Land Tour of New Caledonia! Monday, October 8, 2018
08 October 2018 | Port Moselle Marina, Noumea
Helen
Caught up on some episodes of Homeland. Mark watched a movie. Headed to bed by 10:30. Up early this morning. Got out of bed after 6:30. Walked to the Point Rouge car rental company by 8. Mark gave them our Visa card and they would not accept it because it didn't have embossed numbers on it. Our Amex had the numbers but they didn't accept Amex. Mark was going to visit an ATM to get them the required cash deposit. I stepped up and asked to speak with someone higher up. It worked because they ended up accepting our Amex card. Then they were looking for a Code before the transaction would be accepted. Mark ended up phoning Amex to ask them about a code. In the meantime, they used a different machine for the verification and it worked. That cost us about an hour of our day. They told us we have to fill up the gas tank which is normal. But their other request was that we have to clean the car, including washing the outside. I am not sure what that is all about from a rental company. We made a stop at the Carrefour Grocery Store and Mark made a stop at the boat shop that was close by there. Drove back to the boat with our purchases. Picked up our bag and snorkel gear and drove north along RT1. We were impressed by the number of businesses along the way. The next town up, had both businesses and residential areas. Then after that, we saw lots of cattle, sheep, horses and goats in different farms along our drive. We headed to the east coast, crossing over on a 2-lane road that following the mountains to Thio. We stopped and picked up a local native hitch hiker and gave her a ride home which was most of the way across the mountains. There were small waterfalls along the way. The mountains were orange in color with beautiful rock faces in places. We found one of the beaches and drove on a road with several grates to keep the cattle out. Plage D'ouroue has beautiful black sand with gigantic rocks along the edge of the sand. We had the beach to ourselves. No other footprints but ours! We had a lovely walk. Then made our way back to RT1 hiway. Thio was a small Kanak native town which had one restaurant. There was one very bad review online, so we didn't patronize it. Thankfully, I took some water and snacks. We drove back to RT1 and then headed further north. We stopped at a small town for an ice cream and then headed to the Fort Teremba. They were doing construction on the fort, so the admission was free. It was on the edge of a bay, with mountains all around. We climbed up a guard tower. It was something like a lighthouse, with a walk out on top. Enjoyed the incredible scenery. We decided to head back to Noumea. We got back around 5 pm. Mark had been driving all day, so he was tired. We talked about making at stop at the Noumea Casino. Our boat neighbor said that we would need to take our passports, so Mark went back to get them. We ate dinner at Malecon as their food and prices were very good. Got to enjoy another lovely sunset on Lemon Bay. Then we drove over to the casino. We were able to find a parking spot out front. We walked in and they said we had to register at the front desk. They asked for our passports which we produced. The slots were open but the rest of the place had a dress code. No shorts, which is what we were wearing. So, we said we could play slots and that was okay. Then they told us that we had to surrender our passports while in the casino. We could pick them up on the way out. We were not going to let them keep our passports, so we took them back and left with any gambling. At least we didn't lose any money. Drove back to the boat, leaving our rental car parked just outside Dock C. Malecon had good wifi, but when we got back I realized that it did not send my email with a picture. Mark played with my phone close to the wifi tower, and the email was sent without the text. I am so very frustrated with the wifi service. I watched some episodes of Homeland, while Mark watched a movie. We will be up early tomorrow, so heading to bed early. Not sure when this blog will post since we just don't have good wifi.