A battle with technology has lead me to post photos associated with this blog through the Flickr link below rather than directly with this post.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/138269816@N08/8drzi2
Upon first seeing land after having been at sea for 9 days sailing from New Zealand we were shocked and elated to discover that New Caledonia was mountainous! Large, jagged peaks emerge right from the sea and stretch down the middle of Grand Terre. The tallest being over 1600 meters, not the highest we've seen, but they're impressive and wild looking. They called to us. We went on a seven day hike near the beginning of our journey in New Caledonia, which was the best presentation of the terrestrial flora and fauna we could have asked for. The hike took us deep into those mountains up their peaks, traversing their slopes, walking their ridges and down into their valley bottoms. The landscape varied in that sometimes the valleys were narrow, with adjacent mountains squeezed next to each other while other times valleys were impressively wide and flat. Always jagged were the peaks. Rivers and streams are found in nearly every crevice in the mountains. The water tasted delicious and offered a refreshing swim at the end of each long and challenging (but extremely rewarding!) day. The hike also took us through some old and deserted mines with growth maybe a decade or two old already. We walked through old growth, small patches of forest that had not been logged. These sections were small and few, but a good glimpse of what once covered the land.
Four of the seven days were spent in Parc Rivere Blue, a protected area containing the nation's iconic bird species called the cagu. We didn't see the cagu, but Keegan heard one one morning. We saw countless crows (*Corvus moneduloides*), supposedly the smartest crow in the world, smarter than all non-human primates. We didn't get a chance to see it in action making tools. They usually were carrying a stick in the their mouths, but were shy when it came to actually using the stick for what they're known for -fishing in tree trucks and branches for inverts. We tramped through the humid forests, home to countless plants found no where else, including over a dozen species of kauri tree -a tree we thought existed only in New Zealand as it is well known at the northern tip of the north island. We were surprised to find them so abundant in the forests at the southern end of New Caledonia and so diverse. There is only one kauri species found in New Zealand.
New Caledonia radiates the same qualities one might imagine a pacific island has; the beautiful beaches (not beautiful enough to some of the older French generation), clear water of all the blues in the spectrum, extremely friendly and welcoming local people and many many coconuts. It's unique, however, in that every other pacific island (to my limited knowledge) is volcanic in origin. While the small islands of New Caledonia follow suite, the biggest, Grande Terre, has one ancient and dormant volcano, but is an old extension of Australia. On the edge of the Australian and the Pacific tectonic plates Grande Terre was once underneath the Pacific plate through subduction and indeed scraped Earth's mantle. Grande Terre eventually rose again to Earth's surface and has been there for 38 million years. This explains it's extraordinarily high endemism and the unique ways in which the flora live and survive amongst the ultramafic soil, a red soil, highly metallic (I.e. Toxic to plants) and poor in essential plant nutrients. Plants here have adapted to the ultramafic soil in various ways. Symbiotic relationships with fungi (mycorrhiza) or bacteria are common adaptations to account for poor nutrient content and high concentrations of toxic metals in the soil. We've seen evidence of what is called hyperaccumulation in the form of blue sap. The plant concentrates nickel in its sap resulting in a blue colour. Other plants accumulate nickel and other metals in their leaves, their stems and roots.
Colourful, colourful, colourful is New Caledonia. In addition to the hyperaccumulation-occurring colour in local plants described above, the fungi, sea shells and creatures amongst the coral reefs are more varied and vibrant than any other place I have been. The mushrooms in the forests surprised us with their oranges, deep teal blues, purples, and reds. Apparently there exists a pink mushroom with a unique multi-tierd structure found only in New Caledonia. Pink mushrooms are very rare in the world of fungi, so it would have been very special to see it for ourselves, but we had no such luck. I have never seen so many colourful sea shells on the beach in all my travels. You can spend hours looking down at the sand finding treasure after treasure, each more colourful than the next. Blues, greens, oranges, purples, pinks found on their own or creating a rainbow on a single shell. When we were too hot and in need of a swim the colourful theme that New Caledonia presented to us on land continued to dazzle us in the sea. There are several species of fish I have never seen before (I'm a pretty avid diver) and although the coral isn't in the best condition everywhere, there are shocks of colour dotted along the reefs of red, purple, iridescent blues and greens. Iridescence seems to be a theme in the water. Some sea anemones that I saw indeed glowed. The clownfish here, instead of having their typical white stripe across their orange bodies have an iridescent blue stripe. It's gorgeous. I'm not sure if night diving is a thing in New Caledonia, but I imagine one would encounter glowing iridescent living things much like those seemingly fictitious found in the film (first a novel) "Life of Pie". Even the New Caledonian flag boasts colour like no other country.
