Lifou in the Loyalty Islands

Lifou is a province of New Caledonia a French colony. The biggest city in New Caledonia is Noumea which we are visiting tomorrow, Lifou island is not as developed but it is not far from the capital.

We anchored offshore as there is no dock for the big ships and the tenders took us in. Today the weather was not on our side with showers happening off and on all day.

We went through the non-existent customs and security in record time.

First impressions of this island are that it may not not as developed as some of the others but in other ways it is - for instance the roads here are a lot better than what we saw on Vanuatu even though Lifou only has 11,000 residents.

The main income is from tourism as well as some agricultural products.

We walked up to the small chapel of Notre Dame de Lourdes which is on top of a headland overlooking the bay. We then walked the other way to the Church of St Francis Xavier. The Catholic missionaries ensured the locals are devout Catholics.

In the afternoon we had a forest walk tour booked which was really interesting. Our guides were Daniel and Juliet who walked us through the rainforest telling us about various plants and how they were used, all very interesting. They then took us to a small grotto caused by the collapse of the roof of a limestone cave. Previously the locals would have lived in these caves but they are are now used to escape the heat of summer or cyclones.

After our tour we went back to the ship for a very late lunch and relaxation.Read more