New Caledonia - Roadtrip to the dive spot

Here in Noumea its actually very nice - they have a McDonalds :)! Compared to Vanuatu as neighbour country, its is civilizied and clean and tidy! People are wealthy and out of 100 locals,

i would say 40 are white. And I didn’t expect so much France-Style everywhere. Its like a little france somewhere out in the pacific. Also they have the typical French cars and restaurants and they all talk French, like in France. And nobody of them really wants to talk English. Like in France.



19.1.2013 - Merde ATM, pourquoi?

Yesterday when I arrived, I got a shocking moment. In arriving hall at the airport at about 9pm, I went to the ATM to get money for my pocket! The first ATM didn’t accept my card and spit it out. The second ATM the same. The third ATM the same, but after it spit out the card, it also spit out the 400 USD I asked for. And this was the moment the shock started!!! The ATM spits the money after spiting out the card? The hell!!! I rushed back to the second ATM and tried to find the women who was behind me in the row. Cause I knew she must have taken the money with her! I searched in and outside the airport for a woman which I actually didn’t recognize at all…. I just remembered it was a black and fat woman. So I asked several black and fat women, if she was the one behind me in the row of the ATM. But she wasn’t there - i didnt find her.

So I rushed to the airport security and asked if they can check the security cameras to find out who the woman was. It lasted and lasted and lasted. Finally the security officer who was allowed to see the records was found and after minutes, he found out that the camera didn’t work ….!!! Now my chance to find that woman and get my money back, was like ZERO!

Afterwards I went again to the this second ATM, cause I wanted to be sure that the ATM spits out any money! The ATM talked to me and told me to take my card out and seconds later didn’t spit out any money, these moments made my day!!

21.1.2013 - Running around Noumea
On last friday in Vanuatu, I again scratched open a mosquito bite on the under leg. And it got infected again. Two days ago, I thought it will go away by itself, so didnt bother much and went running. I guess this was an absolutly bad idea. Yesterday it went very worse and so I went to the doc in the morning, as simple walking around really started to hurt. He gave me antibiotics. Seems to be the same infection as I had in the Solomon Islands! I hate that! It destroys my plan for tomorrows diving activity and other plans for the next days. For friday, I reserved a car to drive around New Caledonia. Hopefully on Saturday my leg will be much better, so that I will be able to go diving on the east coast somewhere….

By today morning, my leg looks terrible. It was swollen nearly to the double size and it burnt like hell! I read little bit in the internet about the causes of it and found out that it might be something like “elephantitis”, a typical tropics infection! It is probably caused by the remaining bacteria in the leg, from the last time in the Solomon islands. When I imagine what now in my leg is going on, then it makes me little bit scary! Now its evening and the leg seems to be already a bit better. Hopefully it is going to heal completely, and, very SOON!!
But for sure I never ever will scratch again any mosquito bite!! I guarantee!! I also remember when I was in PNG and talked to this crocodile hunter, he told me a story from the 1970's, when he had something like that. I just thought – “yeah that wont happen to me!” – and now it happened! But his story was horrible. Cause he was in the 1970's jungle and had no hospital or anything around, he had to put his leg into nearly boiling hot water to kill the bacteria…. Autsch…!!

Today I jumped into a bus and just drove somewhere i-don’t-know. Somewhere direction south! Cause it was the same road on which I was running two days ago, I wanted to find out where exactly I was running along and for how many kilometers - it felt like a half marathon distance :)

27.1.2013 - New Caledonia Roadtrip
Cause my leg didnt allow me go diving during the week, I didnt do much except that I roamed around in Noumea, doing sightseeing, some coffee tasting in many different coffee shops, ate many small snacks everywhere and enjoyed watching people rushing around and doing their daily business!
On friday I checked out from the youth-hostel and got a rental car to drive to the northern part of New Cale. So the trip was nice with lots of nickel mountains and mining areas everywhere, but somehow I had many many “déjà vu’s” from the other countries while driving the 900kms.. So the “stunning”moments were very seldom. Anyway, it was definitely worth the driving and a nice experience to see the country and especially its north-south flora and fauna differences. Up in Hienghene, a place in north-east, I went for a 2 dive trip. Cause of the rain and storms the diving conditions haven’t been the best, although it was an interesting dive in and around the caves and reefs with some awesome parts of coral fields.

Today evening I will touch down again in Brisbane, where I will go back to Yvonnes appartement in the Gold Coast. And tomorrow I probably already will start driving my way down to Sydney…. So far the plan :D!