Grande Terre is sitting in the middle of a massive lagoon, the largest in the world. The lagoon is unique in that it constitutes a double barrier reef, one of a kind and the second largest barrier reef next to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. The lagoon provided us with stunning foregrounds to sunsets and sun rises with the barrier sheltering the water from disruption often resulting in calm, glass like surface to reflect the sky's colours. Much of the lagoon is very shallow offering crystal clear views to coral reefs or a sandy bottom, always turquoise or some radiant light blue colour. We were fortunate enough to see dolphins several times, sea turtles and sting rays, including a jumping ray. While dugongs are apparently present, we did not see any.
Among the plentiful coconuts is most everything else. If you're into eating food in your backyard, this is the place. There are very few cold-tolerant species that we might be used to consuming that apparently can't grow here, namely grapes and berries (although strawberries seem to do well). But if you're OK with eating papaya, bananas, passion fruit, avocados, pineapple, tomatoes (wild and planted), carrots, mangoes, various types of beans, various types of cabbage, then you'll get over not having grapes. Then there are the local root vegetables: inyam (a tribally significant vegetable), tarot, and manyoc (you might know this one as cassava or yuca, depending on where you've been in the world) and the local cabbage: chouchou (Kanak cabbage) and other varieties I can't name and the local apples that look and taste nothing like apples, but are scrumptious. The list goes on. Permaculture seems to be taking off as well. There's a large community that shares ideas regularly and incorporate both local and international seeds in their gardens. Some collect heirlooms and are at the early stages of what could very well turn into a food forest in a remarkably dry environment. The west coast of Grande Terre rarely sees rain during the rainy season and dries up completely in the dry season, but I've had the privalege of participating in some permaculture in this area and it's remarkable what people can grow in those conditions. With the right knowledge and drive you can turn barren land into a food forest here.
Grande Terre is oddly divided with westerners mostly settling in the west and local people on the east. The original people of New Caledonia are called Kanaks. There are over 30 tribes (or "tribus" as they are referred to here) each with their own language different enough from each other that they could not understand neighbouring tribes without a translator, that is, before the French colonized and taught everyone French. Given that this is an island of about 500 km long, but only 40ish kms wide the tribes are small and right next to each other. It's not hard to imagine the difficulties Kanaks must have encountered if they could not have communicated with their neighbours. I have, however, also heard that there were dedicated translators in certain tribes whose sole purpose was to help Kanaks communicate with neighbouring tribes. Every Kanak I have talked to exclaims that there was one good thing the French brought with them when they colonized New Caledonia and that was their language. Now Kanaks can communicate easily and freely across tribes in French. Kanaks traditionally sleep in round huts made of grasses. They are round to withstand annual cyclone weather and are engineered over many generations to be hot when it's cold and cool when it's hot. There is a totem that sits on top of each Kanak hut that represents community and has what they call a "Toutout" on the very top, a conch blown to gather the people. Kanak culture is beautiful. The custom is to welcome travelers with open arms, feed them and give them a place to sleep. There is, however, a fairly strict custom that the traveler must also follow and that is to give a token of appreciation. This can be anything, it does not have to be money nor does it have to be valuable. It's the simple gesture of giving that Kanaks are looking for to indicate that the traveler or guest appreciates their hospitality. Grande Terre, unfortunately, is losing some of this culture and money is the main exchange when staying in a tribu. While we did not have an "authentic tribal experience" sleeping in a Kanak hut, eating bunya (traditional meal cooked in the ground with fire) and presenting the people of the tribu with Manu (the preferred totem when showing your appreciation -a beautifully coloured cloth Kanaks treasure and associate with great respect, similar to dyed cloth you find in central Africa), we had wonderful exchanges with Kanak people and were offered hospitality regardless of our ignorance to their traditions. Allegedly traditions continue without the exchange of money outside of Grande Terre on the Loyalte Islands, Mare, Lifou and Ouvea. We would have loved to visit these islands not only to experience what we hear is a deeper Kanak culture, but because they are very different in their geology with white sandy beaches and intensely turquoise waters filled with life -similar to other pacific islands- but it is intensely expensive to reach these islands. Even local people living in Grande Terre cannot afford to visit the Loyalty Islands or Isle de Pin in the south and instead opt to visit Vanuatu, the adjacent nation of islands as it is indeed cheaper to fly there.
