Lagoon near Noumea, New Caledonian

To learn a foreign language in Australia may seem like a silly thing to do -
after all, the classical languages of Europe are over 21 hours by plane away,
and even to practice asian languages hands on requires a longer flight.
However just a 90 minute flight from Sydney, there is not only a perfect
spot to practice speaking french, but also a beautiful island worthwhile
exploring.

Because it’s still sort of part of France, we don’t get a lot
of news about this very close neighbour to the East, which is also the 4th
largest island in the region, after Australia, New Zealand and Papua
New Guinea.

The Cultural Centre Tjibaou, New Caledonia

Things To Do: Visit the Cultural Centre Tjibaou. Exceptional architecture by Renzo Piano and stunning location & vegetation. The WiFi WiFe says: Just an amazing experience!

Take a trip to an islet – there are many small islands within a short ride from Noumea,
the most accessible are Íle aux Canards and Ílot Maítre.
Most are marine reserves and offer good snorkelling,
white sandy beaches and palm trees – a little touch of paradise.
A little further away is the Amede Islet complete with a white lighthouse
which also offers good snorkelling and is a popular day-trip location.

Things not To Do: Drink coffee. Seriously, we don’t know how the otherwise
very food-aware French could have missed that boat, but they have, big time.

If you have to, try the coffee at the Market in Baye de Moselles, daily from 7am

Australians are spoiled for good coffee, and god knows we tried,
but we couldn’t find a decent coffee anywhere. Expect to pay from
250 CFP to to 450 CFP (roughly AUD 3.50 to AUD 6.00) for something that
in most cases could have easily been substituted with the soluble Nescafe
in your hotel room. If you have to have a shot in the morning, head to the market
at Baie de la Moselle – daily from 7am. La Buvette Du Marche was at least reasonably priced. In fact, the best coffee we had, was
at the McCafe in Baie de la Maiselle – a small cappuccino will set you back CFP 280 there.

And while we’re on that subject of things not to do, here’s another one:
Expecting a cheap holiday. The New Caledonians not only speak french,
they have also – at least for now – been hardlinked to the french economy.
Which means you get all the benefits, such as an extensive cheese
selection in the supermarket (or, if you’re not into cheese, try the pate forestiere from the delicatessen, yum!), but also the downside,
such as prices a-la-Paris.
There is no bargains to have here – expect none,
and you won’t be disappointed.

The WiFi Wife - always connected

As the WiFi Wife needs to keep her many Facebook friends updated, access to Wireless Internet is always a plus for her. Not to mention that it would have been
nice to receive the Tsunami warning on your always connected Smartphone, rather than being told by the Museum’s staff to evacuate, because there is a Tsunami coming.
That conversation went as follow: We have to close now. – WiFi WiFe: Oh – warum? (The WiFi WiFe likes to confuse the locals with her wide ranging language skills!).
We have received a Tsunami warning, and need to evacuate the building.. WiFi WiFe: Oh – warum?. Shortly thereafter, we found ourselves huffing and puffing at the end
of the Rue de la Observatorium – which, I had argued, would be high up, given that it hosts an observatory, thus offering relative safety.

Funnily enough, there was no observatory, just a dead end with a man going about his business, mowing grass. Did you hear, there is a Tsunami coming? we tried to impress him.
Non, but please, don’t get in my way. I need to cut the grass here.. So we stayed out of his way, and waited patiently for the arrival of the Tsunami. The lack of a 3G mobile network
in New Caledonia means that modern smartphones (or laptops/netbooks) need a wireless network to connect to the Internet. So standing at the end of observatory road, we discovered the
original use case for our smart phones: Thanks to International Roaming, which works well if you are a customer of one of the Australien Big3, Telstra, Vodafone or Optuswe , we rang someone
that had an Internet connection. A couple of minutes and, again thanks to International Roaming, half our travel budget later, we found out that the Tsunami Alert had actually been cancelled,
which caused us to leave the safety of the non-existing observatory and hurry back to the blue lagoon, always keeping a wary eye on the horizon though.

If you think you may want to use your phone in a similar manner in New Caledonia, make sure you have International Roaming activated before you head off. And if you need to get information
urgently, don’t rely on text messages – we found that both sending and receiving text messages worked well sometimes, and not well (aka not at all) at other times; delivery times occupied a
continuum between 5 seconds and never ever.

But back to the WiFi – the aforementioned McDonalds is a good place for free WiFi – if you don’t want to buy anything there, try cheeseburger (as the WiFi password), if you desire a
Sausage McMuffin for brekkie, ask the staff at the counter for the WiFi password, in case it has changed.
Many other places offer free WiFi access for customers – the DeCasa Italian restaurant in the Baie de la Citron (Lemon Bay) has it, so has the funky basque La Fiesta Chez Alban
(at the end of Baie Anse Vata, Password Chocolat5) and the Airport Departure lounge. Many other places offer it too – we even found it being offered in some of the Casino Supermarkets!

If you are staying in one of the top-end hotels, they typically offer pay-per-use Internet. The Ramada Plaza has an Ethernet connection in the room, and at CFP 2500 for 5 hours is really expensive. They also don’t seem to
offer wireless access. The Nouvata Parc offers Wireless internet in their reception and bar area downstairs, which, at CFP 550 per hour, is quite ffordable. Be careful though – due to the way the
wireless is set up, you can’t use it on an iPhone; Netbook/Laptops or phones that allow multiple applications to be open at the same time, are fine. The Nouvata also has a couple of windows computers
available to guests.

Yummy Food - A refreshing cold Gazpacho with coriander

One of the nice things when you visit a new country for the first time, is that you get to surprise your tastebuds with something new. Unfortunately, often one of the not so nice things
when you visit a new country for the first time is that you get to surprise your tastebuds with something new. Like when I first went to spain and, after digesting a rather unpleasant dish,
was told that I had just eaten two bulls testicles. I can assure you, my attendance at the spanish classes improved dramatically after that incident.

Luckily, New Caledonia had only pleasant surprises in stock for us – we found the Tahitian Raw Fish Salad (Salade tahitienne au poisson cru),
with a sauce based on Coconut milk and Joghurt, a refreshing delight – don’t leave without trying this one! Sadly we missed out on the local delicacy, the bougna, which
is sort of a mixed bag of nice ingredients cooked slowly in banana leaves. The Lonely Planet recommends to have it on the Isle of Pine, and anyone that is better at planning
their holidays than us (you have to book the bougna a day in advance) will probably do as they say and try it – for us it’ll have to wait for our next visit.

We did go to the Isle of Pine (Ile de Pine) though – the daytrip on the Ferry set us back CFP 5400 per person, and was a remarkable experience in many ways. If you get seasick easily, you
can expect to get seasick on the way out. If you don’t get seasick easily, you can expect to get seasick on the way out. But mark my words – on the way out. So it may not be so
pleasant to get there, but the Island is well worth the visit. The water is even clearer then on the main island, and the serenity and peacefulness of the place will be hard to beat anywhere
in the world. We recommend you book ahead – not only the bougna, but also an overnight stay at the Chez Regnis. If you are more into full service accomodation, Le Meridien has a beautifully
set hotel on the island – we had an OK dinner there, but expect to pay up for the location; a night in one of their bungalows will set you back at least CFP 25000.