Whew! 4th Blog posted today.

I hope you can scroll back and read the others, but I thought I'd better wrap up this trip.

Saturday 10th July 2010
We have had rain and barking dogs in the night, but still wake up refreshed.
Duncan goes up to the office to pay, there is a little discussion, but we do not need to pay extra apart from our evening meals and drinks. The shuttle arrives and we get to the airport on time. A good flight to Noumea and to our surprise Arc en Ciel put on a transfer to the hotel. It is too early to check in, but we leave our luggage and take the Noumea Explorer to the zoo.

We did the native to New Caledonia section including some extremely large pigeons whose bass cooing sounded like the scary booming noise we heard at Queen Hortense’s Cave. Also Flying Foxes, a silver pheasants and peacocks, both white and blue.

Another highlight was the water dragons – thank goodness our little lizard in the aircon was just a few inches long.

We rejoined the Noumea Explorer and continued with our journey to Palm Beach where we had a late lunch – Croque Monsieur (like a toasted sandwich) and a burger with some delicious fruit smoothies. No baguette!!!
Then we walked along the Anse Vata to our hotel. The rain was limited to squally showers, but hundreds of wind-surfers and para-sailors were out on the bay, careening along at a great rate of knots.
At Casa del Sol we have an apartment – not that we need it now, but use the drier to dry Duncan’s running gear after he has been for a long run up the promenade while I go and book us into an Italian restaurant. We are really looking forward to it, but the French don’t do Italian very well. The entrees are so large we don’t enjoy our mains.
The bed is quite hard, the night is quite noisy – mainly wind, and we sleep fitfully until the wakeup call at 4.50am.

Day 6

Very cloudy today which is a disappointment after the glorious day we had yesterday. Duncan does another good run, and we head for breakfast – guiltily taking cheese and salami off the buffet for our lunch. After breakfast we check on the menu at the gite next door – Nataiwatch. It seems very friendly and informative, so we book in. Then we walk up the road to the boutique again as I have decided I want the pink and purple tshirt as well. We walk back along the beach.
We sit out on the loungers at the beach with our books until lunchtime. It’s mainly cloudy weather so neither of us go swimming, but Duncan returns later on for a snorkel. The man comes and attempts to fix our lock. This has been broken throughout our stay, and the little safe in the room can’t be used either.
We both finish our books! and then walk over in the dark to Nataiwatch for a beer and then dinner. Duncan has the mussels and I have the entrecote (faux fillet) and we have two half bottles of an excellent Bordeau. Surprisingly we are the only ones in for dinner, but the ambience is pretty relaxed, and the crème caramel is excellent!
I watch a program (en francais) about the French shoe industry, and then we turn in for an early night to help reset our time clocks for an early start tomorrow and an even earlier start the day after.

Day 5 in New Caledonia

What would go wrong today??
Duncan woke up to watch the world cup semi, and Spain won against Germany. Then he went for a run while I got up at a leisurely pace. After breakfast Duncan went to suss out dinner at the Gite next door, but since it features fish and taro it doesn’t really sound ideal.
Meanwhile I go to the boutique by the port where they make jewellery and screenprint tshirts and pareo. I buy a tshirt and a necklace and spend all my money.
When I arrive back Duncan has had the bad spot of the day – the manager has been, demanding money. Duncan tells him politely that he has paid, and he must recover the money from the travel agency.
It is brilliantly fine and we head down to the beach for our first real day of blobbing out. After a while we take a kayak. Some fish visible in the coral, but there is a surprising swell in the middle of the bay. Our midriff muscles are unaccustomed to paddling so we spend some time drifting over the reef.
The Beach Hut has run out of snorkels, and gives me a mismatch of flippers, on of which doesn’t fit, so I use Duncan’s snorkel and my crocs. The reef is quite close to shore and it is easy to get to the many fish – black and white, yellow, shimmery blue, but I didn’t see any of those lovely purple and orange ones of the Piscene Naturelle.
A late lunch of crackers, tuna and cheese – and a glass of wine followed by reading and snoozing before we returned to the beach. Duncan stayed down there until the very brief sunset just after 5pm.
We caught up with the World News before heading off to dinner at our restaurant. We both began with salads, then tuna for Duncan and chicken for me, and a decent bottle of red wine from Chinon. We are both engrossed in our books until bed time.

Premature Deafness

Duncan has always had a bit of a hearing problem, but it is with great sadness that I have to report it has got so much worse. And the cause - Ear candy!. Yes Duncan has joined the world of iphone users. Now he walks around all day "plugged in" to the National problem, and I have to wave at him to get him to take them out if I want to have a conversation with him.
And for a total change of image he has large black glasses, which reminds me of someone from the movies in the 50's - not sure who yet. Maybe Michael Caine.

Meanwhile I remain much the same!