Travel

In a place with a violent warrior past, Carol West mixes with easygoing locals armed only with necklaces and tasty cakes.

The co-pilot holds a newborn babe as the mother carefully lowers herself into the seat for the 40-minute flight from Rarotonga to Mangaia. Across a narrow aisle, a stocky man sprawls uncomfortably in his seat while ladies, their glossy hair decorated with jasmine, fan themselves with the plane's safety instructions.

Departing Rarotonga, we fly over the skeleton of the Chinese-built stadium being constructed for the Mini Pacific Games this September, before swooping out over the Pacific Ocean.

Before dropping lightly onto Mangaia's short coral runway, we pass over towering ramparts of rock, dramatic makatea battlements that protect the island's fertile heartland and central volcanic cone. Jagged and impenetrable, makatea, or fossilised coral, is a formidable feature of the landscape in Mangaia, the second largest and oldest in the Cook Islands group.

Composed of calcareous limestone, sometimes more than 60 metres high, it surrounds the island like a giant coil of razor wire. With its colourful history of inter-tribal fighting, we're to hear many stories about battles for these verdant valleys, fishing, faith and family over the next few days.

Virtually undiscovered by tourism, attracting just 130 visitors last year, Mangaia is off the radar. What it does offer travellers, however, is an authentic opportunity to get to know the unhurried pace of life in a warm-hearted island community and experience genuine hospitality, things that are increasingly difficult to find nowadays.

"In the 1950s, population numbers were around 3000 but today only around 550 remain," the island's part-time tourism officer, Taoi Nooroa, says. Nooroa lived in Darwin for 16 years before returning to his island home, where, historically, life was always a battle.

"Traditional land allocation was established through battle; the fighting was always about land and women," Nooroa says with a grin.

We're standing in the remnants of the Orongo marae, where chiefs were invested, the seat of political order established and human sacrifices made to the god Rongo.

Following Christian conversion in the early 19th century, symbols of the old gods were destroyed, including the marae, but poking around the site we uncover human bone fragments, poignant reminders of a bygone time.

"With its taro fields in the fertile valleys and the inhospitable makatea dominating the clifftops, the spear ruled and Mangaia operated on a winner-takes-all system," Nooroa says. "We have an old wives' saying: 'When you eat your pudding, you turn your eyes to the cliff.' In other words, enjoy it while you can before the next challenge from the vanquished occupying the barren highlands."

Despite its warrior past, Mangaia is a serene place and you can trek for kilometres along its coastal coral track, passing well-tended taro patches, pineapple and vegetable plantations without meeting another soul. With the makatea forest to one side and lagoon glimpses to the other, we seek out narrow cuttings through the original reef, which lead to coral sandy coves and secluded bathing spots.

Floating in crystal water as the Pacific Ocean pounds against the outer reef, we gaze on a craggy coastline sculpted over eons. A family arrives at a neighbouring cove and children plunge into the bath-warm water. Bearing a long bamboo fishing pole, father and son pick their way across the lagoon to the reef to fish the Pacific as it plumes and cascades into the lagoon.

Faith may be the glue that binds Mangaian society but the missionaries received some rough treatment at the hands of these fiercely independent islanders at their first conversion attempt in 1823. Their task was made easier in 1824 following a plague that swept through the island and this, coupled with a local prophecy, made the London Missionary Society's timing heaven-sent. Continued…