New Caledonia
Driving
Driving of course is on the right hand side of the road. If you're planning on arriving at night from Australia (which drives on the left) and driving the 50kms from the airport to Noumea plus your night vision is as poor as mine it might be simpler to drive into a tree straight away and save yourself the possibility of far worse later.
There is really only one good road in New Caledonia and that's between Tontouta airport and Noumea. New Caledonians who never see good roads elsewhere think this is a perfect opportunity to drive as fast as possible. And why not? There are no policemen on the highways and everyone else is doing it.
Our host Patrick himself said that this was the driving style de rigeur and proceeded to demonstrate this when showing us around in his late model BMW. In town drive reasonably slowly, but everywhere else as fast as you want. I think the NC driving style comes from France more than anywhere else.
Given the quality of the highway from Tontouta the corresponding signage is not at the level one might expect. Especially around Noumea we found ourselves going into the town centre and coming back out in a frustrating circle as we tried to decipher the puzzling and minimalist signage.
Currently the population is small so accidents are probably few.
Tailgating is also common but that seems to be everywhere.
Food
Supermarkets are regularly dotted along the highways. Apart from the enormous Carrefours and Casinos, the little marche's facades all appear differently and all seem in dilapidated condition. Bread is cheap and consists of the typical long French baguette 99% of which are made of white flour. Fruit and vegetables are often imported and expensive. Patrick our host suggested that this was a definite opportunity for an enterprising market gardener. Meat is more expensive than Australia but seafood is slightly cheaper and probably fresher. The eggs we ate were of better quality than those in Australia.
The little marches tend to close at 12 and reopen at 3pm in the afternoon - a rather frustrating practice for the tourist shopper looking to buy lunch.
Tap water is delicious and fresh. We stayed in Mont-Dore where there is a bottling plant at the spring along the mountain side which sells water around New Caledonia. Why you would buy a bottle of this or Perrier when you can have the same wonderful stuff from the tap is a puzzle. We drove to the Dumbea river which has a dam that provides water for Noumea and I have never seen clearer or cleaner water than in that river.
