After the big Japan adventure in December and January, we had to wait a whole 3 months for our next overseas jaunt. This one was a little a warmer than the snow and cold of Japan, we were off to New Caledonia for some sun and snorkeling in the Pacific. We hadn’t ever been to the French territory of New Caledonia. It is made up of dozens of islands in the South Pacific, and we were headed to the capital, Noumea. Being big snorkeling and diving fans we were looking forward to exploring the extensive reef and definitely finding Nemo! There was also going to be some feasting on French patisserie in La Nouvelle-Calédonie.

Leaving a cold Canberra…

It was the Easter school holidays and the chilly mornings had started in Canberra. We were departing on Tuesday the 14th of April. We started on a nice 1 degree morning in our shorts and Tshirts, ready for warmer places.

Anto hit a slight snag after going through security and was being paged as his dive knife was in a checked bag had been flagged. This was the first time the dive knives had ever been a problem on many flights, but he did get a tour of back parts of airport we never see to get it cleared.

Fog had set in as we’d crossed the lake on the way to the airport, so all the incoming planes delayed and our flight didn’t take off until after 9.20am a little late.

Off to Noumea….. eventually!

The flight to Brisbane was uneventful but our 2 hour layover ended up being cut to a bit over an hour due to the delay. So by the time we caught the bus over to International, and went through immigration we had about 5 minutes before boarding, so didn’t get our long awaited coffee. We then sat there for 50 minutes when they finally told us the plane was being towed over from domestic. We were finally off a bit after 12.40pm. For us Aussies this was a very short international flight, at only 1.5 hours!!

We had beautiful views of the many mountains and turqouise water as we descended into Noumea…..

We arrived late but made in time for a sunset and a terrifying drive in a manual van on the wrong side of the road. This was only the precursor to driving the narrow and hilly streets around Noumea, which requires many hill starts and I’m not at all sad my name was not on the car insurance so I didn’t have to do the driving!

Welcome to the Baie des Citron

The port was well lit up at night and we were all keen to explore further the next day! We had an Airbnb apartment booked, that was very close to the Bais des Citron, one of the most visited places in Noumea. Our host was on time to meet us and quickly established our French was terrible and politely swapped to English. The apartment was lovely and big, and we could tell the views would be amazing once the sun was up.

Soren and Anto head off to the nearest supermarche while the girls and I unpacked. The boys didn’t return until after 8pm, and the hungry minions were eagerly awaiting dinner! Food is very expensive in Noumea so we’d taken quite a bit of snack and breakfast items over with us, so we could just supplement with local and fresh produce. Anto whipped us up a pasta dinner, but sadly Soren had accidentally put down the fresh baguettes when packing the groceries, so there was no French bread for us. The baguettes are about the only reasonably priced thing in Noumea, but that would have to wait for another day. It was well after 9pm when we ate, so we were keen for a good nights sleep and to head off exploring the next day.

Sunshine and a trip to the markets…

We all slept well and awoke to pleasant 25 degrees and beautiful sunshine. It was a lot warmer than the start to our previous morning in a frosty Canberra. Our balcony provided excellent views from our apartment overlooking the Baie des Citron. We planned to head down the short but steep walk for some snorkeling later that day.

After breakfast on the balcony with those beautiful views, we had to obtain further provisions to feed the starving masses. We head out in the car and Anto successfully navigated the winding and hilly streets of Noumea. The city is rather compact and spread amongst the coast and the many hills, rising directly from the coastline in much of the city. There were a lot of steep streets and hill starts required.

The Port Moselle market is on the waterfront, not far from Baie des Citrons and is open every morning from 5am til midday. The stalls stock fresh local fruit, veggies and freshly caught seafood.

The Port Moselle market fresh produce was only marginally cheaper than the supermarket offerings, but we picked up some fruit and veg and the kids were all eyeing off the fresh fish. Soren made sure we obtained some sashimi grade tuna, although they were all keen on a whole parrot fish. Anto was not particularly keen on spending his holiday preparing and cleaning fish.

The views at the marina in front of the market was very pretty, with some stunning clear water and plenty of expensive boats for us the check out.

We bid farewell to the market and head back to the Géant Hypermarché which is exactly like French supermarkets we’ve frequented in France, but huge. With further supplies obtained, including those fresh baguettes, it was another terrifying drive back to the apartment, where we enjoyed a lunch of baguettes, cheeses and pain au chocolat with views across the Bais des Citrons.

A Portugese Man-O-War problem….

On our trip back from supply gathering we noticed red flags up at the Bais des Citrons beach. Some googling indicated all the local beaches were closed due to a Portugese Man-O-War swarm the previous day. This immediately scuttled our plans for afternoon swimming and snorkeling.

So this meant it was beach walking rather than beach swimming. There were some unhappy kids! We did convince them it would be good explore on foot, so we head down to the Bais des Citrons beach and walked along the beach, where we could see plenty of coral and fish.