While Kanak people are very roots and perhaps the most connected to Earth I've ever witnessed, there's always trouble in paradise. Like most colonized territories western culture tries to take over whatever fragile local culture there is. Drinking is a massive problem. Moreover, drinking and driving is a horrendous problem. We heard (and thankfully never experienced ourselves) that Kanak people change drastically after only a couple of beers (watered down beer, 5% max.). This could be due to genetics, like we hear about many other natives populations globally who did not coevolve with alcohol, their digestive systems are especially sensitive to it. This combined with motorized vehicles having only arrived about 40 years ago makes for troubled times. Once a week someone is killed in Grande Terre because of a motor vehicle accident. This may not sound like a lot, but when you consider Grande Terre's population of only a couple hundred thousand, that's a large percentage of people dying. We were told by each and every soul we met to not travel on the weekends, at least not after 2pm. The roads were noticeably more dangerous during these times. This is the sad reality of a culture whose basic principles are so beautiful and are so easily tainted by western culture, more importantly by money. Kanak people do not need money. I have mentioned that you cannot starve in New Caledonia and it's true. Plenty of food for their families. But money buys them big pick up trucks (everyone seems to have one, I think it's correlated with how much deer and pig hunting goes on), TVs, crap sugar food like Oreos and Coca-Cola, concrete houses instead of thatched roofs that have worked just fine for centuries. It's a common tale and a sad one. Where is most of the money? The mines. We stayed with one family, he came from a nearby village called Houailou and she came from an even closer village called Canala, but they moved to a place called Kouaoua so she could work as some kind of administrator at the mines. Their living conditions were very basic. They have four young children, including one baby and they live squashed together with their neighbours on three of the four sides of their property. Everyone in this village works for the mine. In fact, the village didn't exist, at least not as it does now, before the mines came in. They have one half-broken toilet for the whole family and not enough hot water for everyone to shower comfortably, but they have two pick up trucks. One of the pick-ups is massive and new, while the other a bit smaller, but with fancy customized gadgets insides like a race-car steering wheel, metal foot petals, a bone handle on the shifter, etc. They also have a small modern car. These people were extremely hospitable and kind to us, taking out a fish from the freezer that he had caught and had their eldest son gut it and prepare it for roasting over a fire. What is especially peculiar to me is they had, and it seemed everyone in the village did too, guard dogs (not that they would be effective guard dogs given the conditions they were kept in) to protect them from thievery. I don't understand who would be stealing from whom if they all work in the same place and live so tightly packed together, there's no way you could get away with anonymity. All this to say, why would anyone go chasing money when you end up living how this family does or worst, in Noumea, when you could live in your village surrounded by amazing food and beautiful scenery all around you with plenty of space for your family. I couldn't see the draws. The language barrier was too great for me to find out either. Having said all of this, the little elementary school the kids went to was situated in a beautiful quiet forest just outside of the village. Access to good education could very well be the answer to my questions. I wish I had had more time to dig deeper into these peculiarities. Then again, I have to remind myself that humans are weird and food and nature is not enough for many.
