South Pacific island idyll; of cocktails and marbles; Nouméa, New Caledonia; awful offal – a narrow escape at the end of the world; Lifou, Easo Island; tenderly does it; Kanaks and their cocunuts; what happened to Port Vila; the hero of Mystery Island, Vanuatu

Hmm. Somehow, I’ve lost* my notes on New Caledonia – that’s Nouméa and Lifo (Easo Island), and on Vanuatu’s Mystery Island. So now, with just a few days to go before we disembark in Victoria, B.C., I really should crack on with at least a photo-blog of these three destinations.

• There’s a chance that I’m in fact losing my marbles, and that I didn’t make the notes I so boldly claim to have made. If that’s the case, I put it down to cocktail befuddlement and freely blame Freddy and Ric for their diabolical skills behind the Pinnacle Bar. Anyway, I blogged quite fully about Nouméa and Lifou before during our 2018 South Pacific cruise on HAL’s Noordam. (Find the link here. But come straight back.)

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Nouméa, Main Island, New Caledonia

Having toured Nouméa that first time, I felt a bit like we’d been there, done that. (Mostly because we had. Here again is the relevant link.

But we had just spent two days on the ocean wave, and Nouméa is one of those ports where you simply step ashore through the terminal and you’re in the town. It’s on the main island of New Caledonia, and is the largest town of this overseas territory of France.

Coffee time

Also, coffee is always a good idea, and L’Atelier Gourmand is an excellent little spot, right over the road from the terminal building. It is one of several on the island that are owned by the same baker. (This would be our first and last escargot, we vowed. But hadn’t we promised that a few days ago in Sydney, too?)

 

We strolled up the hill to find the Cathédrale Saint Joseph closed, alas. And then down again to find the Morning Market – a large complex of several buildings, each devoted to a different type of food – more or less closed at 11.30am, though it’s advertised as continuing until 12 noon. Never mind… the name was something of a clue, if you were looking for one. The woman at the drinks stall (La Buvette du Marché) looked pointedly at her watch, but kindly deigned nevertheless to fire up the old coffee machine for Round Two of the morning coffee routine. While Roy drank his, I took a walk to the end of the world.

The End of the World

If you carry on past the marina, there’s a bar-brasserie called Le Bout du Monde. So I returned to the market stall to coax my husband back to the interesting-looking restaurant. It was full of lunching locals; we, however, just had a couple of pressions (draft beer). To get the full terrace view, you need to be a smoker. How French!

Everyone speaks English to visitors, especially if you try to speak French to them. Nevertheless, my French came in useful. They had andouillette on today’s chalkboard menu – and knowing what it is would have come in very handy back in October 2016, when I ordered this awful offal dish for us one lunchtime in Chablis. (I thought it was something inoffensively chicken-y. (Click here for that sordid tale.)

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Lifou, Easo Island, New Caledonia

 

Tenderly does it

Going ashore at Lifou involved a tender operation.

Easo is a delightful island with good swimming conditions.

But it must be said: dumping close on 2,000 visitors on these beaches diminishes their charm considerably. Maybe more so for me than for sun-starved cruisers from northern climes who’ve spent the past few months dreaming of snorkelling, polishing their masks and refurbishing their fins. At least in this respect, I’m thoroughly spoilt.

 

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Mystery Island, Vanuatu – another South Pacific island

Port Vila, Vanuatu was removed from our Westerdam itinerary following a 17 December 2024 earthquake that caused extensive damage to its port and city infrastructure. What a pity, because in my April 2018 Port Vila blog post I mentioned that this was the highlight of our South Pacific Island cruise on the Noordam. (See here, if you like.)

Mystery Island (or Inyeug, meaning small island) is a postcard-perfect island that can be easily walked around in about half an hour or so.

And the swimming conditions were perfect, as you can see. Roy even stopped complaining, temporarily, about the number of fellow-humans blotting the pristine island landscape.

Heroic reponse

That said, when two cruisers embarrassed themselves by taking on water and being about to capsize the glass-bottomed boat they’d hired, he leapt heroically to the rescue after very little prodding from me.

More excitement ensued when the rain came down, and the queue for the tender lengthened as cruisers started to panic about being wet. But in this heat and humidity, what does that matter? Being well accustomed to tropical showers (15 years of living in Singapore will do that), we hung out under some handy beachside foliage and waited for it to pass.

Have I mentioned the hundreds of thousands of crabs on this beach? Discomfitingly, finding their homes covered and their exit holes blocked by our Holland America Line towels, a couple of them tried burrowing upwards through the thick, blue-and-white striped velour. Ooh-er!

More scenes from Mystery Island

Up next?

We’re nowhere near done yet with islands, what with Fiji and then Hawaii coming up. Stand by for Part 3, Fiji!