Vers la piscine naturelle, Île des Pins

Alarms off at 4:45am in preparation for us to catch the (pleasantly surprisingly on-time) 5:30am bus to the Nouméa Ferry Terminal. Our 7:00am Betico 2 ferry to l’Île des Pins left the dock about 10 minutes early - good thing we adhered to the 60-minutes prior check-in time! The two-hour boat ride started off OK, but as the seas got choppier, both Mommy and Davy spent the last 45 minutes or so staring into seasickness bags. (Incidentally, Qantas has the best airsickness bags we’ve seen so far and boy are we glad that they gave us some spares!)

Fortunately, heads cleared quickly when we got to the Island. Our morning destination was the natural swimming pool in the northeast part of l’Île des Pins. Access was via a little kiosky hut by the Méridien staffed by a local islander. Since rates for day visitors from cruise ships vs. those who could name a local hotel varied by a factor of 2.5, we were glad the nice lady let us by on a Nouméa AirBnB - counting both kids at the child rate as well.

Because the tide was rising, we had to ford a small stream in order to get to the pool. It was a rather hilarious sight - the great migration of a pack of 20-odd tourists bravely fording the knee-deep stream to get to the Piscine Naturelle! None of us knew how deep it was, or would be, or could be, and so we all proceeded with excessive caution - Meg in particular, who seriously doubted our navigation capabilities.Read more