Sometime in November 2018, I got a swap request from Tahiti. The family wanted to swap over the Easter holidays in 2019. I was excited! Beach holidays are not our thing but Tahiti has always been touted as a must see place so of course I was excited. A bit more research showed it wasn’t a very child friendly swap. Allegedly, the country is very geared for tourists. Adult tourists. An alternative was New Caledonia. A developing/ under developed tourism industry, lots of open spaces and very child friendly. Out of curiosity, I started browsing what homes were available in New Caledonia. A few days later, I got a swap request from 2 families in Noumea on Home Exchange. Sometimes, Home Exchange will send you an email if people look through your listing. I guess that’s what had happened in this instance. I mulled over the requests for all of 5 minutes before replying back that I was potentially interested. It’s our anniversary in April so why not?! I checked flights; $2400 for return tickets and choose the swap that came with a car as that would massively keep our costs down. Sometime in mid March, the lady contacted me saying she’d had a crash and therefore we couldn’t swap cars. This should have given me an inkling of what was coming! I was annoyed to be honest. Car hire for us costs almost as much as flights as we need a 6 or 7 seater car plus car seats and these tend to be exponentially more expensive than regular cars. Yep, as predicted, car hire came to almost $1400 for 10 days!A day before the trip, Andrew called me and said that he’d upgraded our travel insurance to a super duper more comprehensive one as he’d been reading about how expensive healthcare is in New Caledonia. I did say to him then that it was a waste of an extra $60 as we do have travel insurance. Anyway, I grovellingly (ok not quite) apologised for that comment! More on that later…We arrived to a very gloomy Noumea. It was predicted to rain for the whole 10 days! It was cloudy when we arrived but humid. Very humid. First impression of Noumea? Beautiful! My welcome message from Vodafone, not so beautiful. Roaming charges – $1 per minute to answer calls and send texts, $5 per minute to make calls! Yikes! To annoy me even further, there was a message from Agaba’s school saying he was absent. Really?! I called them the week he started school saying we were away for part of the last week of school. Email us the dates they said and I did! I had to call and ask what the hell they were playing at! Apparently, it was sent in error. Ok na. I used the opportunity to call the friend of our host to give her an idea of when we would turn up. She said 40 minutes from airport to the house. We picked up our car- van more like. A Peugeot Expert! No wonder it cost so much. We rattled in it’s cavernous space for 12 days! All the children seats were in booster seats. C and G are still too young for booster seats but that was all they had or infant seats and there’s no way they would fit in infant seats!
First glimpse of Noumea. Beautiful, no?!
We are now seasoned travellers! Everyone settling in for the flight. It’s a short 2.5 hours from Auckland. By the time the trolley came round, we were halfway through the flight!
We arrived at the house starving! The lady was nowhere to be seen. I went over to the neighbour to ask if we were at the right place. She was very unfriendly so I retreated to the car! 10 minutes later, the friend pulled up, led us in and showed us everything. The house manual was 3 pages of handwritten instructions. More dismay. They also had 3 cats. Even more dismay. We do not do swaps with pets. We like driving around, exploring, staying out late etc. That does not fit with having pets to look after! After a few back and forth messages, she said her daughter would come sort out the cats if and when we stayed away from the house. The house itself was ok. Very cluttered, some people like that. I don’t! I just see potential costs! My children don’t walk. They charge around everywhere. They’re like a herd of Rhinos! First thing I did was secure anything that looked fragile or precariously perched. We’d travelled with another family so actually had 4 children aged 5 and below! Sleeping arrangements sorted, we headed out to the shops! We got to Carrefour ok. Food wise, cost is similar to Auckland which is impressive as most of the food to NC is imported. We went to pay and they were no bags! None at all. Even if we wanted to buy, none was available! We had to ‘borrow’one of the shopping baskets to cart our shopping home. We loaded up and proceeded to get horrendously lost! Took us a good 30 minutes to find our way back to the house! But we got some very beautiful night time views and also discovered how step and hilly Noumea was!Lovely garden full of fruit trees and lots of shade
Fish pond! Yay! More pets to feed
This part of the house is my favourite. I could happily sit here all day. It was shaded throughout the day and very cool. It also over looked the valley below and the sunsets and sunrises were spectacular.
