Westworld Alberta
Issue link: http://westworldmagazine.ama.ab.ca/i/198651
darryl leniuk After settling into the luxurious InterContinental Moorea Resort, I soon figure out why the 1962 and 1984 versions of Mutiny on the Bounty were mostly filmed on Moorea. It's nearly unspoiled, as the lush, green vista from the 240-metre-high Belvedere viewpoint, facing sacred Rotui Mountain, reveals. I spend the next four days here. If I'm not snorkelling with stingrays and black-tip reef sharks (reaching out to touch the velvet-skinned former but not the toothy latter), I'm guzzling pineapple liqueur like a hard-partying mutineer at the Jus de Fruits de Moorea distillery. Later, I participate in a traditional javelin-throwing contest at a local school, then devour roast pork and gawk at dramatic fire-dancing at the Tiki Village – where, coincidentally, Dustin Hoffman and his wife renewed their vows in 1994. Yes, things have changed since the Bounty's day. Relishing the ocean spray as I zoom around Opunohu Bay on a jet ski in glorious sunshine, I reflect that this would have been an effective getaway vehicle for the mutineers. Of the original 19, 10, including Christian, would die in the South Seas by or before 1800. Just one survived till 1829, on Pitcairn Island. The others were captured: three drowned in a shipwreck en route to England, three were hanged and two were pardoned. Yet the Bounty's legacy lives on in Tahiti, and it's well worth exploring. W Paradise incarnate: scenes from Moorea, a 134-square-kilometre island off Tahiti's northwest coast. w i n t e r 2 0 13 | w e s t w o r l d A l b e r tA 21 p12-21_Tahiti.indd 21 13-10-15 9:50 AM