The water was a gorgeous colour and it was very warm, so we would have preferred to be swimming but we had to make do with the views. The nearly empty beaches which was a very odd sight in such glorious weather.

The beaches are full of coral so you don’t want to be walking on them in bare feet! We walked along the Bais des Citron beach ‘Plage de la Bais de Citrons‘ and across to the Anse-Vata beach, a 2km tourist haven lined with restaurants, cafes and hotels. This is a mecca for watersports, but with the beach closure it was pretty deserted so we instead enjoyed the views and nearly got blown over by the wind.

Zinnia was keen to play on the beach rather than be restricted to walking and admiring the views, and was not happy she was being kept away from the water.

We walked all the way down to the Chateau de Royale resort and checked out their beach and (also deserted) swimming area.

The beaches weren’t closed due to sharks (that was to come later in the trip) but they were seemingly the only signs they had handy!

After 4.5 kilometres of exploring, we were hot and sweaty. On the return to the apartment we noticed the red flags were being replaced with yellow ones, so the snorkeling plan was back on! A quick trudge up the hill for a cold drink and to get changed into our swimmers and it was back down to the beach, to see if we could find some pretty fish.

We decided not to take our full snorkeling kit down, so we just grabbed our masks so we could quickly go for an explore and see where the best areas were. The kids took off quickly, even without fins. Happy to be let loose in the water.

The coral and fish on the outer areas of the bay are pretty good and we found plenty of good fish and coral, although the visibility wasn’t great. We were pretty sure we were in for many more snorkels and exploring over the next few days.

By 5pm it was time to head back to the apartment for to watch the sunset over the bay and enjoy some rice bowls with Soren’s prized tuna.

Dessert was some local pastries we’d picked up during our morning shopping expedition. All a fan of French patisserie, we were keen to indulge in all the French treats Noumea had to offer.

Despite the slight hiccup with beach closures we had a pretty good first full day in our beach side apartment and were definitely all looking forward to more sun and snorkeling the next day.

Off to find Nemo….

Everyone tired from a couple of days travel and sunb slept in til after 7.30am. After another breakfast with beautiful tropical views from our apartment we booked a dive and snorkel out at Amedee Island for the next day. As our quick snorkel here at Bais des Citron the previous afternoon had provided quite a few fish and coral we spent some time getting the camera into the housing so we could get some shots today.

Today we returned to the beach with all our snorkeling gear, and were greeted by green flags meaning swimming and snorkeling was not restricted. The visibility this morning was much better and we quickly found plenty of pretty fish and coral big and small. It took all of about 30 seconds to find Nemo. Baie des Citrons has many clown fish and they are a particularly vibrant colour here.

We were also lucky to see some very cute puffer fish.

Zinnia is now a snorkeling demon and I didn’t take my fins for the morning snorkel as I was planning to just potter around with the camera. Zinnia had her fins on and I was doing flat out freestyle to catch her, so fins were going to be on for the arvo snorkel! Zinnia was also very fond of clown fish so we had a wonderful time finding many beautiful ‘Nemo’s’.

The sun was well and truly out for our snorkel, and it was a pleasant 25 degrees, so pretty ideal snorkeling conditions.

The Bais des Citrons is shark netted and had a couple of pontoons and in the bay. Astrid and Soren who are very strong swimmers were out there in a flash and having a wonderful time jumping off the pontoons and checking out the bigger fish surrounding them. Aside from clown fish, we found some pretty clams and my favourite Picasso trigger fish.

After 1.5 hours of snorkeling we were all getting cold and hungry so it was back to the apartment for a lunch of baguettes with cheese (and tuna for the kids) seaside views.

Afternoon snorkeling adventures….

After a fantastic morning snorkel, we were keen to go back for more after lunch. Another layer of sunscreen and we were back down to the beach in Bais des Citrons. By now everyone seemed to know the beaches were open so it was a lot busier but most people weren’t snorkeling too far out. We had discovered there were excellent coral and fish down one end of the bay and further out towards the shark nets, so we had a large section of ocean to ourselves, with plenty of pretty coral and fish.

Despite the visibility not being as good as the morning we had an excellent selection of corals and plenty of butterfly fish, wrasse, chromis and dory snapper.

Despite the relatively warm temperatures after a couple of hours of being face down and bum up watching fish and coral we did get a little cold so wandered back to the apartment for warm showers and to find all the bits of skin that didn’t have quite enough sunscreen!

We enjoyed a dinner of fish, chips and calamari for the non-vegetarians on the deck. I scored a goats cheese frozen pizza. Like France it’s lucky I like goats cheese as it’s a staple if you are avoiding meat! We had another fabulous sunset and were looking forward to seeing more fish and hopefully some turtles on the adventure to Amedee Island the next day.

Saturday snorkels

Our Friday adventures at Amedee Island are in a separate post (coming soon).