There was a piano! Yay something positive. We had bought one in January so the children were very pleased to see it. Onyaidu especially. She spent many moments there.
That banana ripened whilst we were there. Andrew did some harvesting duties too!
Sunset in Noumea. Stumbled on the highest place in Noumea as we were trying to find our way back to the house.
The lovely outside sitting area. Completely protected from the elements. We had most of our breakfasts here! Another positive. Honestly the house wasn’t that bad. It was fit for purpose. 
The children were fascinated by the snails. Andrew was amazed at the size. Of course, this is normal for me. After, all we have African Land snails in Nigeria. Those are the size of a bird!
Day 2 -We went exploring Noumea. We started from the market. It opens daily from 6am to 11am ish. We found breadfruit, soursop, avocados that look like the ones I grew up with (humongous and smooth skin) and other tropical fruits. There is also a craft market. It was chucking it down with rain so we waited in the market for a break in the rain and then drove round exploring. We followed the coastline and stopped as we found interesting stuff to look at. We went to Lemon Bay but it was too busy for our liking!Exploring the market
You just about see the outline of Duck Island on the horizon. It is full of turtles, no idea why it’s named Duck Island!
No idea who he is! Lots of people snorkelling here! His gear was impressive!
Corals on Lemon Bay. You can see Duck Island from here. Possible to swim there if so minded! Lots of turtles on Duck Island. And sea snakes!
You can only buy alcohol on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. The alcohol aisle is closed on all other days.
Day 3. We decided to go visit the south end of the Grand Terre which is the main island in New Caledonia and the 3rd largest of the Pacific islands. Prony and Yate are located here. The landscape is very Martian! It’s rugged and bare with lots of shrubs and scrub land. There’s been heavy mining for Nickel in this area and there is a huge mine in Yate. We spent the whole day here. It’s a 2 hour drive from Noumea. There weren’t a lot of places to stop and buy food. We had many car picnics on this trip! There is a penal colony in Prony. It housed the first Europeans who came to live in NC. Over the course of some years, 25,000 convicts were shipped from France to colonise and work in NC. These are the ancestors of most of the current New Caledonian Europeans. I am amazed by the number of black people I see. Research tells me they are the Kanaks. Of particular interest to me is their hair types and textures! We were also of a lot of interest to them! A family of 5 with different eye colours, skin tones and hair types! We had lots of interesting conversations with people!
Blue River National Park. You can find Cagous here. The official mascot and bird of New Caledonia. No, we didn’t see any. The weather was horrendous so we didn’t embark on any walks. 
Our cavernous van
One of the very few bridges with barriers at the sides. Most have none and are very narrow
The Kanaks live in Tribes. There are signs letting you know which tribes live where. However, it’s best to ask for permission before veering onto tribal land.
A very patriotic country! Lots of flags everywhere! Hanging off any surface that can hold one!
Aha! This is what most of the bridges are like! Makes for a worrisome crossing every time!
The Penal Colony in Prony. It’s been maintained and left intact as it was in the 1800s.
Pristine springs and streams dotted round the whole country.
103 years old! This is some seriously old Banyan tree
Not quite sure what tree this is. It seemed to have some sort of cherries as seeds. It is also a large tree.
Soursop! Was very happy to find one. Andrew and Agaba also love it. The girls, not so much!
Day 4 We decided to have a mini rest day in Noumea as we were heading off for a 3 day road trip round Grand Terre. We spent some time in Coconut Square then took the Tchou Tchou train round Noumea.
I’ve not seen a lantern since 2006! You know your parents think you’re a responsible child when you’re tasked with filling it with kerosene and cleaning the very thin, fragile glass. Brings back lots of memories!
Some military history for grandad conversations!
