Today we arrived in Noumea, docking at the cruise terminal. The previous times we were here, we had arrived at 3pm. This time it was early morning, so we had the whole day. I had already decided to go out to the Tjibaou cultural centre as it quite a distance from the ship and it is not possible to see it on itineraries arriving at 3pm. My intention was to catch a taxi but I didn't have any firm information for prices. So... I left the ship by myself to gather up some info from the tour operators in the terminal. Some were only offering 1 tour at 10.30am, another helpful person gave me a map, where to catch the taxis from etc. It turns out it was a public holiday, 4 days long, and her info was that Tjibaou was closed. Returning to the ship to discuss our options we decided to find a taxi and go anyway. I mainly wanted to see the outside and thought we could walk around and take photos.
Tjibaou Cultural Centre
The taxi rank is directly down the road from the terminal and we spoke to a driver who quoted us 1500 pacific francs. This seemed reasonable compared to tours so we jumped in. The trip took about 20-30 minutes as there was quite a bit of traffic and on arrival the taxi meter showed 1770 francs. I was prepared to pay this but the driver insisted on the 1500. The cultural centre is fenced with a boom gate for vehicles and there is an office at the gate to pay admission. Fortunately it was open until 12pm on this public holiday.
Prices were 1000 pacific francs for adults and 500 for children.
We walked through the building taking a few photos and then walked around the outside. It really is stunning and photos don't really do it justice.
We ended up spending about 1.5hrs at Tjiboau and it was well worth it. The office at the gate phoned us a taxi which was helpful as we don't speak French and didn't have a phone. There is a local bus with a stop approximately 50 meters on the right hand side of the office, however as we weren't expecting it to be a public holiday we were unsure how frequent it would be. We decided we would get the taxi to drop us at the McDonalds, a short walk from the ship, in the hope of finding some free wi-fi. The taxi arrived and before we got in he calculated the fare to be 3300 francs, double the fare there. We weren't really in a position to negotiate or find alternative transport so we took his offer. Overall the trip for the 3 of us was 7300 pacific francs or approx $94 AUD.
The McDonald's supposedly has free wi-fi but even with the "password" we couldn't connect. We walked back towards the ship looking for something interesting for lunch and came across the chocolate shop "Chocolat Morand", a famous french chocolatier. Have investing our life savings in a small box of chocolate we decided to make our way back to the ship for lunch with plan to catch the local bus around to Baie des Citrons in the afternoon. Of course, once we had lunch we were all feeling like a bit of a "nana nap" and didn't end up leaving the ship. So, maybe next time for Lemon bay.
Chocolat Morand
Carnival Spirit, taken from the Pacific Aria at Noumea.
Tonight's Dinner - New Year's Eve
We booked a couple of nights ago and the only table we could get was at the Dragon Lady. Each of the 3 restaurants were serving the same menu to maximize the number of diners for new year's eve. I did take some rough photos of the menu and meals however the lighting in the Dragon Lady is poor so they really aren't the best.