The story of New Caledonia is like that of any other piece of land ever inhabited by humans. Resource hungry are we and not the brightest. Logging stripped New Caledonia of its forests long ago and thankfully has come to a halt. What ceases to stop, however, is mining. Nickel mining is huge in New Caldonia. They are in the top three or top five leading nickel producers in the world (depending on the source). Nickel, unfortunately, is found on the surface of New Caledonia's soil, not underground. To extract it, therefore, means visibly scaring the earth. Not far from where we spent those magical days hiking are several highly active nickel mines. We drove through them. Massacre and rape is the vocabulary I find best describes what we saw. Entire mountain tops are completely lopped off. Those jagged peaks are flattened, reduced to mere remenence of what used to be a mountain. A mountain so large and tall, from the top you can see great lengths down the coast. Mountains who once offered the same majesty as their neighbours. You can feel the remenents of the majesty that once was. To my utter disgust I found out that Canadians are hugely involved in the nickel mining in New Caledonia. Although Brazil has bought out the company, Canadians have been and still are working the mines. This has been going on for decades. Canada, like New Zealand, portrays a false green image to the world. We're thought of as great stewards for our environment. Not only is that not true locally -you can find countless examples where we rape our own environment- but it is news to me that we are doing so internationally, on a tiny far far away island with its sovereignty hanging by a thread. I am embarrassed and appalled. I wonder how many Canadians know we destroy mountains in far away lands. I feel quite helpless and tormented by this.
New Caledonia has very unique and complicated politics. A French territory, but with their own government with various levels of autonomy. Kanak people govern many aspects of what would usually be handled by the federal government. There have been several historic rebellions against the French and a couple of referendums. There is another scheduled for 2018. If New Caledonia became an independent state, well this would of course change everything. I imagine Noumea, the capital, would fall apart given that it is run like a miniature France. After having traveled the rest of Grande Terre I realized once returning back to Noumea that Noumea is it's own country. The Kanak culture is no where to be found. If you are one of thousands who decided to take a cruise ship in the Pacific and Noumea was one of your destinations, you didn't see New Caledonia, you visited France. Noumea is one of the most expensive places to live in the world. Food, I heard, is 65% more expensive than in mainland France. Noumea also boasts the fun fact that it holds the most Porche Cayenes per capita than anywhere else in the world. If you want to live here, you better be loaded or be willing to live in very very modest city conditions, which are hard to come by. Having said all of this, we struck a lightning bolt of luck right when we first stepped foot on land. We met a Caldosh (a non-Kanak person born and raised in New Caledonia) the first night we landed in New Caledonia who became a very good friend of ours and let us pitch our tent and store our things with him for the entire time we were in the country. Without him, we would not have been able to do the things we did, see what we saw, meet who we met and we certainly wouldn't have been able to afford to stay as long as we did. In fact, through our friend as well as independent of him we met countless people who helped us reach many goals throughout our travels in their beautiful homeland. Noumea might be different from the rest of New Caledonia, but it houses some incredible people.
Kava is perhaps one Kanak ritual that still exists in the Noumea area, however, I believe it is more a ritual of other pacific islands than New Caledonia. Kava is a plant root made into a drink that relaxes you. There are different strains or ways to make it depending on which Polynesian island you are at. The kava in New Caledonia is from Vanuatu. It’s awesome. It tastes a bit similar to the Kawa Kawa leaves in New Zealand. Many people complain about the taste but I don’t mind it. It is customary to wait for everyone in your party to arrive at the spitting and rinsing sink and say “manuîa” before drinking. You feel relaxed after the first two and even more so after 4, 5 and 6. Your tongue is a bit numb and tingly. It’s a nice ritual. It’s also insanely cheap: 100 CFP (pacific francs) per coconut bowl, which is about NZD1.5.
Do not feel bad if you have never heard of New Caldonia before reading this. We had no idea it existed before finding a sail boat going northwest from New Zealand, the direction we wanted to go in to make it to South East Asia, and it happened to be going to a place called New Caledonia. We had to look it up! Most people we talked to before arriving in New Caledonia and after leaving it have never heard of this magical place either. I hope you enjoyed reading about this little know island. Please remember to be mindful of the environment and local population when you travel. Remind yourself of the steward that you are. We all have a role to play in everything that we do.
We have since left New Caledonia, again via sail boat, and are now in Indonesia. Stay tuned for more on our hitch-sailing experiences and Indonesia. Thank you for reading!
Location:New Caledonia