Day 5 We set off bright and early for our road trip. Now there’s not much to see at all in New Caledonia apart from landscapes. All the interesting architecture is in Noumea. So the rest of the pictures will mostly be landscapes. We drove for 4 hours today and stopped at Kone for the night. Accommodation – we called ahead and booked. We didn’t bother with booking.com or Airbnb. We stayed at Eden Aparthotel. It has a kitchenette, swimming pool and cost us about $130 for a family room with a king sized bed and a single bed. Our first stop was Boulouparis. A largish town. It has a nice centre, some nice plants to look at and that’s about it. Then La Foa.
Then we drove some more, found some brown signs and followed it. It led us to a rock formation. We had a quick dip (about 30 minutes) in the sea and scouted the rest of the interesting rock formations. This is in Bourail which although showed a largish settlement on the map; was very tiny when we got there!
La Roche Percee
We had the whole beach to ourselves but we’re used to that hehe. Spoilt by NZ!
A resort in Bourail with a traditional meeting house. It brought back a lot of childhood memories for me. I am keener than ever to take my whole family to visit Nigeria before we lose all these structures and even values that make up the whole of my childhood.
Very clear but shallow sea. You have to walk about a mile in to be able to swim. It’s great for the children to paddle in. It was very, very warm!
She preferred the playground toys to being in the sea. Oh well… priorities!
We decided to stop for food, found a snack place and went in at Bourail. They had food yay! But the owner proceeded to rub out the price of some meals – rice and curry- and up them by 400 francs which is about $2.50. However, it took the cost of each meal from 2000 francs to 2400 francs. On principle, we opted for the cheapest meals. Apparently they had run out of those ones so we went for the next cheapest which is a chicken baguette. Good thing we bought only 3 for 5 of us! This is half the size of 1. Very tasty and filling! It cost 700fr which is about $6 ish. Therefore a very cheap meal.
We got missing trying to find the hotel at Kone. We ended up driving round the town and got stopped by the police. I swear we did nothing wrong! 😂 There were about 4 of them standing across the road, effectively blocking it. We stopped and said ‘Bonjour! One asked for Andrew’s licence, the other looked at us closely and asked where we were from. England we replied. He asked if we were from London and I said no. About 2 hours outside London. Norwich?! He asked excitedly. How weirdly coincidental! We said yes! Have you been? No, he replied. It has my favourite football club! See Norfolk is good for something! We got waved on with no further issues or questions. They didn’t even check our licences! We finally got in and settled into make dinner and then bed. Agaba was annoyed about the hotel. He was adamant that it was not a hotel because it’s like a house and not big and tall with many windows. Oh dear…we named it the Red house to calm him down. He accepted it was the red house and not a hotel. Phew!
Day 6. We set off bright and early for Tiabet via Poum. It marks the northernmost point of New Caledonia. We stopped at Voh and tried to find the viewpoint for the heart of Voh. Without success. The other thing about New Caledonia is that you find a brown sign with an arrow vaguely pointing somewhere. You follow it and that’s it. No more information as to where to head to! Which then leads to driving round trying to find the attraction! We stopped at Koumac, bought some lunch and had some ice cream. We stopped and had a car picnic then continued the journey. Again, there isn’t much to see apart from the changing landscape. The north is again very different. Vivid colours of orange, red and white streak through the earth. The roads are a bit narrower and mainly packed earth. We pass only a few cars. Agbenu gets very car sick as do I. As long as I’m driving, I’m fine. Otherwise, I’m not. Seeing as Agbenu is 3, her driving is not an option. Luckily, her speech is good enough that she alerts us to when she starts feeling queasy. When I heard, ‘my stomach hurts’, I just handed her a bag. She’s also very good at aiming into the bag. This time though, it was a bit too much for Onyaidu too who proceeded to show solidarity by throwing up all over her seat and her sister. Yay! All that ice cream came back a very lovely pink colour! Clean up duly done, we head off again and made it to the very tip of New Caledonia
Obligatory family picture
Having reached the northernmost tip, well as far as a car can go, we turn round and head back the way we came towards Hienghene, pronounced HeeHee. We cross the first of the mountain passes. The road is windy, bendy and very narrow. It also had the most dramatic scenery. My phone’s camera cannot capture the majestic beauty or grandeur that we see! We finally came to the end of the road. To continue, we need to use the ferry service which will take us across the river. What we failed to do was check the ferry crossing times. Luckily for us, the ferry operator was there! The ferry crossing is free. It is also the only way to get from the north to the east. It’s a short ferry ride. About 10 minutes but it’s a memorable experience. The ferry service is also about to close and make way for a bridge which is probably more practical but not as nice.
