Nouvelle-Calédonie – New Caledonia

Now, if there is a gem in the world we just stumbled on it! As you probably remember we had to decide when to leave NZ and where to go in 45 minutes in Brisbane airport. Verdict: we definitely blew it with the length of stay in NZ, but boy did we get the NC part right!

In one sentence: heaven on earth. And we even saw capital only, Noumea. Apparently nicer beaches are on islands on the north, but not as good diving. And is it the case with the two of us, diving takes precedence… well, pretty much over anything.

So, NC is a foreign territory of France. Not 100% sure what that means politically or economically, but in reality if you are from EU you don’t even have to fill in the customs card. Pretty neat! And even better, you have French shops with French food and wines (finally the good stuff after 6 months!). We had best croissants and pate since Paris! Not sure if this was a healthy thing (yes, we gorged), but definitely enjoyable.

General feel is as if somebody picked up a little piece of France and placed it in the Pacific over sixteen thousand kilometres from France. You get real towns with real roads, working public transportation, solid buildings and beautiful walks next to the beach. Local have it figured out for sure. Tons of speed and sail boats just prove the point. Almost too good to be true!

Diving. Nouvelle-Calédonie has second largest reef in the world (after Barrier in Oz) and apparently largest lagoon. Best diving spots are passages where all this water goes in and out: Boulari and Dumbéa passes. Coral is nothing really to write home about, but there is fish there. Not in abundance, but nice. Even some sharks and last but DEFINITELY not least, manta rays (yes, Nives did have that grin on her face). Down point is that water is cold, well by our standards now anyway – 24 to 25 deg Celsius. Not the best place in the world we dived, but definitely nice.

Beaches are nice, sand with palm trees and NO sand-flies. Soon we realized why – every single night they have a tractor that combs all beaches. Result: no tiny blood-sucking monsters. Where there is a will there is a way, we say. A lot of places could learn a thing or two from these guys.

We thoroughly enjoyed out time here and only thing we were sorry about was that we planned to stay only one week (damn!!!). We actually wold like to come back one day, it is just that good. Advice from Nives: if you ever by mistake buy a ticket for NZ you don’t need to actually stay there – just buy another one to Noumea and you are sorted.

Some more pictures here.