Kat 1. Stay in an overwater bungalow
Yes, these bungalows are expensive but it was everything we were looking for. We didn’t feel the need to go anywhere else or do any other activities so we didn’t really have any other expenses except food. Any time we wanted to go swimming we just lowered our stairs and swam around near our bungalow. It was so relaxing to just sit on the balcony and watch the water. The water was so clear we didn’t even need to do any snorkelling to see the wildlife, we could see everything from above. We saw turtles every morning and afternoon, from in the water and out of it. I saw one within the first hour of us arriving. We could sit and watch the sunset from the balcony. We only ever left the resort to explore our food options in central Noumea. If the resort had had a patisserie we would not have left at all.
2. Eat!
As a French territory, Noumea has amazing food. Think cheese, bread, croissants, pates, eclairs. Mmm…eclairs.
I get it. You’re trying to relax. It can be tempting to spend the whole time at your resort, especially if you’re staying in an overwater bungalow, but the patisseries alone are worth the ferry ride back to central Noumea.
On our first foray back to Noumea after checking into our resort, I had forgotten to check the directions to the patisserie I wanted to visit. My husband and I went off in completely the wrong direction, re-traced our steps, started wandering in the right direction eventually and then stumbled upon this amazing place:
We were hot and tired and I was worried I had dragged him around in the heat on a fools errand, but that look on his face when he took his first bite of his chocolate éclair, I knew it was all worthwhile.
We also had a great coffee éclair from Les Petits Choux, near the big supermarket (more info below).
I had never even really liked eclairs before this trip. They must be typically so poor in Australia in comparison. But we came back again later in our trip just for more eclairs. Yep, a one-hour return ferry ride. For eclairs. They also had really good lunch options here. Baguettes travel better than eclairs, so eat dessert first and take your baguettes to go.
The closet one to the ferry terminals is at 77 Rue de Sebastopol.
For more food-related inspiration for patisseries, restaurants and markets, check out this great SBS article:
https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/culinary-postcard-noumea-new-caledonia/n7e55srks
3. Don’t touch the sea snakes
OK, this seems obvious, instinctive even, to most people, but they’re not as easy to avoid as you might think. They are highly venomous but also very curious and quite likely to get very close to you to check you out. For more information, check out this post: Can sea snakes swim upstairs?
4. Go to the supermarket!
There is a huge supermarket near the cruise ship terminal. It is about a 15 minute walk from the Port Moselle terminal where you catch the ferry to Hilton Noumea Ilot Maitre Resort. Google maps still has it listed as Johnston if you search for supermarkets, but it is now Auchan. If you search google maps for ‘Auchan Ferry’s Quay’ it will give you the correct location.
You can find it here:
This place was amazing! It has awesome food, French cheeses, breads, pâtés, pre-made salads and baguettes, fruit, snacks, chocolates. It is huge. It has souvenirs as well like playing cards, calendars and magnets. It also has an alcohol section.
If you’re buying alcohol, either choose carefully to make sure you get wine in screw top bottles and twist top beer, or take a corkscrew and bottle opener with you. We get caught out by this one every holiday.
Our plan for our next visit is to check in for the ferry, leave our bags with the resort staff for safekeeping and then head to the supermarket to stock up on supplies. We had some great food at the resort but there was not that much variety, particularly at lunch, so we liked to buy some supplies and eat an antipasto platter in our bungalow.
Some of the smaller supermarkets we visited didn’t actually have the range of products they promised on Google. I would not bother going anywhere other than Auchan.
Les Petits Choux that you see in the bottom right-hand corner of the map also does excellent breads and pastries, though not quite as good as Boulangerie Pâtisserie Saint Honoré. I think? I’m not sure. Better go back soon to investigate…
5. Learn some French
We both tried to learn some French before we went to New Caledonia, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the language-learning apps. My husband used DuoLingo but I had been very unimpressed by it previously, so I tried Babbel. Babbel started out more promising but I gave up when there was such a focus on how to announce where other people live or don’t live. I still remember how to say “the girls do not live in Montreal” but I don’t know how to ask where the bathroom is.
We were able to say the usual niceties: please, hello, thank you, etc. and we ordered most of our food in French. We really only had one issue where I thought I had ordered the grilled fish but ordered the grill of the day, which was steak. It was still very good steak, so no drama. We had to revert to English with the resort staff for more complex tasks like booking the ferry transfers.
Our lack of French didn’t cause us any problems, but we felt a little embarrassed by it.
Duo Lingo is now much better (for Italian anyway). It starts with basic, helpful phrases, like “I would like a coffee with sugar, please”.
6. Download Google maps for offline use
I forgot to do this before we went on our first éclair run and we went off in the wrong direction to start. I had a few screenshots of the maps but it was not a lot of information to go on. We did find the patisserie we were looking for by a combination of luck and detective work.
7. Check if there are any cruise ships in town during your trip
https://cruisedig.com/ports/noumea-new-caledonia
We had planned to stay in the resort on the days the cruise ships were in port, but we could not resist the siren song of eclairs. There was a long queue at our other favourite patisserie that is closer to the port ( Les Petits Choux), but our first favourite was still quiet. If you have plans to do tourist activities other than eat, you might find much larger crowds on these days.
8. Leave plenty of time for airport security when departing Noumea
We arrived at the airport more than 3 hours before our flight. By the time we got through security we had less than an hour to enjoy the delicious little pastries of the Aircalin lounge. There are only 2 screening stations so the line moves very slowly.
Have you been to Noumea lately? If you have any other tips to share, please add them in the comments below!