We arrive our accommodation. It’s a lovely resort with traditional bungalows built to accommodate guests. There are 60 bungalows so it’s a big complex. As there’s nothing much in nearby Hienghene, we opt to pay for dinner which is a buffet. We paid for a family room which has a king size bed, a sofa bed and a single bed. The complex is un-fenced and hemmed in by the sea. It’s peaceful and one is lulled by the wind and the swaying coconut trees. Like every tropical island, New Caledonia is full of coconut trees. Our accommodation cost is 12,000fr and dinner is almost 16000fr for all of us so dinner cost even more than the accommodation. It’s a 3 course sit down meal and there’s a whole raft of food. There’s bougane, the local dish of the Kanaks which I excitedly try. It was made with lamb which is the only meat I hate. You can ask to have your meat or fish cooked to order. Dinner done and dusted. We head to bed.
Day 7 We’re firmly on the east coast now. It is wild and rugged. Some of the roads are not tarred. There’s also a lot of road erosion. We go through the 3rd of our 4 mountain passes for the day at Canala to Thio. It’s called the scheduled road because there’s a schedule of how cars should cross it. It’s a 13km road, completely unsealed with a precipitous drop on one side. From the Canala end, cars can drive through at even hours but only in the first 20 minutes of the hour. From the Thio end, cars can drive through at odd hours also only in the first 20 minutes. In theory, this means you should meet no other cars as you drive through. The problem is, it is self regulated so one cannot guarantee that someone won’t start driving into the other end when they shouldn’t. It’s also only scheduled between 7am and 5pm so daylight hours. It’s free for all after dark! Yes, we did come across a muppet who must have driven through when it was not time for him to and yes we drove through when we should have. It was also daytime. Luckily there was enough shrubland that we could pull into and squeeze past each other!
Our plan was to spend the night in Thio but we could not find any accommodation for love or money. There was just none. We decided to drive the 3 hours back to Noumea. It was a relief to get back! We spent the next day lazying round the house and woke up to a shocker on Friday morning.
Good Friday morning. Not a very good Friday here for us. Agaba woke me at the crack of dawn as usual. I went into the living room to get him his kindle so he could head back to bed and leave me with my lie in. The kindles (we have one for each child) were not where I left then charging the previous night which was on a stool under the stairs. Assuming Andrew moved them to the kitchen, I stumble half asleep into the kitchen and I stop short. Although the back door is closed, there is a pair of unknown shoes in the doorway to the laundry/ back store room. I then notice a half drunk bottle of alcoholic cooking syrup. It wasn’t left there by me. I walk back into the living room. My heart was racing at this point as I know all is not well. I look up and the mezzanine lights are on. I decide someone is in the house and go wake Andrew. He hurriedly gets dressed and goes up the mezzanine. There’s no one there. This is when I also realise our laptops are missing from the dining table. We conclude we’ve been burgled. We walk round and the wine chiller has been broken into (held about 30 bottles of wine), Andrew’s backpack has been taken – these contain our passports as we always carry them on us when out and about. The fridge has been cleared out of everything apart from the opened bottle of milk. We had done some food shopping the previous day and left some of the food on the work top (pasties, bread etc) all gone. We call the police and run into our first barrier. They speak no English and our French is poor. We’re asked to call back at 8am. It’s now just before 7am. I find the house instructions the owners left and meticulously dial all the numbers on there. The first 3 don’t pick. I then email the lady and ask her to please contact someone on our behalf. The fourth number was picked. It was her daughter – who’s English was also not very good so she gave me another number. Turned out to be her boyfriend who spoke excellent English. I managed to tell him what the issue was. He came round within 15 minutes and called the police. As he was arriving, I also got a call from the house owner who was in our own home back in NZ. It was the first of many international roaming calls in the next week. The police arrived, took our statements and combed the area. In the meantime, we cancelled all our bank cards and deliberated what to do about our return trip which was supposed to be Sunday! We also discovered the burglars took the rental car keys – a quick run to the road showed the van was still there – and the house keys. The house locks had to be changed and the rental car company SIXT; refused to swap the car over for us, preferring to bring us another key. Ok. They weren’t worried at all that someone was roaming around with a key to a van located somewhere they knew…To make matters worse, it was a public holiday being Easter Friday. The police found our cards in the bushes but we’d already cancelled all our cards. That left us with no money for a while. Luckily, having a Transferwise card meant blocking or cancelling the card was a matter of freezing it on the app to stop it being