Saturday August 31st

Sunshine and Rain

Bonjour tout le monde!

It was great to wake up this morning and greet the sunshine. It was beautiful and we headed into the city markets. It's a vibrant, happy and noisey place, bursting with life and colour. For sale is a huge variety of hand-crafted products, art works, fresh fruit, vegetables and fish. For many, selling at the markets constitutes their income. Some come over from the Loyalty Islands to the east of Le Grande Terre, where Noumea is situated, and sell their wares after working on them for a few months to build up a stock supply.

There are quite a few vegetable varieties with weird and wonderful shapes that the kids won't have seen before.

                  This stall is very European with a large range of olives, sundried tomatoes etc. You see                                      stalls like this at La Cigale in Auckland where the french markets are.

 As in most Pacific countries, New Caledonia's staple foods are fish, coconut, taro, banana, sweet potato and yam. The yam has a high status in kanak society and is treated with a reverence assigned to elders and ancestors.  Any celebration such as a wedding would always involve yams.
The long edible roots can be cooked in a variety of ways, but they definitely have weird shapes!

 The variety of fish on show is always entertaining. They seem to acquire an almost human expression as they gaze through the glass at prospective purchasers!

 Les langoustes! Yumm! They are plentiful and always on the menu in restaurants. The big green boy towards the right must be a packhorse - he was huge!

                                                   Beautiful colours add to the attraction!

                                                Puckering up  -  choose me, choose me!

                                                           Handcraft stalls are all outside

                      There is usually live music somewhere to serenade the purchasing.

                                                          NZ lamb is common

                             The markets are on the waterfront at Port Moselle - what a view!

We came back to our apartment at lunchtime and have had a lazy, restful afternoon.  At about 3pm it clouded over and by 4 was raining.  I went for a walk along the shop frontage under the Hilton Hotel - always good for a dream or two.  I love looking at the designer wear pretending I'm in the market for it (in my shorts, jandals, tee-shirt and windblown hair to complete the look!)
There are a few sales on at present and I could have saved myself the bother of visiting Briscoes for a new carry-on bag. I could have snagged a beauty for a mere $1500 sale price!  Or...... I could have bought a whole set for $5000! Derek would have thought it a real bargain!!
There is also a beautiful lingerie shop there selling the most exquisite risque items. I've told Bill and Baz they need to go and purchase something for their wives!  They would enjoy the visit!

                                                          Lancel Luggage from Paris
 

                                                    A gloomy outlook this afternoon


At the market we saw Joanne and Paige Cameron who were both loving the shopping!  I've not heard from anyone else today so I'm sure they are all having a great time.

I hear you had a bluebird day today. Great to think spring is on the way. We were bluebird for a while and maybe we will be again tomorrow.

Au revoir!

Friday 30th August

Sporting Fun

Today was a fun day for the kids but they will be tired tonight.  The day dawned cloudy but warm and we walked down to Parc Brunelet 5 minutes away. This time the orienteering was a race so it was all on for our competitive kids. They were paired up with their billets and ran all over the big park finding their cones. Joanne and her partner won so they were very chuffed with themselves.

                                                                      Lining up to start

                                                                 Instruction Time
The park is named after a guy who was a great conservationist in Noumea.  It has been planted with a variety of endemic tree species and is all fully fenced so that hoodlums etc can't race their cars around it.  Dogs must be on a lead but there are no rules (anywhere!) about picking up your dog's excrement!  They just stand there while the dog does his business then walk off!  There is a corner within the park that is fenced off again, where the dogs can be let off the lead and run freely. This morning there was a large group in there running, barking and chasing together while their owners chatted and smoked.  (Smoking is still very common here)

                               
                                         There are many varieties of palm trees represented.

                                                       The silver variety is very pretty.

We had a picnic lunch provided by the school - a baguette filled with ham and salad, a chocolate (of course chocolate!) donut, a piece of cheese and a clementine. ( I had thought they were mandarins the other day in the canteen). The french kids walked back to school for their lunch in the canteen and we stayed on for another hour playing games together on the grass.

We then walked back to school to meet the bus that took us to the Centre d'Activities Nautiques.  It is a fabulous facility used by schools and organisations for team building etc. It belongs to the council and The South Province wanted all kids in the region to be able to learn and experience a range of water sports.  Our kids had 3 rotations. They paddled a traditional polynesian canoe just like a waka ama called a Va'a, paddled kayaks out in the bay and played kayak polo in the purpose-built pool area. At the end of the afternoon, arms were definitely feeling it, especially from the Va'a as the paddles are longer and you have to grip the top and really dig into the water.  It was choppy out in the bay making it even harder for them and a couple didn't like how close they were to the water out there!

                                               Looking over at the kayak polo pool

                                      Inside a storage shed holding all the windsurfing gear

                                                                                 A Va'a

                                                                Taking down the kayaks

                                                                 First instructions

                                                  The Va'a is much heavier than a kayak!

                                                             Gearing up for Kayak polo

The kids are going to do a range of things this weekend if it stays fine so fingers crossed it does.

Bill and Baz are being taken out fishing by a friend here and I've been offered a trip down south in a large catamaran to go whale watching which is very popular at this time of year and quite a spectacle apparently.  We shall see.................