L’Omelette géante

This weekend was full of festivities. Noumea hosted its own carnival. It entailed a long parade with a variety of dancing and some very subdued observers. It was really nothing to write home about, so I shall move.

The more interesting event was the Omelette Géante hosted by the local town of Dumbea. It is about a 20 minute drive from Noumea. Where literally they crack over 7,000 eggs, cut up enormous loaves of bread, and make giant scrambled eggs in a frying pan made to size. The whole thing was a bit ridiculous, and the French people I have asked have not been able to give a history of where in France this comes from. I do know that this tradition was brought to Dumbea thanks to Bernard Beilles in 1983. The proportions of the ingredients are so large they use drills to beat the eggs, the spatulas were over 10 feet long, and the pan itself must have been 5 meters in diameter and necessitated a crane to move it. One has to love the hats and the attire of the cooking staff. The French take their gastronomie very seriously, and even outdoor antics require the proper attire.

Here are a few pictures from the festivities.




Aside the from the giant omelet the carnival hosted all the usual carnival aspects of bumper cars, cotton candy, games for kids, and music. We got to see some nice Polynesian dancing (the best since we left Polynesia). This is because New Caledonia is very diverse and has a large representation from populations throughout the Pacific and the world. This was followed by a torturous unending representation of how mediocre music can be. It was a Polynesian female singer with a keyboardist who didn’t so much play but destroy the prefabricated sounds from the synthesizer. I don’t know if it was to serve as a foil for the final act or make her feel important. The best part was magic System. They are a group from Ivory Coast. They had a top 10 hit in France in 2002. It was a wonderful performance (something sorely lacking here). The show was a pleasant change to see everyone singing and dancing along. The final song had kids come up on stage and dance with them. They made sure to have black, white, and pacific islanders all represented and it was great to see all the kids dance as they had been taught from there own cultures.

Check out my Slide Show!

Cote est

Easter in New Caledonia provides a three day weekend, so we took advantage of it and went exploring with the car. Seeing as we finally have a car, and a super fuel efficient one at that…why not?

Looking out onto the water rather than looking onto land. Seeing a coast from the other side is a nice change... eh?

We crossed the island from west to east… only about 30 kilometer wide is fairly quick even with the narrow roads and hills. We arrived in Thio (pronounced Tio), where we found a small village with architecture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries: small homes, bright colors, metal roves, and little gardens.

We headed south and hiked down to the beach, where we met a mother and her children searching for crabs, muscles, and clams to have for dinner.

I found lots of lovely shells. The highlight of beach and probably the afternoon for me was the discovery of a BLUE STARFISH. Check this guy out, so beautiful and so blue!


Cote Est - East Coast

We then hiked back to the car, and JP wanted to continued south to see how far our little car would get us before the road would necessitate a 4X4. Then the plan was to head north again to find a place to camp.

On the way we picked up a local hitchhiking. OK, OK this is normally a bad idea, but as this is fairly sparsely populated area, public transit is non-existent, so hitching a ride is pretty normal. This man looked quite respectable and older. He works in Noumea and was heading home for the holiday weekend. When we picked him up he had walked all the way from the nearest town (15 kilometers) of very hilly winding roads and had another 20 to go. Needless to say he was happy for the ride. We mentioned we were looking for a place to camp. He told us the campground we were thinking about is almost always full and recommended another campground just past where we would drop him off.

The directions we were given were to look for a board with a camping sign, turn and you will end up near the beach. We continued until the road literally ended at the beach. A lovely spot to camp, but as this is all tribal land, one cannot just camp without permission. So we backtracked and confirmed that the only board in view was declaring independence. This did not bode well for camping, as in “Hi, how are you?, Oh, you want to kick the French out. Oh, that’s nice. Can we stay on your land?” We didn’t think that would go over well either, so as we still had some twilight left asked the first person we saw for some clarification on the aforementioned directions. That worked out, and we found the spot. It turns out the camping sign is literally right in front of the beach after you have driven though a small hamlet, community meeting grounds, and beyond some houses. We were greeted by a terribly friendly and rather drunk gentleman who made some sense in his explanation of where he wanted us to camp. He was happy to accommodate us and the car. It was quite a site to see JP trying to follow is directions of where to put the car in relation to where we would put the tent. Twingo’s are small, but palm trees, rocks can still make parking a challenge make for an interesting obstacle course. We crashed out early and realized in the middle of the night we were missing the local party we discovered through the music which played all night. So maybe the proprietor’s lugubrious mood made a little more sense.

The next morning we went north towards Canala. This necessitates passing through a 13 kilometer stretch of road which is only one way. If you want to go north you go on odd hours and south on even hours. We timed it just right making it through the pass just as the clock struck noon only to discover no one was waiting on the other side.

Canala was our first to the northern province of New Caledonia. It is mostly tribal land with little development or industry. The majority of the inhabitants are Kanak who live in a traditional manner of subsistence farming within a tight knit family and tribal community. 20 years ago there was a great deal of political turmoil for independence. At the moment things are quite and people are very friendly. To visit tribes requires a visit to the chief and the presentation of a gift.

We took out time exploring some waterfalls, and then headed up to the hot springs north of town. They were developed several years ago by the local Marie (Mayor), but because of tribal disputes over whose land it is they have fallen into disrepair. Not the prettiest place, but it did have the old façade left from when it was a “hospital” using the thermal for there healing properties. The enjoyed the warm sulpher springs even if it wasn’t as inviting as it has once been.

Canala has the regional high school and a very large grounds for the Marie which boats many beautiful carvings as you can see.

It's getting exciting...

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS… OH BECKY

Last week as a little exciting as we had our third cyclone warning of the season and the second since we have been here. Though technically it never actually deepened into a cyclone, but stayed a Strong Tropical Depression. It was named Becky and it was the closet of the three so far.

The marina has a very structured alert system, beginning with a green flag for the “pre-alert” and red for the final stages when everything needs to be ready. What that entails is moving the boats away from the pontoon and setting up the hurricane lines which run off the stern and are attached to a chain laid on the bottom of the water.

The hurricane lines were set at the technical beginning of the cyclone season. Although this year has been unusual as the first cyclone occurred in October and the season should begin in December. If you want to see more about Becky and other cyclones in the Southwestern Pacific and Southeastern Indian Ocean check out this site:
http://www.australiasevereweather.com/cyclones/

I went a little over the top and decided to take everything off the deck. This means: water jugs, fuel jugs, unnecessary lines, the sails, the canvas, and the cushions. This has made for a very cramped boat. I did this 36 to 40 hours before we would have been hit by at that time 80 knots of wind. Nothing too bad, but certainly more than we have ever encountered with the boat. Though JP being from Reunion has experienced more than twice that. Taking everything off the deck was a bit premature, but my thinking was that is often begins to rain before a storm and then it would meaning taking everything inside when it was wet (not something I was looking forward to), so I took some preemptive measures. It hasn’t been all for naught as I discovered that the deck was in dire need to a really good scrubbing, something which can not be done thoroughly with everything we normally keep on it. Now we have a cleaner boat on the outside, but a very cramped cabin. Tomorrow I will remedy this putting the main and the Mizzen back. The Genoa really is a two person job, so I will have to wait for JP on that one.