Nouvelle Caledonie Part 3 and Farewell to Noumea (17th June)

We arrived back into Port Moselle (Noumea) on Wednesday 5th June as planned.  As the weather was calm we dropped into the fuel wharf on the way in to fill up the tanks!

First stop in Noumea was the laundry which was closely followed by a trip up to the Casino Super Marche and the Thrifty Hire depot to arrange a car for the following week for our "inland tour".

We had a lovely 'traditional New Cal' dinner over at Baie de Citrons with the Zenitudians on the Saturday night.  We also did the trip over to the Tjibaou Cultural Centre which was a very impressive building however, the so called history of the Kanak's was a bit lacking.  Things never seem to change in Port Moselle and most days you seem to have 2-3 new arrivals turning up from all over the place so you are never short of someone new to speak to.

We picked up the car early on Monday morning and headed north on the only freeway in New Cal via the international airport to our first stop which is a little township called Boulouparis- we were hoping to get a cup of coffee and a croissant but no such luck so we headed off again to La Foa which again is a small township but much more set up for tourists with plenty of eating places.  By this stage it was now 1pm so rather than coffee we went to the Hotel of many hats for some lunch. 

Fort Teremba

Our resting place for Monday night is Bourail which is the second largest township in New Caledonia which sounds a lot bigger than what it really is.  Before we arrived in Bourail we dropped into have a look at Fort Teremba which is a serious fort including a guillotine!!  Next on the list of stops was Poe which is a lovely beach just down the road from Bourail and seems to be a great hang out for kite surfers.
We arrived at our digs in Bourail late in the arvo and as the owner advised the accommodation is pretty basic but the hotel is better known for its food than the rooms and we were not disappointed!



Tuesday morning and our route takes us across the island to the East coast.  We thought the villages on the West coast were small but they have nothing on the East coast townships.  The road across the Grande Terre is very hilly and windy so it takes a lot longer to get around than perhaps you would normally expect.  We dropped by a few places on the eastern side but to be honest the townships are pretty basic and mainly set up around supporting the nickel mines in the area.  We even ended up driving through a working nickel mine which is exactly what you can imagine Mars would look like!

Our trip today then takes us back to Farino which is back over on the western side of the island.  Hard to believe but it took us around 5hours to travel 200kms today which will give you an idea of the condition of the roads!.  Luckily the tourist information recommended this for our second night as we don't imagine there would be many places to stop over in the east!  The district around Farino is very picturesque and reminds us a bit of the Dandenong's but tropical.  The accommodation for the night is in a bungalow that is tucked away in the forest and we  both agree that we would have been more than happy to spend some more time around this pretty township. 
Wednesday morning and we are off to 'Le Parc des Grandes Fougeres' - which is basically a national park in the rain forest but it is very well set up and we had a great walk for a couple of hours which was great and very pretty - we even managed to get up to one of the peaks in the park at around 520mts.

Les Parc des Grandes Fougeres

After our walk it is back to Noumea and Mustang Sally!.  Thursday is provisioning day which in total takes us 3 trips to the supermarket but the boat is pretty much full again and ready to get on our way to Vanuatu.

We headed back to the Baie de Citrons on Sunday for a spot of lunch for Di's birthday again Oscar and Graciela from Zenitude.  We had a lovely meal and good company so a pretty neat way to spend your birthday in Noumea!

We are now looking at weather windows to get on our way.  At this stage it looks like we will be clearing out of Noumea on Wednesday and sailing overnight to Mare (Loyalty Islands) for the night and will then do another overnighter to Anatom which is the most southern island in Vanuatu.  We have been advised that the customs officials come out in a dug out canoe to do your customs clearance - will have to get a photo of that. 

Next stop after Anatom will be Tanna were we get to go and see the active volcano Yasur and then onto Port Vila with an ETA of the start of July.  We better make sure we get there in time as we have to meet up with Peter (Ex Sally crew from RMYS) who is holidaying in Vanuatu and we also have to pick up Miss Amanda who will be joining us for a couple of weeks of cruising around Efate.

Will write more once we arrive at Vila!