Saturday we were back in Noumea for the day, this was our final day in our current apartment and there was a cruise ship in port for the day so we figured it would be a bit busier around Bais des Citron than normal. We’d found out the previous afternoon that the beaches were being closed down again. This time due to a shark attack. This threw a spanner in the works as we were supposed to head out to Ilot Maitre, a small islet surrounded by 2km reef, for a couple of nights at the Hilton Doubletree from Sunday. Our main reason for going out there was excellent snorkeling in the surrounding lagoon. The beaches being closed was going to prevent any swimming or snorkeling and there was little else to do on the island. We’d contacted the hotel and we were trying to change our accommodation and were getting changing answers from them every 5 minutes all the previous night and morning which was rather frustrating.

In the meantime we could snorkel in Baie des Citrons about 60m from our current apartment, as it was shark netted and beaches were open within the netted area. So we went down for an early snorkel before the bus loads of hop-on-hop-off buses of cruisers started descending. The visibility wasn’t great this morning but we said hello to a few fish.

The tide was right out so it was making it hard to get to a few of our favourite sections of coral. The kids encountered a few minor stingers so we decided to jump out and head back to the apartment for some land based exploring.

Hiking up Ouen Toro

We planned to do some touristing for awhile and explore a bit more of Noumea out of the water. First on the cards was a hike up to Ouen Toro Lookout. We drove down to near the Chateau Royal hotel and parked the car and went out into the heat for hike up to the lookout.

Ouen Toro lookout is on the hill of the same name and is 132m above sea level. You can drive most of the way up, but why drive when you can walk and enjoy the views on the way up.

There were fabulous views over Noumea city area and out to all the nearby islands. We could see to Duck Island, Ilot Maitre and even the lighthouse on Amedee. It was a clear day and the views were spectacular.

From the lookout we could see over Anse Vata beach and hear all the people playing loudly in the shark netted areas of beach. It was a very clear day so you could see the clear turquoise water below and all the lagoon areas with plenty of coral.

We’d driven all over the city area and from the top of the hill you can see the different neighbourhoods and many hills and winding streets, below.

We checked out the Ouen Toro Cannons which are at the top of one of the lookouts. The artillery installations have been preserved as a reminder of the region’s strategic military significance. From this spot there were also wonderful views over the lagoon.

After visiting the cannons at the top of the hill we decided to take a different track down which was much more jungle like and steep but a lot more shady. The whole hike was about 4km but had lots of elevation and sun so we were pleased to make it back to the air-conditioned car.

It was a hot walk and we were all pretty sweaty, but had enjoyed the views.

Exploring Noumea city…..

We hadn’t done much looking around Noumea city area, as we’d been mostly hanging out at the beach and snorkeling. The Bais des Citrons beach was pretty busy with the cruise ship tourists (as it was the only open beach due to the shark nets) so we thought we’d take the opportunity to visit some other areas in the city.

First we visited Coconut Square ‘Place des Cocotiers’. This central square was established in 1861 and is surrounded by shops and administrative buildings including the town hall.

The kids scored a icecream and we did some people watching in the shade. It was pretty quiet aside from a few families out enjoying the cafes.

Next it was a walk through the Latin and Asian quarters to look at the different buildings in the area.

There was definitely a few different types of architecture and it gave us a chance to see the area a bit better on foot. We’d driven this area repeatedly and it was even more hilly and hot on foot!

Not much was open on a Saturday but we did get to walk up and down the crazy steep streets we’d been driving on.

We found ourselves back down at the port, which was again rather picturesque.

The Bais des Citron final snorkel and sunset….

The cruise ship passengers were all due back at their ship and Noumea city seemed to be emptying out, so it was time for another snorkel. We head down to Baie des Citron for an afternoon snorkel, and possibly our last snorkel here for the trip.

The visibility wasn’t great this afternoon, but we knew our way around the bay now and could beeline to the best bommies where we knew the good coral was, and of course plenty of fish.

We again found so many clown fish. The amount in this one area of reef is amazing and you can often see 20 or more in one go.

We were very thankful that we could at least enjoy the swimming and snorkeling in the shark netted area. The snorkeling in Bais des Citron is quite decent and very accessible with little effort as you can walk in off the beach and there are plenty of areas of good coral and many fish quite close to shore. You definitely need either dive boots or reef walkers due to the coral and rocks but that wasn’t really an issue for us.

It was getting late in the afternoon so we had to bid farewell to our many Nemo friends and head back to the apartment. As we ate our last dinner on our apartment balcony, watching another fabulous sunset we saw the cruise ship head out!

We’d definitely enjoyed our few days in Baie des Citron. The apartment we chose was excellent as it was in walking distance to the beach and many cafes and restaurants, with fabulous views. Due to the very high prices we hadn’t actually eaten out, but there were many options within a very short distance. Out on Ilot Maitre we were going to have to eat on the island so we were making the most of self-catering here in Bais des Citron.

Up next….

Our very awesome day out on Amedee Island, snorkeling and diving with the most amazing turtles!