We seemed to have stumbled over a bit of Europe over the other side of the world in New Caledonia (basically a 2 hour flight East of Brisbane, in the South Pacific).
We arrived in Noumea in the evening, after paying a whopping GBP 40 to get from the airport....yup, definitely back in Europe here! I was actually quite scared walking around, there were loads of local Melanesians just hanging around everywhere, drinking! Hmmmm! The place (described in our literature as a sophisticated French resort ) was a little shabby around the edges too....not quite what I was expecting, pretty though!
Unfortunately James decided to pick the most interesting of places to come down with a cold.....OK, OK, it was more than a cold. He had a nice fever on the boil and was coughing up all sorts of yuck - of course he didn't want any fuss, but I called out the expensive doctor all the same! The doc confirmed he had a chest infection, high fever and there wasn't much O2 getting around his weak little body! Poor little love is STILL getting through the box of pills he was prescribed! He's a lot better though you'll be pleased to know!
So, this left me to wander the streets (in a place where nothing seems to open....ever) looking for food and medication! The local market was cool - very colourful! I was still scared though! wuss!
Once James was feeling better we took a boat over (not a nice boat, I was sick three times for those of you who really wanted to know!!) to the Isle of Pines, 2 hours south of Noumea, for some r+r. We stayed in a cute little gite, right next to the beach! Took a couple of mountain bikes out for a day - to see some caves, very pretty! I was shattered by the time we got back though - quite a hilly little island! Apart from that and looking at an old French prision, we literally did nothing! Not that there was anything to do either!
New Caledonia was beautiful, but there was really not much to entertain us, so we were quite glad to fly to Sydney and meet Kayleigh to be honest!
NB. Unfortunately, due some unforseen circumstances (i.e. me getting a bit obsessive about my photos and putting my camera on RAW mode for max quality, we can't download them at this point - will try though!! You're not missing too much though!)
