes for action in Huahine takes place in Fare, the island's biggest village. Nightlife means pulling up a seat at one of the food caravans (called roulottes) or a bar stool at the New Te Marara restaurant to watch the sun sink into the sea and silhouette Bora Bora in the distance.

Things are even sleepier in the Tuamotu Archipelago to the north-east. To reach it, I fly back to Tahiti (170 kilometres) and take a one-hour flight to the Tuamotu group's main island, Rangiroa, which is 354 kilometres away.

Renting a car would be an extraordinary indulgence. The only road in Rangiroa is 9.6 kilometres long. It runs from Avatoru Pass in the north to Tiputa Pass in the south and has been built on big lumps of coral and sand, each joined by a small bridge.

Unlike mountainous Huahine, Rangiroa and its 76 neighbouring atolls are completely flat. Rangi, as those in the scuba-diving circuit call it, is a grouping of 415 motus strung together in a misshapen circle that harbours a lagoon so large the entire island of Tahiti could fit in it. All the action takes place on or beneath this blue expanse, which is about 72 kilometres long and 25 kilometres wide.

Divers come to "shoot the pass", said to be the ultimate adrenalin rush. At precisely the right time, they are dropped off on the ocean side of either of the two passes so as to be to be swept through with the current and an amazing array of marine life into the lagoon. Napoleon wrasses, hawksbill turtles, manta and eagle rays, dolphins and sharks eagerly await the little fish that come whooshing along with the tide.

Non-divers can view the underwater menagerie on drift-snorkelling trips or from glass-bottom boats. I opt to watch the dolphins frolic from a deckchair on the terrace of my lovely pension, Relais de Josephine. As on Huahine, the bulk of accommodation comprises family-run pensions of just a few bungalows, offering varying levels of comfort.

The only sizeable resort on Rangiroa, the 63-bungalow Hotel Kia Ora, has closed for a rebuild and won't reopen until 2012. My hostess, Denise Josephine Caroggio, who came to French Polynesia from Paris 30 years ago, presides over just six bungalows and serves delicious three-course dinners under the stars.

I rent one of her bicycles to explore Rangiroa's sole 9.6-kilometre road. Along the way

I call into the Paul Gauguin pearl farm (pearls have put the Tuamotu economy back on the map) and a wine-tasting cellar that belongs to French Polynesia's only vineyard, Vin de Tahiti. The grapes are grown on a small motu in the lagoon and produce red, white, rose and a drop named Coral White.

Rangi's blue lagoon would win over even the most diehard cynic.It's a "lagoon within a lagoon" and is reached after a one-hour boat ride and a short wade across shallow waters to a coral and sand islet, through a maze of harmless, black-tipped reef sharks keen to see if we have any morsels for them.

There's nothing to do but splash in the turquoise waters and doze under palm trees until our boatman-cook calls to say the fish barbecue, complete with fried coconut bread, is about to be served. This, as with everything else in this part of the world, happens at precisely island time.