New Caledonia by www.born2travel.it

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27. 10. 2014 Noumea (NEW CALEDONIA)

50th day of travel

We are in New Caledonia! A piece of France in the Pacific Ocean!

How a place changes from one to another simply because of the rule of one nation or another. You fly from one island to the neighbouring one and everything is completely different!

Here in particular this aspect is very much alive, given the strong political weight that France still wields. The French tricolour flies everywhere; beside it, more timid, is the colourful flag of the Nouvelle Caledonie, the car number plates are French (with the NC code at the end), you come across more whites than Melanesians out and about, and the supermarket products are all imported from France!

[Stefy]: 'We are guests of Mathieu, a Parisian engineer couchsurfer who moved here two years ago.

From our new friend's house you enjoy a wonderful view of the city and the bay. We meet Angele, a girl from the Isle of Pines who works in Papua New Guinea!

Soon they take us to the top of one of the city's hills to admire the sunset... what peace!'

28. 10. 2014 Isle of Pines (NEW CALEDONIA)

Although we don't speak a word of French, we quickly manage to get a lift to the Air Caledonie office in the centre. The office is packed with people; in fact, tickets cannot be bought online: what disorganisation!

We soon return home to pack our backpacks because we have another flight shortly! We quickly say goodbye to Angele and, with a couple of hitchhikes, reach the domestic airport of Magenta, from where we will take off for the Isle of Pines!

Thirty minutes of flight, spent glued to the window admiring the wonderful landscape from above. A strange feeling, because although it is only 19.00: outside it is already pitch dark. Even the little airport is dimly lit.

The journey from the airport to our bay of Rouelaux lasts about 20 minutes and through the window there is only pitch darkness beyond the outline of the island's famous pines. Gabi, the rough and gruff owner of the campsite where we will stay for these three days, greets us very coldly. We feel almost uncomfortable.

We are a few metres from the waves of the Pacific Ocean, a small light barely illuminates our tent, we are the only 'guests' of this campsite far from everything; even he, the owner, tells us he would be going back to the city to his family...

We are a little worried... we eat something small; we had stocked up well on supplies in Noumea before leaving.

Shortly before retreating into our tent we take ten steps towards the sea and are literally left open-mouthed! We had rarely seen a spectacle like it! A sliver of moon reflected in the immense and majestic ocean...

The evening is cloudless, we are on a lost island of the Pacific and without lights... one of the few times my heart has beaten faster before a natural landscape.

We go to sleep lulled and a little frightened too by the sound of the waves!

[ to be continued: ]