Hi from Noumea suckers

[007XX]

wherever Noumea ? is.
.

Ok, for all those who don't know...Noumea is the capital of New Caledonia, pacific island about 2.30 hours away from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonia

We'd already been to La Baie de Citrons and that was pretty good - the two up bikers were there. Haven't had an icecream yet but bought some lovely Creme Brulee icecream to have back at the hotel tonight.

Trust me...Go to the Sorbetiere! It is an imperative experience...

We had lunch at Place des Cocotiers today - quite nice and weather was great today - lunch for two - entrecote, frite et salade plus a drink each around $100NZ.

Gawd...I miss tha food!

We've rented a Citroen C4 for 3 days to drive around a bit for some of our time here and we've booked to jetski to some islands and the reef on Wednesday and the boat trip to Phare Armedee on Friday.

Aha...good man! I hope there won't be too much wind for your trip to the lighthouse, and make sure you go on the glass bottom boat.

Oh and you knew drinking too much of Number One's beer was bad for your health eh!

They're only saying it's bad if you don't exert some moderation...of course moderation itself should be abused of with discretion

[Finn]

For those interested, here is a great online resource for Island hopping... It's got a good section on New Caledonia.

http://destinationsmedia.newspaperdi...er/viewer.aspx

[Delerium]

You think maccas is expensive there (it taste rubbish there too) try buying a litre of orange juice and convert that into nz currency, that'll give you a shock, or go to the three brasseurs bar and order a jug, that will give you a coronary.

There is a very good italian place next to the sorbet icecream place, and not far from the 3 brasseurs. There is a VERY attractive waitress there too, but the food is primo.

[merv]

Hey thought I'd better update you with a few more pics.

I've been intrigued by all the French microcars on the streets like the Ligier X-TOO. They are powered by 500cc diesels limitied to 4kw and 45km/hr and I understand anyone over 16 can drive them without a licence, and I'm trusting driving the Citroen on the streets with these people. This lot of pics were taken outside a school - great line up of scooters and bikes including the small 'tards with MotoGP type exhausts.

Nude 125 - don't you just love the name Gilera gave that bike.

[merv]

Yeah and OK we did go back to Baie de Citrons too and had lunch at La Sorbitiere, finished off with what they called glace simple i.e. basic cone icecream.

I do think those microcars are cute.

The snake is a tricot raye which is a sea snake - eats at sea but sleeps on land.

I told you the roads were rough, the last pic is typical of a lot of the surfaces - I presume the wet season is the problem causing them to fail.

[merv]

I told you we were going to do a jetski ride - well that turned out to be fun as the sea had got rather choppy - up to about 1m waves. We had a (Mrs thought) spunky French guide by the name of Jeremy - didn't know Frenchman used that name. He said he'd been in NC 4 years and reckons he wouldn't go home.

It was a 3 and a quarter hour trip and the only people on the tour today were us and a Japanese couple from Osaka.

The Seadoo tapped out at 6280 rpm and I only manged to wave pierce one wave giving us a full sea blast, the rest of the time was just a lot of spray and it was interesting keeping it as straight as possible angled onto the wind and waves.

Mrs KD there are some shots of me in my budgie smugglers but sadly hidden by tthe wetsuit - haha .

I'm glad I bought a waterproof camera, it worked a treat and survived the trip no sweat. Only hassle is Mrs couldn't take pictures of the roughest bits she couldn't hold the camera steady enough on the bumps. This is a trip I'd recommend to any bikers. I love anything with a throttle and some power.

[Aslan]

glad to hear you're having fun Merv - enjoy! Cheers S

[merv]

You can see the weather was dull but it would have still been around 23 - 24 deg and its still about 20 now at night.

Then we went back to Baie de Citrons for a late lunch to try out the Paparazzi Bar Ristorante Italianio. That's the one Delerium mentioned, and sadly there were no good looking waitresses. Gotta have a scooter as part of the sign eh! Scooters, scooters everywhere and the riders are all crazy.

