The lighthouse visitors and their lunch

Phare Amedee (or Amedee lighthouse) is one of the most popular and pushed touristy day trips in Noumea.  We'd been a little bit reticent about going - our imagined images of a screaming, overheated toddler and a crowded boat full of hot, bothered tourists put us off.

We're way too cynical.  We had a fabulous day!  It was hot and Max had one little tantrum - but a quick spin around the island in his mountain buggy (how can this iconic company be going bust?) with a dummy to suck on had him sorted out in no time.  

The lighthouse is a 45 minute boat-ride away.  Max spent the whole trip saying 'bateau' and pointing at each and every part of the boat.  We arrived and were amused by the massive fish that circled and thrashed about as they were fed bread from the wharf.  The water is a breathtaking range of blues and so, so warm.  

Perhaps the most surprising part of the trip was the way the trip's organised.  We have been frustrated and often angered by the lack of customer service and generally non-tourist friendly attitude here.  But this was fabulously well organised.  The team were full of smiles, helpful and the whole day was slick.  We were entertained by tahitian dancing, fire dancers, well fed and wined - with delicious prawns, salads and yummy treats.

Best of all, Max slept for 2 hours in the afternoon.  He was tucked up in his buggy in the shade of a few coconut palms.  The only thing that broke Charlie and my bliss as we swam, read and chilled out was the interesting visit of a friendly tricot raye...a very pretty little sea snake!

Bugs and crawlers

The landscape in New Caledonia looks like Australia - it's red and scrubby.  So cos it looks so much like Australia (and probably broke off from the Ozzy continent) I thought there would be lots of snakes and bugs here.

BUT - there aren't any snakes.  There's a sleepy boa that lives out on the Loyalty Islands but that's it! There are some freaky centipedes and some big spiders but nothing too nasty.  Here's a pic of an impressive spider that we had a good look at on Mare.

Cruisin' in da love boats

At least twice a week we're graced with the presence of an exciting and new cruise boat here in Noumea.  Town fills up with Ozzy tourists - wandering around, loudly testing their high school french and making hilarious exclamations about the high prices.  It's a bit a of a giggle being in town on a cruise day.  The cruisers are easily identifiable by the brightly coloured tags around their neck. We've seen a few looking hot and bothered not far from here - looking for the beach, a bit lost but determined to walk.  Midday lost in the burbs of Noumea isn't the most pleasant experience! Best to head straight to the beach or out to an island I reckon.

The cruise ships are massive and loom over the town like a brand new hotel hitched up to a watering post.  It's great watching them come in first thing in the morning.  They swing by our place and then head into the port for the day.   They leave early in the evening and often go to the Loyalty Islands.  The view from the boat as they head around the bays must be spectacular.  

I've become a bit obsessed with the whole cruise ship thing while we've been here and now I'm trying to find out if we can wangle our way onto a cruiser and head over to Australia on one.  I'd never been even the slightest bit interested before - but now I think that a few days on one would be great fun!  

Leon's dead...

A headline in the local paper the other day read that 'Leon has joined the big fishy heaven in the sky'.  And I read it, gasped and said - Oh no! People have been visiting the aquarium and leaving flowers and cards.  Leon almost seems to have a little bit of a Diana quality to him.  It's not every fish that can generate this type of reaction!

Leon was a star attraction at Noumea's aquarium.  He lived in the biggest tank - which is huge and like a giant wall of glass with lots of fish behind it - and he cruised around, watching the people watching him.  He was a napoleon fish and Max was a little bit scared of him because he was sooooo huge.  He was 21 years old and had lived most of his life in the aquarium... Apparently he was great mates with the divers who came into the big tank - cruising in for pats and recognising the different divers.  I hope the fishy heaven is good to him.  We will miss him alot.

Check out the pics here.  Type leon into the search engine and you can see him in all his splendour....

Let's go to the Park

Noumea has the best parks.  At the bottom of the hill we live on is the digger park - so named by a friend because of all the roadworks and accompanying diggers that took up shop beside it last year.  Now that the road works is finally finished, I guess it should be called the boat park because of the great view out over a marina beside it.  Max now says 'bateau' when we arrive!

I love this park because it's a one minute drive and a five minute walk away.  It's shady and has great playground equipment.  Everything's coded by age group (not that Max's mate Murphy takes any notice of that) and has good soft, squishy stuff under it to make falls slightly less of a saga.

A little further afield is Ouen Toro park.  It's snuggled into the hillside and has serious adventure playground equipment for bigger kids.  It's a great place to hang out in after a swim at Anse Vata. It's funny because parts of town are so run down...but some smart councillor has set aside some serious cash for the parks.  I say, two big thumbs up!

Long time, no blog

Yes - I've been silent of late.  The main reason why I've been so slack is that I have a job!  I'm working at the SPC. It's a great organisation that does all sorts of things all over the Pacific like health awareness programmes, working on preserving fish numbers (I almost said preserving fish - which would be wrong!) and generally working to bring different and very diverse nations of the Pacific together.  Here's the website www.spc.int/corp.  

It's not for long, just a short contract that began in November and finishes next week.  I'm gathering statistics on things like child mortality, life expectancy and import/export figures.   I've enjoyed being in a workplace again.  Hopefully I'll be able to pick up some more bits and pieces while i'm here.  

Oh - and this is what's on the opposite side of the street from work.  Lots of people store their kayaks at the SPC so they can take them out for a paddle at lunchtime.  What bliss!

New Year and noodles

So, it was December 30th and we were in Mare.  We were idly chatting about what we might do for New Year's Eve and given that we were in a hotel without a car, a nearly two-year-old and no restaurants within 9 kms - we would be eating in the hotel.   Right?  Well, maybe not.

On the 30th, a sign went up announcing the New Year's Eve dinner.  It was a buffet - a pretty copious buffet by all accounts, with crab and prawns and roast pork.  Lots of food and unfortunately a price to match.  As we stood by the door to the restaurant, our eyes scanned down to the price...CFP11,500.  That's $220 kiwis - each - before we'd even had a drop of vino.  Ouch!

So we asked if we could eat something from the regular menu - but have it on the lovely balcony in our room.  They checked, verified again - the answer was no.  CFP11,500 was the only option. They knew they had us sucker tourists by the nads.

Or so they thought...

We were also a good 5 kms from the nearest shop, dad reckoned he could walk it, first thing before it go too hot.  He took off at 6am and at 7.15am he joined us for breakfast.  It had got hot, the shop was further than we thought and he'd had to turn back.  This was now becoming an Odyssey. And Charlie took over Homer's part.

We thought he'd take a bike...but he was smarter than that.  He stalked reception for a few minutes and happened to hear that a car rental guy was taking a car back.  Charlie hitched a ride with him to the local shop (think over-sized dairy on steroids).  Sweet.

Charlie bought us crackers, cheese (camembert in a pop-top can), chippies and cashew nuts for our entree.  Our main was 2 minute noodles (complete with bowls and plastic spoons) and desert was fresh mango.  It was all washed down with some very drinkable bottles of red. Perfect.  He hitched another ride home.

We had a hilarious night slurping our noodles on our lovely balcony overlooking the sea.  And the total cost of the evening was about CFP 1000 ($20) each.  Sweet as.   Here are some pics of Mum and Dad with the noodles and Homer himself, enjoying a beer in 2009.

Bonne Annee a tout le monde!