Today started with a day of discovery. I wondered where the mini bar was and the fact that we had no coffee or tea. Instead I discovered that we had only settled into 1/2 of our hotel room! I opened another door in the entrance hall the find another lounge, mini bar, couch that folded to a double bed and a second bathroom! Imagine that, two stupid travel agents (yup that’s us).
So after a well deserved coffee se set off to return Le Shit to the Rental Car Company. It was about now that I discovered that in Numea all the streets in the central part of town are one way…I got hopelessly lost but managed to find the rental car place just in time as I had only a 24 hire on the car.
Nomea takes on a different look on a Saturday morning, the markets and the mix of Kanak Culture and French flavor gives a whole new dimension to the town centre. After the traditional souvenir T-shirt hunt and feasting on watermelon we found the #1 bus and headed back to the bay. On route We stopped and decided to take a water taxi to a small Island in the bay were the snorkeling is said to be fantastic. Our French skipper had a glass bottom boat so se were able to look at the reef with a spectacular view.. To our suprize he tapped on the side of the boat and all these beautiful brightly colored fish swam up to the boat. We were fortunate enough to hand feed the fish with French bread sticks before going ashore with the snorkel gear hired from our skipper. This little Island was fantastic and the coral was so colorful. The highlight was swimming with a sea snake! After a small pizza and a local beer from the bar in the island we headed back to the hotel room. We were both exhausted, but needed to find somewhere to eat, as the restaurant in the hotel was super expensive! 40.00AUD for a continental breakfast (that’s per person)
We found a great Pasta Place right across from the beach and gorged ourselves on Garlic Prawns and cabonara before a romantic walk along the beach and back to the hotel for a good nights sleep.
Day 3.
We I feel like we have only just got here and today we fly home, but before one more walk to the bay and a swim. We rose at 9.00am and walked about 2km around the bays to our favorite part of the beach. No Ice Cream Vendor today, but the water was so warm. After two hours of swimming and my wife deciding to bare all again we decided that lunch was the order of the day. A cheeseburger will never be the same after Numea just wonderful – Eat your heart out Mc D’s.
Lunch took longer that we thought to eat so now we were getting a little pushed for time. We ran back to the hotel in the midday heat to collect out bags as we had already checked out of our room. We had to change in the bathrooms before boarding the shuttle that had arrived whilst we were getting changed.
Thank god for air conditioning and the fact that my wife had anti-perspirant yes I had to use ladies deodorant, it ok this is France – all men smell like beautiful ladies, well at least the waiter at the seafood restaurant did.
We arrived at to Air Port with time to spare, plenty of it as we found that Air Calain had a computer problem that held up the departure for 1 hour. This gave me time to discover yet another French Beer – Desperado, a 5.9% Tequila tasting beer that at the cost of $10.00AUD was as smooth as silk and worth mortgaging the house for.
The Weather was superb and as taxied onto the tarmac there were tears of light rain as if the Island sprits were saying farewell.
I left Brisbane with this crazy notion that French were arrogant, well they are far from it in the Pacific. Fare well New Caledonia, you have opened my heart and soul and I will miss you until me meet again…
Where we stayed: Ramada Plaza Hotel
