Oceania

New Caledonia

Posted by Jim St. George on November 17, 2016

Posted in: New Caledonia. 1 comment

A sun bed, beach, water, and Kindle. That’s our life.

Our last stop in the tropical South Pacific was Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia or, as it’s known here, Nouvelle Calédonie, a French ~~colony~~ special collectivity. Apparently we’re not supposed to use the word colony any more. At any rate, I’m not sure I had any concept of what or where New Caledonia was before we started researching our time in the South Pacific, but it’s a pretty interesting place.

Now, I certainly should have heard of New Caledonia when I was a child; back in the 1960s it was Ernest Borgnine’s favorite port of call in McHale’s Navy. And slightly more importantly, during World War II after the fall of France in 1940 New Caledonia ousted the pro-Vichy governor and sided with the Free French resistance. Subsequently the capital, Noumea, became the headquarters for both the U.S. Army and Navy in the South Pacific.

It’s spring in New Caledonia and there were lots of flowering trees in bloom

Interestingly tourism is not a big part of the economy here. Though New Caledonia has the kind of natural beauty and beaches one expects to find in the South Pacific, the ecological diversity is – by some analyses – the richest per square mile in the world, and the weather is notably dryer than most of the other islands in the region, the tourist industry is not well developed. For the tourist who does pass through, though, the system today seems to work remarkably well. The quarter of a million people who live here do pretty well economically; per capita GDP rivals some advanced economies and recent growth rates have exceeded three percent. The French provide significant investments and – not surprisingly – encourage some great food (more on that below).

When you look at a map of Noumea you see districts with names like Receiving and Motor Pool, strange names for a Francophone city. Given its history as HQ for the U.S. Military during WWII, though, I guess it makes sense.

At the same time, despite the relative health of the economy, there is a significant independence movement here, something invisible to those of us who are tourists. Both major political parties oppose independence, and residents here not only vote in French Presidential elections, they also have delegates in both the French Senate and National Assembly. (In other words, they have better representation than residents of Washington, D.C.) The indigenous people, though, primarily Kanaks, have been pushing for independence. They lost a vote in 1987 but another vote on independence is set for 2018. One of the ways the battle has played out in recent years is over the New Caledonian flag. The current status is odd; to placate the Kanaks there is both a standard French tricolor flag and an official Kanak flag. One country, two flags; definitely an unusual solution.

For us, New Caledonia was an opportunity to see one more part of the South Pacific but, in this case, with more of the Western comforts that you can start to miss after several weeks across Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji. And we were there to watch Hillary’s election, which … didn’t happen. Sadly, my experience there will always be tainted with that horrible afternoon watching someone who had identified and exploited the darkest corners of America’s soul get elected president. A week later and Mark & I both remain both horrified and depressed. I don’t know which will lift first or last longest.

The good news from New Caledonia was a pleasant (though by no means spectacular) beach to relax on, a beautiful pool, and – most importantly – some really good restaurants. For the first time in weeks (except for the few days in Auckland) we had a variety of restaurants to choose from and they were mostly either really good or really, really good.

Mark and Stephan, the proprietor of So Food, one of the best restaurants we’ve been to in months

The best, if you’re thinking of going to Noumea, is a place called So Food, a little ten-table restaurant run by a Frenchman who lived for a couple decades in Marseilles but also cooked at restaurants in Morocco and … somewhere else. We ate there three times and every plate, every dish was amazing. Steak tartare like only the French and Mark’s Dad make it, but also lots of flavors of North Africa and even Asian splashes. Another highlight was a tapas bar with great tapas in what was otherwise pretty much a dive bar. Good food, though.

You wouldn’t come to New Caledonia for the greatest beaches or best tourist experience. For a change of pace, though, from other islands in the region and for the best food for hundreds of miles, this is the place to be. Just don’t come here to watch election returns.

Steak tartare at So Food, with garnishes representing flavors from around the world

Some of the mezzes available at So Food. We had the eggplant dish on the left a couple times and we absolutely loved it. Mark was a big fan of the Tunisian harissa up near the top

We shouldn’t forget a great tapas bar quite near our hotel

Speaking of our hotel, the pool wasn’t too shabby

And finally, we were in Noumea for the November “Supermoon”, which occurs on those unusual occasions when a full moon coincides with the closest point the moon comes to the earth during the lunar orbit. This particular Supermoon was the biggest and closest moonrise since 1945 so we went out of our way to get a view.

