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| Isle of Pines (Kunyié) |
Today we anchored off the Isle of Pines (Kunyié), our last stop and a beautiful day.
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| Photo opportunity |
There was the usual 'traditional' welcome and another ship 'mascot' for a photo opportunity.
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| 'Traditional' welcome |
For those of you unfamiliar with cruising, there is a whole crew of photographers lurking around at every photo opportunity and on-board mini studios to capture those precious moments then sell them to you at an over-inflated cost.
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| Souvenir market at the port |
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| Frances receives a garland with orchids |
David said that he knew a guy who had a mini van which could take us around the island, but after hanging around for a while, he told us that the big chief had stopped tourists travelling to Baie d’Oro and la piscine naturelle (natural aquarium).
We walked to the nearby lagoon and then joined David and Jane on a walk of 2 km to the prison which was used as a place of exile during the 1870’s for convicts including Paris Communards and Algerian deportees.
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| View of the overgrown prison |
The place is completely run down, crumbling and overgrown by vegetation, surprising for what is possibly one of the main tourist attractions of New Caledonia.
It was possible to get some sense of what it was like to be imprisoned there, but there was a complete lack of interpretive material and difficult to get a sense of how it operated as we wound our way through the lush vegetation.
The location was apparently used for filming movie Papillon, however I doubt it, and was probably used to research the type of prisons the French built for their undesirables.
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| Protected zone |
After walking back towards the port, hot and sweaty, we eagerly went snorkelling in the lagoon and around the "sacred rock".
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| Sacred Rock in Kanumera Bay |
Sacred Rock in Kanumera Bay is a stunning sight to behold.
Although it was pretty crowded and the water a little churned up by the number of people in the water, the snorkelling was still very good.
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| It was pretty crowded |
We saw fish that we hadn’t seen on Duck Island in Noumea, and I had the pleasure of being surrounded by schools of colourful fish. We both decided that it would be great to have an underwater camera.
Around midday I headed back to the ship, but Frances stayed on for another swim and a taste of bougna and then took a 1.5 hour bus tour to the small village of Vao which boasted a school, college, hospital, pharmacy, church and convent.
The tour also included a small and incredibly lame 'cultural village'. At Baie de St Maurice there is a statue of Christ commemorating the arrival of the first missionaries. The statue is encircled by totem poles. Apparently there is reasonable snorkelling in this bay also.
After dinner we checked out the theatre, but found it was a Lip-Synching competition, so we gave it a miss. You may have realised by now that were less than impressed by the quality of entertainment provided on board. The ship seems more focussed on low end activities such as games, competitions and sales - watches, jewelry, accessories and merchandise.
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| A 'little' puff of black smoke as the engines rev up to sail away |
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| Sunset as we sail away from New Caledonia |
