I feel like I winged this whole trip, ahah! On the day I arrived in Nouméa, I pretty much had no solid plans for how to get to Lifou (one of the 3 Loyalty Islands west of NC), who I was going to go with, how I was going to get around the large island, where and how I was going to sleep etc. Everything worked out splendidly, I am especially lucky to have avoided the cyclone that hit the islands the week before!
As I said in my last blog, I stayed at the hostel in Noumea in the hope that I'd meet people I could travel with. I met a lovely couple from Lyon there and they basically adopted me for the week! Quelle chance!
Managed to borrow a tent and snorkelling gear from one of my future housemates, and OOP-LA! I found myself at a camp site in the tribe of Xepenehe (TRÉ-PEN-NÉ-HÉ) in the north west of the island.
Lilo Rêve is a play on words - ilôt is a small island and when followed by rêve is a bit like "the little island of dreams" ie Lifou?
These 2 guys are stage lighting technicians from Lyon, 10 months into their year and a half long journey around the world. They've pretty much been camping, caravaning and couchsurfing their way through US, South America and the Pacific (so far). I'm so glad to have bumped into them because they were really welcoming, share everything and really looked out for me.
Lifou is a pretty difficult place to travel to if you're by yourself and if you aren't fluent in French. Everything is done over the phone (only the capital of Lifou has internet) and the only way to get around the island if you don't hire a car is to hitch hike. Pretty much every car or every second car will stop for you if you put your thumb out - a pretty amazing culture/way of life really! It's not recommended for single girls at night, because it's not uncommon for the locals to get drunk and violent after nightfall. On the whole, everybody says bonjour to you, and if you walk past someone's house and you didn't see them, they will call out to you just to wave.
one of the cats at LiloRêve made me think of the Aristocats' line: "Everybody wants to be a cat, because the cat's the only cat, who knows where it's at!"
apart from showing me how to put up my first tent (or.. my first in about 8 years), my travel buddies showed me how to dehusk and then crack open a coconut with a knife and rock. Took me about half an hour of tearing, pulling and insistence that I do it by myself. coconut trees are everywhere, I think we had one every day as a pre-dinner apéritif haha. the brown ones (above) are sweeter than the green ones that you can cut more easily.
20 days each month, a cruise ship brings hundreds (thousands) of mostly Australian tourists to Lifou and the island temporarily doubles in population. This also means that it's quite difficult to hitch hike because a lot of the locals take advantage of this and charge tourists to take them to the sites such as Les falaises de Jokin (the Jokin cliffs, pronounced Dokin). After about 1/2-1h of no luck, we decided to turn around when someone picked us up! woo! We had to ask permission from the local chief to go down to the cliffs and swim in the bay.
the others agreed that the snorkelling at the falaises de Jokin wasn't as good as that at the baie de Jinek so we went there and joined the hundreds of Australian tourists who had come to visit. For some reason they seemed to be very overweight and very bogan. They bought overpriced twisties and coke off the locals (apparently my travel buddies met a girl on the Isle of Pines (another island) who makes 1500 euros per day off them!)
This is what the Baie de Jinek looks like without heaps of tourists.
an epic conch with a mollusc inside!
A beginner's dive is called un baptème in french - a baptism. Neat!
There are heaps of turtles around. I only managed to see two, but you can see (and touch!) loads of them in the morning or later afternoon if the sea is calm.
2 well camouflaged clams
There are many of these traditional 'cases' on the island. many people sleep on rolled out mats. My current housemates showed me a picture of a case surrounded by many many marijuana plants - they were told that New Caledonia is second only to Jamaica in terms of weed consumption (or production? not sure). The domestic airport has no regulations/scanners of any sort. You could literally bring anything you want (explosives) on board.
This is a pretty common site along the roads - colourful hedges. There are a lot of frangipanis and hibiscus here, as well as coconut trees and papaya trees. oh and there are heaps (hundreds) of butterflies - everywhere! it's a bit enchanted at times.
Super impressed by the versatility of coconut trees!
The local town hall in the capital, Wé
Coconut crabs (crabes de cocotier) caught by the people who owned the second campsite that we went to (in Luengoni). To catch them you put a cracked coconut as bait on the ground near coconut trees - normally these crabs have super strong pincers and can crack open a coconut by themselves!
This dog decided to join me in the front of my tent
C and J! lovely french couple who were awesome to me. J said that his moustache tattoo made a lot of kids in South America laugh. We had some interesting conversations with other campers - we had a barbeque with some other french people and some Kanaky people that they invited.
The kanaky culture (native people) is interesting. I only managed to learn a bit, but if you ever get invited into one of their tribes or homes (they often live in thatched huts on the islands), you have to do this thing called a coutume, where you present a gift of money and tobacco wrapped into tissue paper as a sign of respect before you enter the house. they're quite timid people, don't talk much to strangers except to say hello (they'll actually call out to you as you walk past their house), quite dark skinned, lots of kids, no shoes. on the islands, marriages are quite an extended social ritual - so much so that there are 3 months in the year when weddings aren't allowed to occur so that people can just take a break, haha. the month before the wedding is taken up by family members who come to eat and give their blessings. the wedding itself occurs on Mondays, and the following days are full of food as well. it's the groom's family that hosts the weddings/food/costs here.
They drink this plant root called kava here, it's a bit like alcohol in that it can make you woozy. you're supposed to drink it straight (as a shot) and its effects are potentiated with or by alcohol. apparently it takes like dirt and you want to wash your mouth out afterwards.. so... there was really no incentive for me at all to try this famous drink.
They drink this plant root called kava here, it's a bit like alcohol in that it can make you woozy. you're supposed to drink it straight (as a shot) and its effects are potentiated with or by alcohol. apparently it takes like dirt and you want to wash your mouth out afterwards.. so... there was really no incentive for me at all to try this famous drink.
The Champignon or the Mushroom - a rock/island in the middle one of the bays near Luengoni.
These rock formations were outside the Caves of Luengoni. It was all dark inside so photos didn't turn out so well but the caves were amazing! stalactites (organ pipe ones that are in layers) and stalagmites above and below water that was light blue and crystal clear. The pool must have been 6-7m deep and 15-25m long. amazing!
on the whole, Lifou was fantastic. I wasn't sure if I could manage on my own but I'm kinda pleased and proud of myself that I went anyway. a great week off before starting at the hospital!
x
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