16th February
Noumea, New Caledonia, South Pacific
Yesterday we sailed round the southern tip of the island of New Caledonia. On our cruise round the headland we saw beautiful beaches and coral islands just off shore, tropical islands with water villas over the sea, wind surfers, sailing yachts and the coastline dotted with hotels on white sandy beaches. We also saw the other side of Noumea with tin hut houses with corrugated roofs, rusting cars and poverty as we sailed nearer the docks. Noumea is a working port and town so nothing much touristy there. We docked at 2.30pm and my oh my, was it hot and sunny!
There were shuttle buses out of the dock area and into town which was 10 minutes away and we were there by 3.30pm trying to get WiFi before the whole of the ship were there trying to do the same!!! Looked around the terminal where there were locals selling various things from their stalls and dancers in traditional dress. We walked round the town after and stopped for cold drinks as it was still really hot. Not much to see so got the shuttle bus back to the ship, changed clothes and met up again at 6.30pm to go out further where the restaurants, bars and nightlife was. Settled in one and ordered cocktails and a couple of others had food too. Very expensive here, a very small Pina Colada worked out to £17 ! Some people went out for dinner and a modest 3 course meal for two with a bottle of wine was about £180 !!!!! We had a very pleasant evening though and was back on board by 10pm for our overnight stay here.

In the morning we woke to the complete opposite weather wise to yesterday with grey skies and rain. ( but still hot). I’m sure I heard thunder in the night which wouldn’t surprise me due to the high temperatures.
Today we had booked the Hop On-Hop Off bus so had a very nice round trip out to the beach areas, marinas and market. It stopped raining for most of the day with just a couple of very brief showers and a 5 minute downpour in the afternoon but still grey. The market we stopped at first consisted of fruit, veg and flowers. All very exotic and bananas which were weird in the fact that they were very short and extremely fat! Never seen bananas like them before so decided to buy one just to see if it was the same as our ones. The lady let us have it which was very nice of her and guess what? It tasted just like...... banana!!!!