Blogs from South Province, New Caledonia, Oceania - page 13

EN FRANCAIS PLUS BAS MORE PHOTOS HERE As soon as we set foot in Jean's place in Noumea, we were off again to party. Jean's girlfriend is a couples dancing aficionada and we hopped all evening from rock'n roll to swing, salsa, waltz, tango and whatever else, genuinely undisturbed by our total ignorance of the conventional steps, and fully enjoying making total fools of ourselves on the dance floor. Sunday was as the Lord had intended it to be: a day for resting, napping, uploading photos, eating croissants at 3pm and doing nothing. Well, yes, we did pack for the mystery trip to a mystery island that Chris had arranged, and quite efficiently at that: 7 bags of all sizes for 3 days and 2 people (for the record, I travel for one year with one ... read more

Thursday, March 06, 2008 Today we were in Noumea, New Caledonia. We docked about 7:00am and it did take awhile for the ship to be cleared by immigration. We had not chosen a shore excursion as we had at one time thought about doing a scuba dive trip. When I got burned on my leg I knew I did not want to put it in salt water and it is a good thing we decided not to go because the weather was overcast, with just a few sprinkles. The weather had been overcast here for about 3 weeks - they said they had horrible weather - and so the water was probably pretty cloudy, so visibility would be low. We got off the ship and wandered around the town but we had wanted to go ... read more

Wednesday, March 5, 2008 Today is another sea day as we are about half way to Noumea. The calendar of events is packed. We began our day by attending the lecture on Noumea. Now know what to do, and not do; what to see, and not see. After the Noumea lecture we had the next Explorations Speakers Series lecture. This time it was by a Colonel David Horner - Australia’s military historian. He has an incredible resume as a student, professor, veteran, author/editor (26 books), and consultant to TV programs. His talk was titled, “War Comes to Paradise Japan Strikes!” Basically his talk was on the planning to attack Pearl Harbor. From this talk I went to play the game “Lost at Sea” where you are in the lifeboat and have 15 things and you must ... read more

Apres la folie de Mardi Gras ce weekend, nous allons nous reposer en Nouvelle Caledonie (NC) et arrivons donc dans sa capitale Noumea. A premiere vue, Noumea n'est pas vraiment le paradis qu'on s'imagine. Mais quand on regarde de plus pres, on decouvre une culture et une societe interessante, avec ses problemes et ses bons points aussi. On est alles faire une excursion dans la Province Sud ou Francois notre guide nous a montre des plantes et des arbres datant de plus de 50 millions d'annees. On a aussi vu un cagou, oiseau endemique a la NC. Quelques paysages magnifiques et des gens tres sympas. Malheureusement pour nous, le temps n'etait pas de la fete et il a plu beaucoup cette semaine a Noumea. Mais on y etait pour une semaine alors on en profite! Le ... read more

Our excitement of getting to visit New Caledonia dampened a bit when we started researching how much it costs to stay there! Definitely it has imported prices as well as the language from France, and thats a real shame for backpackers. Új-Kaledónia látogatása iránt érzett lelkesedésünket kissé lehűtötte mikor rájöttünk, hogy milyen sokba is fog ez nekünk kerülni. Nemcsak a nyelvet, de az árakat is importálták Franciaországból. With only a short time available we opted to visit the most talked about location in New Caledonia, the remote island of L’lle des Pins (Isle of Pines). The only way to get there is by ferry which runs only 3 days a week, making the island paradise feel very isolated. We had a fun journey as the cyclone that had affected us in Fiji had passed nearby and ... read more