used. I unblocked it and put a hold on any transactions that was not chip and pin. This would ensure that even if it has been used for online purchases, those payments will not go through as we will have to transfer a substantial amount onto it to enable us survive the next few days. Andrew called the travel insurance company to find out what cover we have. It turns out, they will cover everything from Sunday which is the day we were due to depart – accommodation, extending car hire, replacing flights and travel documents. This is where the super, duper extra cover came into it’s own. We contact the UK high commission in Wellington and get routed to the Foreign Office in London. The lady very ‘helpfully’ tells us to wait till Tuesday and contact the Wellington office again and to call our insurance company. I was really surprised that there was no emergency contact. Interviews finally over, we head to the police station to make a formal statement. It took us almost 3 hours. D and A (the host’s daughter and boyfriend) spent the whole time with us. They basically had to take the day off work. They suggested we try the New Zealand Consulate as it’s not a public holiday in New Caledonia. They were closed but there was a number to call on the door. We opt not to call as we were not New Zealand citizens. Big mistake! We head back to the house via the shops. We have a meal and settled down for bed. We are very unsettled and try to put the house alarm on. We only ever put it on when we went out. It kept triggering as it’s motion sensor operated which in turn kept making us more jittery. Andrew finally worked out how to isolate the bedrooms from the alarm and we set it. We also went round and added our own form of security by propping chairs under door handles. It turns out that burglary is a massive, massive issue in Noumea. Although most houses are gated, we didn’t link it to crime prevention. According to the police, they received upto a dozen reports weekly. New Caledonia has less then 300k people in total scattered across the whole country which includes lots of islands. Noumea probably has about 150k people. That is a lot of burglaries on a weekly basis. We were also informed that houses used as Airbnbs were targeted more. So basically tourists were targeted. We also decided to bring the car into the compound. Not only is the drive very steep, it also curves round to lead to the car port. D warned us against parking it on the drive as the van was so big. She told us hilarious stories of her parents always driving into the walls of the house and the fence. We didn’t feel comfortable leaving it on the road so took the risk of parking it just inside the gates. We wake up on the Saturday a bit refreshed. I am amazed that I managed to sleep at all and feel relieved that we had an uneventful night until I was out to the outside sitting area and find Andrew’s shoes…remember I saw a pair of unknown shoes which alerted me that something was not right? Well one of them left their shoes and wore Andrew’s shoes away. The police walked round the whole perimeter and I did as well. It was impossible to miss the shoes. This left me a bit panicked. Did they return last night too? Thankfully, it did mean Andrew had shoes to wear! The previous day, he had to borrow flip flops from A. Of course, we didn’t like this new development. There is a shed/ workshop beside the house with machetes in it. We used it on the Thursday to cut down the ripe bananas. Andrew went round that way and realised those were all gone. We decide we’re not spending the night there and spend sometime finding accommodation. We find one on booking.com. I suggest we book it, Andrew felt we should drive there so we did. It got booked before we got there! We booked for the next 4 nights and head back to the house. Unfortunately, the host lady seemed a lot more concerned about their wine stash than what we’d been through. She also seemed determined to get me to prove we didn’t leave the back door open because when they arrived our house, one of the lounge windows was open. I reminded her that our cleaner left our house 1 hour before they arrived, our suburb is very safe and our neighbours (surrounded on all sides) would totally challenge anyone looking sketchy around the house! I also reminded her that my house manual runs to almost 21 pages and details almost every possible scenario and how to deal with it as most of the people we swap with are new to New Zealand and need guidance. Her very first mistake was not informing us that security was very paramount! We never bothered to put the alarms on at night, we didn’t use any of the deadbolts, we left the keys in the lock after locking the doors (that’s how the burglars came in, with the aid of the cat flap). Of course, we subsequently removed the keys and took them to bed with us. She seemed to become more reasonable after that and said to not dwell on the incident but to try and keep the memories of the good times we had. Another uneventful night and we head off to our accommodation for the next 4 days. We moved to Dumbea in the mountains and much more closer to the airport. It was a beautiful stunning place nestled in the foot of the mountains. We hired a 2 bedroom gite with cooking, parking and washing facilities. There are only 3 other gites but the lady is so busy, they were booked out throughout. We spent the next few days waiting impatiently for Tuesday.
