Day 2 in Noumea started early with a stroll down to the market, where we admired the the fresh produce and seafood. We had a breakfast of coffee and pastries, and a fresh coconut. My favourite stand at the market was selling crepes, where prices differed according to the politeness of the customer. Une crepe was 500 francs. Une crepe s’il vous plait was 300 francs. Bonjour, une crepe s’il vous plait, was only 180 francs. A telling sign that the locals appreciate not only politeness, but communicating in the local language.

After checking out of our hotel, we explored a bit of Noumea in Francoise the Peugeot.
We soon learned that the Latin Quartier where we stayed is the daggy end of town. There are far nicer and posher places north of that where all the expensive hotels are, and a very nice foreshore with lots of restaurants and cafes. We found a big supermarket and stocked up on beer, red wine and some more baguettes and cheese, as well as chips and snacks.

We took the RTI – the main road – towards Bourail, missed the turn off to Poe, and circled round the town of Bourail and back to find the poorly marked road down to Poe Plage, where our accommodation was – Auberge de Poe. Our drive thus far taught us that things are not well signposted in NC. With no GPS nor maps nor tourist information, we had to rely on the one map of the island I had printed from the internet and the position of our car on Maps on my phone. I had also snapped images of maps on the word doc I had printed out for our itinerary. On the whole, this worked quite well.
Today Matt wanted to avoid a late picnic lunch, so that we would be hungry for our dinner at a restaurant, because he loves going out for dinner and had budgeted to eat out every night. So decision was made to eat our baguette and cheese for lunch somewhere on the way as early as possible. But we couldn’t find a good place to stop. There were no inviting picnic spots. So we carried on down a secondary road which wound down to the coast from Bourail.
At the end, a right turn and then a long shady road which ran parallel to the sea, which was not visible from the road. Confusion finding Auberge de Poe, not really knowing what it was we were looking for. We passed right by it, and realising we had gone too far, did a 20-point turn and turned back. There it was on the right, a carpark with a gate. As we hovered near the entrance, a lady opened the gate and waved us in.
L’auberge was a very basic joint – a kind of youth hostel situation with soulless rooms, large but sparsely furnished with bunk type beds like you’d find if you were on a school camp. Foam mattresses on cast iron frame beds, with a fitted sheet and top sheet, which you had to make yourself and at the end of your stay, drop them back in the laundry room. The sheets smelt good, newly washed and fragrant, although a bit worn.
There was a communal kitchen with a section of fridge allocated to your room number. We put our beers, cheese and other bits in there. We were also allocated a locker and a plastic container of crockery and cutlery. The rooms opened out to a huge freshly mowed lawn, dotted with picnic tables, hammocks between the trees and easy chairs grouped together invitingly. Beyond a fence with a gate, some more lawn, though overgrown, and then the sea.
I stomped over there in my swimmers with towel slung over my shoulder. The beach was deserted except for a girl and her dog. A small stretch of sand met a vast expanse of seaweed, dotted with shallow rockpools. The beach was a reef, and the deeper water looked like kilometres away. The seaweed popped and hissed in the sun. I walked up the beach a bit, watched the girl taking photos of her brown dog which posed beautifully for her on a rock with a rockpool in the foreground. Then they disappeared up the slope to a parked ute and the beach was deserted.
I looked longingly at one of the bigger rockpools and decided to submerge myself in there. But on closer inspection it was teeming with beautiful black and white striped fish, spongy orange coral and a big knobby crab lumbering around amongst the rocks. I wondered, is swimming even allowed here?
I charged back to the room where Matt was lying in the cool of the room reading his book, close to drifting off to sleep. Each room had a little outdoor area with hard, sloped-backed lounging seats. So I sat there for a while reading my book (Title: Therapy, I forget the author) and guzzled a beer.
On the way to the kitchen to get the beer I asked the lady about swimming. “Of course,” she said, “You can walk out and swim.”
Encouraged by her and the beer, I grabbed my reef shoes and headed back. There were two men, wading way out, father and son I learnt later, and their women partners were sitting watching on fold out chairs on the sand.

I marched out, gingerly at first over clumps of seaweed, trying to avoid the orange coral that looked alive, wading ankle deep, a bit pissed, my brain a bit mushy, but determined to get out there. Once through the seaweed, I was in ankle deep water. I sloshed along in my reef shoes, avoiding rocks and anything alive-looking, sloshing, sloshing, a bit afraid but determined. I could see the two men way ahead of me. They were still only ankle deep and nowhere near the edge of the reef. Finally, exhausted I sank down and submerged myself, lying on my back, the water just covered my body and I did what I had to do – a wee.
I plunged on and walked for what seemed like miles, but eventually gave up and sloshed back, thinking what great exercise for my legs. They were aching and tired. I had to plonk into the warm water again a few times and rest.

On our way into the Auberge we had passed a few restaurants. In particular, Matt had earmarked a pizza place not far down the road from us. So after checking out a spectacular sunset on the beach, which featured dramatic dark grey banks of clouds and then a thin strip of peachy glowing band between sky and sea, and a flash of bright orange sun poking behind clouds and firing up a selection of water. Truly beautiful, (my photos just don’t show it), we set off on a walk to the pizza joint.

Forgot to mention, we had guzzled down baguette with Emmentale cheese, salami and red onion, a bit of fig jam, and some chips as soon as we arrived, in lieu of an en route picnic spot.
We set off into the dark deserted road, using the torch on my phone to light the way. It started drizzling, we passed the pizza place. It was closed. So we turned back and decided to risk driving, despite Matt having had a beer or two. But no! Absolutely nothing open along the beach strip nor even a bit inland. Everything was quiet and shut up, except for a few cars on the road. So we dined on the spoils of our lunch, the remaining chips, red onion, cheese, beer, red wine which we ate on our little terrace, followed by a game of backgammon which I found in the communal lounge area.

Next up – Nothing to buy and hardly anywhere to swim