Auckland

Posted by Jim St. George on November 15, 2016

Posted in: New Zealand. Leave a Comment

Mark and Jim, high above Auckland on Mt. Eden on our Coast to Coast Walk

The plan was pretty simple: after Tonga we wanted to go to New Caledonia. The problem is that we discovered when we started researching travel in the area that to a surprising degree to travel around the islands of the South Pacific you have to fly in and out of New Zealand. OK, that’s not a big problem, we would go to Auckland for a few days, fly to New Caledonia the day before the election, and spend a few hours late morning and early afternoon on what would be Wednesday there watching Hillary put the election away. I would write a blog about Auckland, we would enjoy the beaches, and go on with life.

You’ve probably heard it didn’t work out that way, which explains the long delay in writing about Auckland. We’ve both been just too damned depressed to do this, or almost anything else, either. We just can’t believe that a racist, bigoted, hate-filled campaign from someone who knows nothing about policy and cares even less could win. We’ve both been involved in winning campaigns and losing campaigns, but this is different; it’s as though the country we thought we knew just isn’t there. We’re trying to get on with life, though, so let me put down a few thoughts about Auckland.

The view from Mt. Eden on a hike across Auckland, including a pretty obvious crater

The big news is that for both of us, New Zealand is our 97th country (not the same 97 for each of us, but we’ve each been to 97 countries; and, if you’re wondering, it’s the 59th country since starting this adventure in 2013). Since the U.N. recognizes 193 countries, if you do the math … we’ve now been in over half the countries in the world. Finally! In some ways, the big surprise is that for all that we have traveled – my time in the Navy, Mark’s college backpacking experiences, our pre-retirement travels, and now this adventure – we’ve only just now passed the half-way mark. The big holes now are in Africa, the Middle East, and even here in Oceania; there are still nine countries in the South Pacific we haven’t been to. In other words we still have a long way to go.

Mark and his colorful rain jacket in Cornwall Park

Our four days in Auckland were a treat, less because of Auckland itself than that we were finally, after seven or eight weeks, in a big western city with pharmacies and restaurants and bars and nightlife. Don’t get me wrong, we love being in remote places but after a while getting into a city – they have martinis in Auckland! – can be exciting.

A street scene in Auckland with the Sky Tower – the tallest man-made structure in the Southern Hemisphere – in the background

A night at Soul, a classy bar/restaurant with fabulous Vespers and this great raw fish dish

Mark and his old college friend Julie (you can tell it’s Julie because of her name tag…)

Our hotel had a washer and dryer in our room but – unlike most places we stay – it did not include breakfast. Then we discovered a Denny’s just a couple blocks away. Not elegant, but very functional.

Our highlights?

• The big excursion was Auckland’s Coast to Coast Walk, a 10-mile hike that takes you across a very narrow point in the North Island. It’s all urban, but much of it is through great parks, up and over old volcanoes, and up One Tree Hill, a key landmark in Auckland. The parks were often beautiful and we loved sharing our walk with the many sheep there; it felt very New Zealand. We were really surprised, though, at how poorly marked the trail was. If there is one thing New Zealand is supposed to have down it’s their famous hiking trails, but had we not downloaded a copy of the route we never would have made it.

• I spent a couple hours at the Auckland Museum, half of which is a war museum and the other dedicated to Maori culture. It wasn’t earth shattering or anything, but both parts were good museums. The one thing I learned that surprised me was that human settlement in New Zealand had nothing to do with humans in Australia. Australia was settled 50,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, when sea levels were much lower and people could walk to Australia from South Asia. Then just 5,000 years ago people from Southeast Asia started to move into the South Pacific and just 800 years ago, they got to what is today New Zealand. Who knew?

• We run into the strangest people on these travels. A few months ago Mark saw on Facebook that Julie, an old college classmate who he hasn’t seen in 30 years, was going to be in Auckland on a tour the same time we were going to be there. She was all scheduled up, but we still managed to have lunch with her and the friend she’s traveling with. She was a lot of fun so now we have to figure out some other place to meet up with her.

• And then there are the little things. Dinner at an Irish Pub with fun live music. A washer and dryer in our hotel, the Sebel, a glorious first on this adventure. And a Croatian bartender who makes a great Vesper, the original James Bond martini.

Then it was off to New Caledonia and what was supposed to be a short night (day for us) watching election returns. We’re coming back to Auckland, though, twice more. We’re meeting Mark’s parents there after our week in New Caledonia to travel around New Zealand with them for two weeks, and then spending one last night there before flying on to Australia, hopefully with great friends from Boston who will be passing through as well. Such excitement!

Our Coast to Coast hike day was rainy, sunny, hot, windy, cold … a little bit of everything. And while much of it was in the city, it crossed through some beautiful parks.

One Tree Hill in Cornwall Park with a big obelisk marking … something

Cornwall Park is a huge green space in Auckland. And just to make sure you feel as though you’re really in New Zealand there are sheep grazing all over.