The children had so much fun there. We regularly had to go looking for them at night. The gite next door had a family with a little girl and a dog staying. All stayed out late larking about.
TUESDAY, 23rd April 2019. 2 days after we were supposed to be back in Auckland, we finally contact the UK high commission in Wellington. First she pooh pooh’s any idea of us getting our travel documents before Thursday, then she informs us that the London Office should have put us in touch with the NZ consulate in Noumea as it’s the UK’s friendly consulate. Whaat???!! We could have started this process on the Friday?! Response is yes. Apparently, the UK has friendly consulates where they have none. These friendly consulates basically support UK citizens the way the UK consulate would do. Then she tells us, we also have to arrange to have the travel documents couriered from NZ to Noumea. Thursday 25th was our preferred return date. It is also ANZAC day which makes it a bank holiday in NZ. We call the NZ consulate in Noumea and they say come anytime today. We get there and they are closed for the afternoon break. We got there at 11.30am. Turns out they close from 11am to 1.30pm. I was so tired, I just sat on the pavement. You know that kind of tiredness that is not physical… As we debated what to do, a car pulled up beside the building and makes a call. I only notice this happening absent-mindedly. A few minutes later, the door opens. The car driver is the husband of one of the consular officers and he called her to say there were stragglers (that’s not what he said!) in front of her office. She apologised, ushered us in and we completed the necessary forms, took pictures, made payments etc. I also used to opportunity to call a friend in NZ to liaise with the UK High Commission on our behalf as we had to courier the passports to ourselves! Satisfied that we may potentially be heading home on the Thursday, we head back to our accommodation. Only to be greeted by lots of missed calls from NZ. Turns out 1. The earliest we can get travel documents from NZ is a week from that day. 2. We need to book flights first as the travel documents are single use and is tied to a certain day and flight. 3. No courier company could guarantee we would get the documents by Friday at the latest because Thursday is a bank holiday. More deflation. The lady from the Wellington office suggested to the NZ consulate about contacting any other EU country’s HC to see if they would issue us a travel document as we are EU citizens (hmnn one of the pitfalls of Brexit!), that was also a no go. A couple of hours brainstorming later, it was decided the documents could be issued from Sydney. There were more courier companies flying to NC from Sydney but we had to call to arrange for a collection first and confirm that we would get the documents on the Friday. We called DHL in Sydney, booked and paid for a collection then started the drama of trying to book flights. We choose to fly on the Sunday in the event that we had issues collecting the passports on the Friday. We did call AirNZ to cancel our flights after the burglary and they promised to credit our cancelled flight as a credit towards future travel. When we called to book the flights for Sunday, we were told our new one way tickets will cost a whooping $4300. For a 2.5 hour flight and that the credit had been applied. Needless to say, we were floored. We certainly did not have that amount of money sitting in our accounts just waiting to be spent! Remember we had also paid out for new accommodation totaling $1,600, extra car hire for $560, passport application for $1000, not to mention incidentals like feeding, petrol, loading our phones to use Viber where we could etc. So much for a quick and cheap holiday! After some deliberation, we call Andrew’s father and he sent us some money. It was then another drama to transfer the money to our Transferwise card as the internet kept dropping out. Again, we had to reach out to our friend in NZ to effect this transfer. AirNZ agreed to hold the flights at that price for 3 hours. After some to and fro with the Sydeny office (it was way beyond her closing time too!), we finally agreed the travel documents will be issued for Sunday’s flights and we hoped fervently that we could get the money to book the flights that day!
