Day 4 Ile des Pins

Hope Springs Eternal! – surely our holiday will get better – after all we are off on an excursion today. However the day does not get off to a good start as a seagull lands on our table at breakfast – I hate birds up close, and make a fool of myself.
We pack up for the excursion, which I understand involves an outrigger trip, a short walk and a pool of tropical fish.
We are picked up by the shuttle driver – who appears to be heading in the wrong direction. He drops us God knows where, and the extent of the tour guiding is a finger pointed down an estuary. We head off looking for an office or an assembly point. Then we see the sign to Upi Bay. I remember this is where the outrigger trip is. But were we supposed to go this way??? It was about an hour’s walk through forest and then we finally saw the turquoise sea. We stepped down off the track onto sinking sandy mudflats. We cautiously struggled along the beachline hunting for the outrigger connection. The place was totally deserted. Nothing for it, but to turn back again.
Duncan tried to persuade me to go back down some side track, but after a few terse words we kept on returning down the track. Although the bush was pretty and the track quite easy it was pretty much the same sort of forest throughout. Finally we make it back, and after taking some advice using my limited French skills. (Nous sommes perdu!- we are lost) we make a crossing over the shallow estuary and took a short path to the Piscene Naturelle. It was a large, shallow pool with some coral and fish just everywhere, weaving in and out of our legs, some large, some small, some brightly coloured orange and purple, many just sandy coloured. This is definitely today’s highlight. Some Japanese tourists who have actually managed a proper excursion have bought bread to feed the fish with. We were amused by the Korean tourists with their lifejackets on to snorkel even though the water was never over your head.

We then returned to the pickup point – exhausted, not so much by the walk, but by the stress of not knowing where we were. On our return we were asked if we had enjoyed our trip to the Baie D’Oro (Bay of Gold). We replied we never got there.
After a bath or shower and a rest we set off to a restaurant at Kuto Bugny. We decide to go before the sunset at 5.30pm, but dinner is not served until 7pm,so we have a few drinks overlooking Kuto Beach and Harbour. We both have duck, and thanks to the handy torch I have brought, we make our way home in the pitch black of a tropical night. One small hitch as Duncan hits an overhanging branch.
A replay of the Dutch-Uruguay game is on – with a French commentary, but that’s OK.
We are getting used to the squeaks of the lizard that lives in the aircon.

Day 3 Ile des Pins

Tuesday 6th July 2010
Duncan went for a good run before breakfast. Then we went for a walk to Kuto sussing out other places to eat at and walk to. The torch I packed (hint on internet) may prove useful. We investigated getting a rental car.
By eleven o’clock we had signed up for our rental car.
First stop at Vao, where we finally found the ATM and the shop (sort of in someone’s front room). No beer as it is not sold to the Kanaks – Ile des Pins is dry except for the resorts and gites (guest houses) – but we buy cheese, ham paste, tuna, crackers and iced tea. Next stop is at the Bay of Joseph where we see outrigger canoes ready for use.

Then we drive inland through lush vegetation liberally dotted with Pine trees.
It is a short walk to Grotte de La Reine Hortense. This is where Queen Hortense rested or hid (both stories are told) when she ruled the island in the 1880’s. A large bush clad cave opening with rocks as stalactites hanging down and a pure stream following through it. The area is beautifully kept with wild flowers and plantings tidied up, and this was the highlight of our day.


Gadji is the most northern point with soft muddy sand on its small beaches. We have some lunch here.

Now down the western side of the island. We take a side road down to another bay. It has potholes up to a foot deep, but we also see the roading machines here and a bulldozer and a truck of gravel, just off the barge I would say, on its way as we head home. The beach at the end of this road is very pretty, and I make use of a small toilet – no toilet paper, just a bidet hose. Worked for me! Very refreshing if a little damp.


