Maybe New Caledonia (or Nouvelle-Caledonie, as they say here) is not so safe after all. They do have one very big problem: Patisseries.

What's a Patisserie? It's the little French bakeries filled with Croissants, Pain du Chocolate, Baguettes and other kinds of sweet baked butter bombs. Everything inside the doors of these establishments is extremely tasty. And very dangerous. It's definitely not Paleo.

The Frenchness (that's a word, right?) of New Caledonia is apparent the moment one steps ashore. Noumea is not Paris, but an urban French outpost plopped down in the middle of the South Pacific filled to the brim with everything French. French cars, French grocery stores and French clothing stores.

Did I mention French pastries? Oh yeah. I did.

There is a French MacDonald's here and yes we had lunch there. We were curious to try the MacBaguette Burger, posters of which are plastered all over the place. Verdict? Not bad - at first. An hour later it earned the moniker McBadgutbomb.



Tahiti is certainly French influenced, but New Caledonia and in particular, the city of Noumea is far more French than French Polynesia. It is also much more wealthy than French Polynesia and that wealth is readily apparent simply walking the streets. Everything is in good repair! The crosswalks all have walk signals (and they work), chiming a tune when it's time to cross the street that we swear is the first few notes of Frere Jacques. Drivers even stop for you when you cross, which is a decided change from the culture of New Zealand, where pedestrians take their life in their hands when stepping off the sidewalk.

Besides heavy financial support from the French government, New Caledonia also produces about 1/3 of the worlds' nickel supply and apparently it all gets shipped directly to France. We happened to see one of New Cal's two big mining operations when we hiked up into the hills above our first anchorage. What we thought was a city (from how it lit up the sky the night before) turned out to be a mine and a gigantic smelting operation.

Have you seen the movie Avatar? As we hiked up the ridge and this operation revealed itself in the valley of the next ridge over, it looked like real-life science fiction plopped down in the middle of wilderness. It was actually pretty impressive as you might expect from a $6 billion dollar investment, but you can also see why the whole operation is rather controversial among New Caledonians. It's making a big mess in the middle of a very scenic nowhere. But walking the streets of Noumea, it's quite clear that it also brings in a great deal of money, money that is not present in a resource-poor place like French Polynesia.



New Caledonia has been influenced by more than its unique geology. It has also been influenced by it unique geography - its position on the planet.

During WWII the island was the last geographical barrier between Japan and Australia/New Zealand and as a result, the island played a pivotal role in the War of the Pacific. During that war over 1 million American servicemen and women passed through New Caledonia either on their way to fight the Japanese or coming back wounded from fighting the Japanese.

This place became a complete United States military camp including a naval base, an airbase, an army base, a hospital base - you name it. Many of the major military campaigns that took place in the pacific had its men and supplies come through New Caledonia. During that time, the US military transformed both the island and the city of Noumea.



New Caledonia was also one of the few bastions of Free France - those French who refused to participate in the Vichy government installed by Germany after the German invasion of France and wanted to fight Germany rather than be taken over by it. The two-barred cross or the Croix de Lorraine was the symbol of the Free French. A huge version of it, constructed of corten steel, overlooks the city from one of its highest hills.



Ultimately, it was not the struggle in Europe that played out here during the war. It was the war in the Pacific, the war against the Japanese that is the central WWII story here even though many New Caledonians did go to Europe and North Africa at the beginning of the war in Europe.

It was WWII that thrust New Caledonia into the modern world and changed it forever - at least that's the claim in the museums we have visited and it's probably more accurate than just sentimental. Certainly the pictures on the walls show a place overrun by US servicemen and the machines of war, not to mention that unique architectural gift of WWII - the Quonset Hut.

Except for the several memorials to that time around the city (one in particular expressing gratefulness to the United States for saving New Caledonia from Japanese invasion) very little physical evidence of the war remains today. Although... there is the issue of the muddy junk on the bottom of certain parts of the bay, which can make anchoring a little problematic for certain catamarans we know - but that's another story.