Almost 2 hours and several dropped calls later, the flights were booked. The next afternoon, we received an email from Sydney that the travel documents had been picked by DHL. Phew! We settled down to wait for Friday.
Thursday, we went sight seeing to Sarramea. Again, nothing much to see except landscapes. Sarramea is a small, lovely community. We found Soursop! Yay! It was a honesty box system…proof that stealing was mainly in Noumea…we paid and drove back to Dumbea.
Andrew and the children buying some soursop. Notice the lack of a seller!
Church just outside Noumea. The building looked interesting…
Chinese quarter in Noumea
Friday morning and afternoon came and went. At 3pm with no news from DHL, we became jittery and called them. They assured us our documents had arrived and would be delivered latest by Tuesday!!! I lost it a bit and did a lot of shouting and swearing. Good thing my French is poor and their English poor. We agreed to drive in to pick it up. The only catch, they close at 4pm and do not open on Saturdays. It was also rush hour. We got to the city and the initial address given was wrong. We made it to the DHL office just after 4pm and collected the documents with a huge sigh of relief.
I’d never been so glad to receive a letter!
Saturday dawned rainy and foggy, we checked out of the gite and went for lunch, then headed to Paita to check into our hotel for the night. Paita is 15 minutes away from the airport hence booking a hotel there. But no, New Caledonia was not done with us! I was with Andrew when he called 4 days prior to book the accommodation. We were assured we could pay on arrival. We did offer to pay on the day we booked. We arrived to the hotel staff having absolutely no idea about our booking. Needless to say, we were not very pleased. We needed cooking facilities to cook dinner and at least have breakfast before heading to the airport. A few gestures and some Franglais later, we were offered adjoining rooms and some cooking facilities…at the manager’s house! We decided to take it, checked in and headed to the pool. 5pm, I walk over to the manager’s house with some noodles, eggs and already cooked meat to heat up. I get there to find 3 dogs. 2 chained up by the front door and one sunning itself in the kitchen. The house is open. I called, out, knocked and called out some more. The dogs just watched with amusement. I gingerly let myself in. It’s open and no one is home. I find the lights, switch them on and try to work the stove. All the while my heart is pounding. What if someone walks in and bludgeons me? What if doggy decided to not humour me anymore and makes a move? I decide to use only the microwave and cook the noodles secondary school style. I break them into a bowl, add water and set it to 10 minutes in the microwave. I boil the eggs in the kettle- I know!!! I heat up the meat and by now, it’s completely dark outside. It totally increases my paranoia. Food ready, I find some plates, cutlery and set off the 5 minutes walk back to our room. I kept looking back. The dogs were totally disinterested in all my actions. Phew!
Dinner done and dusted, we head to bed. It’s a turning and twisting night for Andrew and myself. We pride ourselves on making it to the airport just in time for check in. This time, we arrived the airport 3 hours early. Everything went smoothly! The immigration staff did show each other our passports saying they’d never seen it before but that was all. They also apologised for our experience. We’d bought some pastries for breakfast so found a table and fed the kids and ourselves. The flight back was also completely uneventful. The immigration staff at Auckland had been briefed about us and her first words to us was, ‘Welcome Home!’
It feels like home indeed!
New Caledonia is beautiful and we will return one day, after exploring all the other islands too. No, this hasn’t put us off travel. The good and bad experiences make the sum total of our memories. Plus it could totally have happened even at home! New Caledonia is country 24 for Andrew and myself, 18 for Agaba and 16 for the girls so something like this was bound to happen sooner rather than later!
Now to collate all the needed receipts and put in that travel insurance claim. This will be fun!
![ENFM5182[1]](https://idomalass.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/enfm51821.jpg?w=676)
Idoma lass in kiwi land 