The next stop was in the area where the French Convicts were deported to from Paris after defying the order to surrender to the Prussians (I knew there was some point to me learning about the Franco Prussian Wars in History!). There is a melancholic letter from one convict roughly translated – “Here I am in Paradise, but what is it worth when I am separated from my family?” It is very moving.
The convent and the gaol are very overgrown, but the Water Tower is still functional and the cemetery is well tended – only 2 out of the 240 graves have names. The others have been lost.

We drive back through Kuto where there is a boulangerie and a bakehouse. On round passed the wharf, filled up with petrol and returned to the hotel. I had a little nap, while Duncan did a sudoku and went and did some snorkelling, but the sunshine was patchy so it wasn’t all that warm so I didn’t. We went for drinks at the outdoor bar, but a cool wind drives us back to our Fare (like Fale – our separate unit) and catch up on the News of the World before going to dinner. Dinner was not the greatest – Duncan citing the taro and coconut as the worst offender. We are told the boat will be bringing fresh supplies tomorrow.
We have discovered that we have a pesky lizard in the airconditioner. Let’s hope we get some sleep tonight.

New Caledonia Day 2

Monday 5th July 2010
The bed was very hard. The shower head required some expertise that we were not acquainted with and Duncan drenched his pyjamas.
The manager was very agreeable and took us to the airport where we got the shuttle to Noumea (XPF6000 or about $96). It took about 45mins.
We were picked up by the Arc en Ciel (Rainbow travel agent) people and left our luggage with them and set off for the New Caledonia Museum.
The museum was very well set out, with a preponderance of penis shaped objects, and a very jolly collection of fine woven penis sheaths. There is also an exhibition of intricately carved bamboo and photos of colonials – rarely smiling. A school class was being taught local dances to drumming with very enthusiastic responses.
We found an internet café and sent an angry email to Elliot Travel, followed by a visit to the Post Office to buy some stamps for my postcards.
We walked to the large park – Place des Cocotiers (Place of the Coconut Palms), then down to the wharves, hunting for a nice place to have lunch. We ended up at a not so nice place – their idea of a panini is to toast the French stick.

After lunch we went walking to the Bir Hakiem where there was a war memorial. Then up a hill to St Joseph’s Cathedral which is a huge, serene wooden building with the odd Kanak (Native New Caledonian) asleep on the pews.

We went back down into town, and stopped for a beer, then back to the Place des Cocotiers where Duncan read the Listener while I did a bit of shopping – being Monday in a French Territory must shops were shut.
We walked back along the docks – the water was teeming with tropical fish. A few big spots of rain, so we retreated to McDonald’s for a tea/coffee which was very difficult to procure owing to some problems with a machine. At least the loos are clean. The Arc en Ciel people organised us a taxi to the Magenta Domestic Airport where we catch the plane to Ile des Pins. The “all on, find your own seat” works well and means a fast getaway. We are soon settled at the resort and enjoying our evening meal which begins with snails.

Noumea Day 1

Sunday 4th July 2010
Anne took us to the airport, with Duncan suffering the beginnings of a migraine. We had applied for an upgrade but we didn’t get one. The overseas flight is a code share with Air Calin – definitely French as when they handed out the small bottles of wine they asked you if you wanted two!
After a good flight we came through customs to see a man with a board and our name on it. Went to the transfer desk, but a transfer to Tieti Tera just wasn’t a possibility. Waited and waited. Many phone calls decided that the transfer would be tomorrow afternoon.
Put up in the very substandard Toutontotel. All evening with nowhere to sit in the room. The meal was OK – the anger had made us hungry. The Cote de Rhone wine made us a bit more mellow. Then back to the grotty room with the grotty wellworn blanket on the bed. I burned my hand on the lampshade which had to be on all the time as the old bedspread that was strung up over the window could not be drawn.

What’s more it rained!
It rained hard.
It seems to us that the promised transfer was from the local airport, not the International Airport three hours away. Night fell very early, and what with the migraine and red wine, we were not inclined to hire a car for a journey that involved sections that were not advised for night driving as they are mainly one way.
That evening, Duncan had a brain wave and we were able to cancel the trip to Tieti Tera and head straight to Ile des Pins.