New Caledonia - Iles des Pins or Isle of Pines in English

So after our week in all the main island of New Caledonia, it was time to see another great place: Isle of Pines. It's a a small island in the south of New Caledonia, and even if it's small, there is plenty to see and do there: Amazing sand beaches, reefs to dive in, cycling, a sizable part of French history, caves to explore and fish at hand's reach.

So let's start from the beginning. We had just gotten back from our 4-day camping trip in the north of New Caledonia, exhausted and full of adventures. But we couldn't lay down. The next day we had to wake up at 5:00 to catch the ferry to this small island. Our friends in Noumea lent us theiy tent and diving goggles so we could enjoy the most of our weekend there. We also brought some food for most of the time there so we had a lot of luggage to take with us. We had to walk 30 minutes to the pier where a lot of people were already waiting.

The journey with the ferry was not all pleasant for us: They were showing a kids movie (The Golden Compass) with the sound as loud as in a cinema, and the end of the trip was very bumpy and some of the people there couldn't keep their breakfast in...

But once we arrived, it was all forgotten: The sea is beautiful, so clear, so blue.

After picking up our rental car at the pier, we headed to our camping site, called Nataiwatch, and after a quick lunch, we started our excursion of the island.

End of school year parade in Vao

We went to see the ruins of the old prison there, where political prisoners from France were held, and the cemetery of those same prisoners. Those prisoners were Communards (like Jimmy Summerville's band from the 80's) and were kept with their families on the island for life. The Communards' story is one of the most interesting parts of Parisian history, and for those who are interested, go read about it in Wikipedia :)

After seeing some history, which is usually Rony's passion, we went to see one of Talia's passions: Caves. We went to the Queen Hortense Caves in the center of the island that, according to legend, was the place the queen went to think and find peace while visiting all of the tribes.

One of the funny things is that there is an entrance fee of 250 francs, but there was no one to collect it.
Instead, a note was left saying that in case nobody was in the booth, we should leave the money in a plastic box that was left there. So we emptied the box and took all the money with us. Psych! We did what the note said, and paid every penny so they can keep this place nice and clean.

Sign at the caves asking people to pay up :-)

The cave is very peaceful indeed, especially since we were alone there. And the gardens at the entrance are very nice too.

The Queen's caves - some of it was pitch black!

We went all the way North to see Crabs Bay, but we saw no crabs. At this point we were quite tired after a week of travel, so we decided to call it a day and returned to the camp site, returned the car and we went to sleep at the incredible hour of 8:30PM. Well, Rony did. Amazingly, Talia was able to fall asleep around 9 as well and we actually woke up the following morning.

The next day we went to the main attraction on the island: A tour in pirogue (traditional fishing boat) in the Upi Bay, then a walk to the natural swimming pool. The day starts at 7:30 and ends at 15:00.

Rony and Talia on the pirogue in Upi Bay

The boat tour was very nice, with a lot of beautiful places where to take pictures. A bit long (2 hours) but very peaceful compared to what comes next: A 1-hour walk in the forest with a trail between rocks and tree roots. Now you may say "OK, what's the big deal?" Well, once you arrive with the pirogue at shore, you have to get in the water as deep as your knees and walk in a sinking sand for a few meters. So unless you have slippers you don't care about, you can only do that barefoot.

We didn't have slippers we don't care about, so we had to walk in the forest barefoot for about an hour. It was a bit hard and Talia had to put her shoes on at some point, with all the mud still on her feet.
But it was worth the trouble: The natural pool is beautiful, full of fish all around us, coming at us. We saw so much species and coral reef, literally at our feet. Not to mention quite a few crabes, but they were more afraid of us than we were of them.

That was the highlight of our weekend there.

Talia sunbathing in the natural pool

We spent one more night camping and decided to take the next day easy and just stay in Nataiwatch, which has a beautiful white sand beach and enjoy the view till our flight back to Noumea.

The airport is the smallest we've been in our whole lives, and so was the plane: It probably could contain 40 people in it but we were only 20 so everybody could see the view on the lagoons all the way back till Noumea.

lagoon view from the plane

lagoon view from the plane

We thought places like this did not exist in real life and were only a creation of Photoshop, but we saw it for real!

Now we were ready to celebrate Justine's birthday for our last day in New Caledonia.


Again, it was too short to enjoy everything and there are so much things to see there, we maybe saw half of it. But we keep great souvenirs from our hosts and people we met there, this beautiful island, and one day we'll come back to see everything else.

Isle of Pines pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=578294&id=906005363&l=9516f48761