Then there's the cute open microcar.

[merv]

glad to hear you're having fun Merv - enjoy! Cheers S

Thanks, and you know me, always taking photos of all sorts of things eh, especially local culture.

[merv]

OK back home now and yes it was fun and I'm glad the weather is good here or has been for the last couple of days else we mighta frozen our arses off after the mid 20's temps we had.

It wasn't all perfect as I said above but it certainly was interesting and mainly good fun. I'd recommend to anyone that you visit it for a change but be prepared for it to be windier than a tropical paradise ought to be and assume everything will cost exactly twice as much as it does here.

For me the best fun was the jetski trip on rough sea and for Mrs merv her favourite was the visit to Phare Amedee Island. It was a well organised all day boat trip to the island with a lighthouse to climb, glass bottom boat tour, reef tour, buffet lunch, ethnic singing and dancing, coconut palm climbing, pareo (sarong) tying, cocunut opening etc etc.

Anyone know truly what happened to Club Med Noumea - was it the post Sept 11 2001 that lost it so much business that caused its abandonment or was it in decline before closure at the end of 2001? The building and grounds have been left derelict next to Le Meridien Hotel like an eyesore so if you stay next door try for a room with a better view. We stayed at Best Western La Promenade which is an apartment hotel with full kitchens, laundry and perfect views. That was a great choice because we chose to always eat breakfast in with supermarket tucker instead of paying the hotel for a $40 continental or $50 cooked breakfast - remember I said double NZ prices.

It did rain a bit as we arrived but that never chased the bikers away. I loved the hard out approach of all the small bike riders - never slow down just pull out and pass in the face of oncoming traffic. One 2 stroke motard came up behind us while I was driving and I said to Mrs merv hey quick snap a shot as he gets in front but he zinged past so fast in the 50k zone she didn't even have time to get the digital camera turned on as he streaked around the corners in front of us - no cops seemed to show any interest in the bikes at all.

Here's a few more pics for you, Harleys included.

[merv]

Here's Club Med after being abandoned for over 6 years - sad eh!

4th pic is from the beach in front of Le Meridien right next door.

[merv]

Here's Phare Amedee. 007XX suggested we should go there and yes it was well worth the visit.

[merv]

In summary then a great 8 days away to definitely what was a bike friendly city.

Would we recommend it? Yes.

Would we go back soon? Probably not in a hurry, did most things we wanted to and there are other places we want to visit before doing repeats.

[Mikkel]

Sounds like you've had a nice holiday - good to hear that there are plenty of bikers there and that they are enjoying themselves

I'd very much like to visit New Caledonia myself! Hope to do so soon...

Honestly the place is really suffering crumbling infrastructure - like the state of the roads and the footpaths. It's not exactly a tropical paradise - rougher than we were expecting with a Cannons Creek look of the city centre.

Most of the Pacific Is are like that now Merv. They have gained Independance from their former colonial masters but have lost the financial, technical and organisational backing that came with it.

Yup us included.

We've rented a Citroen C4 for 3 days to drive around a bit for some of our time here and we've booked to jetski to some islands and the reef on Wednesday and the boat trip to Phare Armedee on Friday.

I hope you had no trouble staying on the right side of the road

I told you the roads were rough, the last pic is typical of a lot of the surfaces - I presume the wet season is the problem causing them to fail.

Looks like a typical Christchurch city road to me...

[merv]

Yeah no problem driving the Citroen on the right (wrong - haha) side of the road - it helps having the car back to front. I haven't done it but I'd say it would be harder trying to say drive a pommy car across the channel into Europe when your natural instincts wouldn't suit the opposite side.

Didn't see any bikes for hire - the car was just easier near the hotel - but I'd say they would be there if you looked harder for them.

p.s. good to be back to my faster internet connection - you don't hear that often in NZ eh!