Went to bed around 22:30 local time yesterday and slept like the dead. God, it feelt good to settle down to sleep stretched out on our backs! As we were very tired, we put the alarm on 10:00 so we would not sleep away the entire day. That did not seem to match our internal clock very well, so at 07:00 this morning, we gave up all pretense of sleeping

Coming South

The super-travellers struck again coming down here. After leaving Singapore (1hr stop there), discovered that we’d been on the wrong row the entire trip. We got to know a very nice German girl called Quyen, though We also managed to forget some more or less important items in Norway – the most notable being our Lonely Planet guide. Go us! We found a new LP guide at the airport in Sydney, so no damage done there.

As we had 6 hours in Sydney, we went in to have breakfast on The Rocks – Ameriacan pancakes, as suggested by my ex-colleague James. I had some lime milkshake with my pancakes. I think we shall call that an interesting experience. The food was nevertheless fantastic after 24hrs of crap food – including the disgustingly expensive meal we bought at a “restaurant” at Heathrow. Heathrow terminal 4 sucks on food. The pancake place is opposite the opera and next to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, so we have our first pictures of us in front of famous stuff! Also, we have pictures of Christmas decorations, which is just wrong when it’s 20C outside.

Our local travel agents picked us up at the international airport here in NC, which was excellent after such a long trip. They also picked up a the first committed beach bum I have ever met. He didn’t know which hotel he was staying at and had no idea how to contact his friends. His conversation was a bit disjointed at times, but as far as we could gather, he prefers kite surfing, and when he’s not doing that, he ah… Surfs. Weird dude.

Noumea

It’s only 11:30 in the morning and we have managed to sort out the two things we thought we should do today. We are keeping the list short, since we are attempting to move into island time. We have talked to our travel agent, since Mario’s name has changed to Caprio. We thought it might be a bit tricky for the flights to Ouvea and Ile des Pins, so she is checking that for us. It also turns out that you cannot use your external SIM card on this island unless your telecompany has arranged roaming for you before you arrive. We figured it was easier to get hold of a local liberte SIM card here, than trying to make Telenor do anything for us.

Admittedly, we did not take into account that we would first queue for ever at the local post office, where we supposedly could buy a local SIM card. Which we couldn’t of course. We then got directions delivered in Frenglish to some kiosk where we should be able to buy one. Which resulted in a lot of walking, several more Frenglish directions and no kiosk named 3 Magasins. Eventually, the hostess at the internet cafe we are now using gave us English directions, and we managed to find the place that sells liberte SIM cards. Hooray! It turned out to be just next to our travel agent, so if we’d only gone there first, we could have saved ourselves a lot of hassle. For those wanting to call us, our local number should be +687 994104. The woman in the SIM card shop spoke no English, so I got to try out my fantastic French

We have been in Noumea for less than 24hrs, but Mario is pretending to be Mark – i.e. he is busy breaking stuff (no offense, Mark!). So far he has managed to dismantle the shower head in our room, and just now he completely trashed the machine next to me. He inserted his USB stick, got some message dialog in French, clicked the “Oui” button, and the machine went on permanent hiatus. It won’t even boot anymore. The poor landlady is very confused. We are totally pretending that we don’t know a thing about computers

I think the best way to describe downtown Noumea is that it reminds me of some of those smallish towns we always drive through when we go from the airport to Mama’s house in France. Except the palm trees. Low houses, sort of worn, but with their own kind of charm. Feels totally French. We even got “shot” by a little boy waiting for his mother outside some shop. He was waging his own private war using his his mum’s baguette as a prop. There are some fantastic beaches (particularily next to our hotel – yay!) that we will try out after we finish this post. The only non-French thing here is that they are quite willing to speak some sort of English.

Well, we are off to the beach – the sun is out and life is great!