New Caledonia / Vanuatu

The next South Pacific port of call on our cruise from Vancouver to Auckland was New Caledonia and it was a shiny gem. Currently, New Caledonia is an overseas territory of France. There will be a referendum in the next couple of years to determine if they will become independent. In the meantime, there is a heavy French influence on life here, blended with Melanesian culture. It’s a delightful place. The ship visited two islands, Lifou, a rural island with vanilla farms and a gorgeous beach where we had a great snorkel and Grand Terre, a large, incredibly diverse island where we only visited the city of Nouméa, in the far south. There is a large mountain range running down the centre of Grand Terre, with cattle farms (and cowboys!) in the north and fruit farms on the east side.

Nouméa was impressive. Clean and cosmopolitan with two beaches and a good harbour right in town.

There is a long, very popular, waterside recreational path that runs for miles lined with beautiful palm trees.

The huge lagoon that encloses the town was designated a World Heritage Site in 2008 and provides opportunity for lots of water sport from sailing to wind and kite surfing. It was exhilarating to watch the speeds reached by the surfers in the strong breeze.

We had a very busy one-day visit to Nouméa . First stop was a visit to Le Marché, the early-morning market just adjacent to the marina. Wonderful displays of fresh produce were mixed with just-landed fish, fresh-baked breads and cakes, olives, meats, honey and arts and crafts.

Next up was a ride on the tourist train, Le Petit Train, to many scenic viewpoints. The scenery was absolutely spectacular with views of the World Heritage Site lagoon.

We followed the train tour with a visit to a really good aquarium, Aquarium des Lagons, which has many displays of species unique to New Caledonia. There is a simulated night environment so bioluminescent corals can be viewed. Due to the size of the reefs around New Caledonia, France is actually one of the top four countries in the world with the largest barrier reefs, Only Indonesia, Philippines and Australia have larger reefs.

This fish was fascinating to watch.

Look at the spectacular colouration on this lobster.

A bright blue starfish was a unique wonder. There was an entire tank of always intriguing seahorses which the aquarium breeds.

We’ve seen quite a few corals all over the world, but, none as colourful as these! They almost didn't look real.

To round out the day we paid a visit to a very French patisserie and enjoyed a delicious café au lait with a slice of cake, of the same quality as you’d find in Paris. Definitely New Caledonia deserves another, longer visit to see more of its many charms.

By contrast, our brief visit to Vanuatu was somewhat of a disappointment. The guidebook described a country with many “best-in-the-world” experiences: two really active volcanoes, historic cannibal sites, blue holes, a sunken luxury liner to dive on, dugong and turtle viewing, beaches and an ancient living culture .As it turned out, on this cruise, we were only going to stop for nine hours at Port Vila, the capital city on the main island of Efate. All the “best” attractions were located on other islands in the chain, so, we were disappointed before we even left the ship. Leaving the ship to walk to town, we had to go through a very long gauntlet of tour and taxi touts who were quite aggressive and it wasn’t very pleasant. We ran into this in other countries, but, at least there the sales pitch was more organized with posted prices and maps and once you said no that was pretty much the end of it. Here, there were large groups of men all hanging about in your path and you were on your own to find your way through, or, “make a deal”.  We heard later that two older ladies were so upset by this behaviour that they just turned around and went back to the ship. 

It was a long, hot walk into town, but, once there, it was quite a pleasant town with a good central market and waterfront area with many tourist activities available. We did a circuit of the town. Away from the waterfront, we went past an area of poverty-stricken tin shack residences and at least three jails. The jails looked like an absolute hell on earth with prisoners reaching arms out through dank, dark, thick-barred cells, completely open to the outdoors, amidst all the heat and dust of the prison compound fringed with razor wire. So, there is trouble in paradise, but, although these comments sound really negative we’d definitely travel back to Vanuatu as it has a lot to offer that interests us. In future, we’d avoid the cruise ship dock and travel independently, mostly to the outer islands.