It’s not uncommon to see Asians wearing shirts with slogans in English that don’t really make a lot of sense. We loved this woman’s sweater up on Mt. Eden: “Let’s Shopping O’Clock.” We’re guessing that’s a bad translation of “It’s Shopping Time,” but either way it’s pretty funny.

A map from the Auckland Museum showing the migration patterns for populating the South Pacific. Interesting that Australia – and Papua New Guinea just north of there – were settled some 45,000 years before Southeast Asian natives took to the seas to settle all these islands. And that New Zealand was very late in that process, settled only 800 years ago.

Then there was this copy of a statue that we saw last summer in Rome, the Dying Gaul. I loved the statue in Rome, but there was no explanation why the copy was here, in a museum about Maori culture.

And speaking of Maori culture, there was a lot of this kind of stuff in the museum

More Mark and Jim

We often see tourists doing this sort of thing. Apparently it takes practice to get it right.

Fafa Island

Posted by Jim St. George on November 6, 2016

Posted in: Tonga. Leave a Comment

The setting for our meals on Fafa Island

After three weeks we’re leaving Tonga. We’ve spent three weeks here, essentially a week each in three different locations. Our last stay was at Fafa Island Resort, a beautiful resort on a private island about 45 minutes (on a s-l-o-w boat) from Nuku’alaofa, the national capital and main population center. After a few weeks now in the South Pacific we have the routine down pretty well: breakfast, beach/read, lunch, beach/read, cocktails, dinner, sleep. Repeat. By about the third day on Fafa Island Mark was going a little stir crazy. Me? Apparently I’m better at doing nothing on the beach, day after day. And when there was a rainy day – we had one long, rainy day on the island; who knew that all that beautiful tropical vegetation needed regular watering? – I got all my accounting chores done.

With these three Tonga weeks behind us, we have a few observations. If you have more limited time, which of the three should you go to? Depends on what’s important to you.

Mark’s typical daytime view

• If food is key, you can’t beat Mandala Resort up in the Vava’u island group. Some of the best resort food we’ve ever had.

• If the beach is key, then you want to go to Sandy Beach in Ha’apai, one of the most beautiful beaches we’ve ever seen. It was also the only place where meals were served at one big table so you really got to (had to) get to know your fellow travelers. For us that’s usually a nice bonus.

• And for design and beauty you can’t beat our last stop, Fafa Island Resort. The fales were all beautiful and – importantly – set in lush, tropical gardens that made them each utterly isolated. The “public” area where meals were served was beautiful as well. And the outdoor bathroom attached to the fale, fully surrounded by wooden fence and alive with tropical plants, was perhaps the best bathroom we’ve had anywhere.

We’ve learned a thing or two about flying in Tonga, too, and we pretty much love all of it. Start with no security. The inter-island flights are tiny, and they don’t have to worry about ISIS or terrorists or anything. So there’s no security. Heck, when we went to check in on one of our flights we walked up to the check-in counter and, before we’d even given him our passports he just said “Mark and Jim?” Apparently there weren’t too many other gay white couples scheduled. And ultimately he never did ask for our passports, just wrote his name on the boarding passes – these flights don’t have computer-generated boarding passes, just hand-written little things – and sent us on our way.

Lying in a hammock or beach chair, you saw a lot of this. The only thing is you have to make sure you’re not under a coconut; they do serious damage if they fall on you.

The other strange part – not unprecedented, but unusual – is when they weigh you. Presumably they need to pay attention to the total weight on these little planes so they weigh not only your bag and carry-on, but they have you get up on the scale, too. Probably a good thing, but it seems as though it could be a little intimidating. People in the region are so big – really big – that the flight attendant just automatically walks through the cabin with seat-belt extenders for the many people who will need them.

My daytime view, usually a little closer to the beach (and a lot less shady)

I’ve loved the slow pace of island culture, where the only thing you have to think about is the movement of tides, since you can only swim around high tide. At the same time, though, I’m feeling the need to go someplace where I get at least a tiny bit of exercise. I’m making great progress through my three-volume Winston Churchill biography and I’m finding it fascinating. A strange man, to be sure, but he’s at the center of so much of the history of the first half of the 20th century, even before he became Britain’s wartime Prime Minister. And with nearly 3,000 pages to work with, Manchester has plenty of time to explain all that was going on.

From here we’re going on to Auckland for four days before spending a week in New Caledonia, our last South Pacific island stop though there we’ll be staying closer to something resembling a city. For now, though, we’re ready for a return to civilization, where you have restaurants to choose from and can even choose what time you want to eat as opposed to the time the resort is serving. Stores where we can buy toiletries. And laundromats. Sometimes it’s the simple things that you get excited about.

The beach here was great and again, very isolated. The only downside was that because of the shallow coral you could only swim an hour or two on either side of high tide. And while we were here that was typically first thing in the morning or late afternoon, meaning no mid-day swims.