Nouméa

My last flight landed late at night in Nouméa, new Caledonia to meet the ship the following day. In New Caledonia there's virtually no light pollution so I arrive to a panoramic view of the stars spreading the full width of the skyline, glowing bright and clear. You can see way into the distance, it feels very open and everything is bordered by mountainous silhouette's. Far in the distance on one mountain there stands a luminous cross which looks very dramatic glowing alone in the dark and I can see what motivated them to stand it in this environment, it's a very striking and powerful image. 

The soundscape is pretty special too, so many insects chirping in unison it creates a soft white noise effect and is very relaxing, I used to find the same thing at night in Bali and would take time every evening to sit outside and soak it in. I later learned these insects are called cicadoidea, the males create a constant sound while the females are responsible for the sort of click that follows intermittently, at first listen they sound like pretty close to crickets but they look very different, you can find husks of these insects left clinging to trees in large numbers as they shed by climbing out the back of their exoskeleton.

Driving further on we start to head towards the more populated areas, the roads are steep and hilly, with houses built into the side of the mountains, the roads start to have better lighting as the population increases so I can see a lot clearer what the place looks like, there's a lot of graffiti tagging and the area starts to look a little rough for a while as we drove through. The hotel they checked me into was gorgeous though, big open spaces and high ceilings, a dark rich colour scheme and native artwork. I only had 3 hours to sleep if I wanted to get breakfast before heading to the ship, and seeing as how this place is so heavily tied to France I definitely wanted breakfast. At 5am I rise from bed, it's an hour before breakfast and I'm horribly jet lagged but the whole room has exploded into the sounds of the island waking up and it's magnificent, I'm beyond tired and working out how to open the seemingly complicated balcony latch is almost impossible as my eyes are refusing to open properly after flying the equivalent of two days without sleep, but eventually after a struggle I get it open and step out, when I got to the balcony it was wonderful, I could see trees full of birds surrounding a lake and an open plain to the left, and I could hear all manner of creatures in a chorus of noises, it was an amazing soundscape, if I lived here I would never close my windows, this is exactly how I'd like to be woken up every morning, the perfect backdrop to a tropical climate. I made a quick recording of the sounds I could hear to set as my alarm clock as an impermanent solution, I didn't want to be holding my phone while taking this in so it was a very brief recording. I sat out on the balcony for as long as I could hold myself awake enjoying the first glimpse of the sun rising over the scene and pouring into a mix of bright colours, then I crawled back to bed for a little more rest. When I woke and made my way down to breakfast I sat by the pool and ate an abundance of freshly baked croissants with local jam and butter, boiled eggs and a glass of orange juice, then once I was full I checked out and made my way to the ship. My first jetlagged glimpse of this beautiful island had me feeling very blessed, it was clear this was an island rich in wildlife which is a rarity on ships. So far in my experience they tend to visit more densely populated tourist areas, though I had a feeling New Zealand would be an exception to this. It was clear once I got aboard that most crew members write this place off as “another beach only port” and don't tend to leave the ship when we call here. The big thing on ships for crew usually tends to be places they can purchase things to make life aboard a little easier and so ports like this don't interest a lot of the people who don't get much time ashore, I guess for now the beauty of this place is a secret between you and I.