Thursday

Noumea

New Caledonia

As we came towards Noumea at about 6am it looked like the whole island was covered by rain but it must have been an optical illusion because it was all dry and mostly clear sky by the time we docked at 730am.

New Caledonia (so named by Captain Cook because the mountainous islands reminded him of Scotland) has a population of 250,000 (according to the guide on the one hour rapid tour of Noumea) and 60% of them live in Noumea. New Caledonia is a department of France, so the residents behave, justifiably, as though they are living in France. Although the local currency is not the Euro; New Caledonia has its own currency; the CFP (central pacific franc; about 100 francs to AUD1.00).

The ship docked at the cruise terminal which occupies about the equivalent position to the overseas passenger terminal in Sydney. The terminal is really just a large shelter and inside, waiting for the passengers, are lots of locals wanting to sell us tickets for tours. There were not, unlike Pago Pago, Suva and Vila any taxi drivers touting for business.

I went for a walk around the city for 90 minutes and then came back to the ship. I didn’t get back on board as I was persuaded to buy a ticket for a one hour tour that was leaving immediately. There were only two other tourists and me in an eight seat mini bus. Philippe the driver had obviously done this tour more times that he can remember and would say “on your right” or “on your left” while himself looking in the opposite direction. We stopped a couple of times to take photos but otherwise just drove around. Mercifully neither of the stops was a shopping centre as apparently happened on tours in other ports. So after an hour I had a fair idea of the layout of Noumea.

After lunch I went for a walk and saw the locals enjoying long lunches, with wine on every table, at restaurants around the city; I didn’t see any native New Caledonians in the smarter restaurants, just people of European appearance.

Place des Cocotiers is the park which forms the central square of the city. This is a pleasant space with lots of shade trees and places to sit comfortably out of the sun. Although at 9am when I first walked through most of the seats were occupied by people who looked like they had nothing better to do for the rest of the day and didn’t look like they wanted to share their seat with anybody else. At lunch time when I walked through again there were market stalls set up and I could have bought a whole wahoo fish (about a meter long).

We have two days at sea before arriving in Sydney on Sunday morning. Officials from the Australian Dept. of Immigration join the ship here in Noumea and the checking of passenger’s passports takes place at a leisurely pace all day on Friday. This arrangement, while saving time on arrival in Sydney, must be a greatly sought after assignment for the immigration officials. Fly up to Noumea, a couple of days on a ship and stamp 1400 passports.

Based on less than a day here, I quite like Noumea. Perhaps because it is a place that has other things to do apart from cater to the needs of the passengers on the ship. In the previous three ports of call it seemed like if the ship hadn’t been in port then it wouldn’t have been worth it for the locals to get out of bed that day. In Noumea the visit of the ship is just another thing that is happening today. Although I certainly stand out as a visitor, because I’m lighter skinned than the native population and not as smartly dressed as the European population, I haven’t been subject today to the constant questioning about my requirements regarding clothes that I’d never wear, shops, transport, hair braiding (seriously, the last time I could have been legitimately asked this question was 1974), massages, wooden curios of all sizes and shapes, postcards of places I haven’t been to and tours to places I don’t want to visit.

Unless something significant happens in the next two days at sea (like the ship being torpedoed) this will be my final posting. In the past five weeks I’ve added five new US states to my states-visited list to bring the total to nine out of fifty (Hawaii, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York); driven 4300kms across western America, taken about 3000 photos, sailed across the Pacific Ocean and been to a most wonderful wedding in Las Vegas.

The next time I set foot on solid ground will be in Sydney. Thanks to all the people who asked if I needed a ride home from the airport; an understandable error as it is very rare for someone to end a holiday by arriving in Sydney (or anywhere) by sea.

Before I conclude I must mention a most special group of people on the ship. Nothing deters them from their daily routine. The lure of exotic ports meant nothing to them. The thought of walking on the deck or floating in the pool never enters their head. The temptations of food and beverages of all types are ignored and they take only enough sustenance to maintain them at their daily activities. I am referring, of course, to the bridge players who seem to live in the room on deck 5 filled with card tables. Every morning at 9am the room is packed to overflowing for the bridge lessons (given by Jacqui; I’ve seen her and you wouldn’t want to say “four no trumps” to her unless you really meant it) and then for what is described as “unsupervised play”; as though they had been learning mountaineering and were being allowed out by themselves on the north face of the Eiger. Port visits were ignored and those that did go ashore blamed this lapse in continuous play on unbearable threats made by their spouses. A couple of days ago I came across an old gent on deck 4 looking a bit lost. He told me that he was trying to find his wife. He said “she’s a bridge player” as though he was telling me that he’d married insanity and wanted it to be crystal clear that any loss of marbles wasn’t on his side of the family. I guided him to the bridge room on level 5 and, I’m ashamed to say, left to him alone to interrupt his wife and face her fury when he inevitably distracted her at a critical point in the game.

While their behavior appears unusual, especially given the opportunities surrounding them, they are spending their holiday doing exactly what they want to do and I suppose that’s what a holiday should be.