A Restless Bunch

Are you looking for a vacation destination that is really extraordinary? You might be thinking of somewhere that provides beaches and sailing opportunities, plus the cuisine and ambiance of a metropolitan city. A perfect holiday that has all of this is a trip to the French colony of New Caledonia, located between Australia and Fiji.

As New Caledonia is located further south than many of the other islands of the South Pacific, its climate benefits from southeast trade winds, plenty of sun, and warm weather. If a sailing holiday is what you are looking for, New Caledonia is located in a part of the Pacific that has the biggest coral lagoon in the world. Sailing charters are freely available and with the aid of the trade winds you can sail out of the capital city of Noumea along the coastline, past numerous small islands that dot the ocean around the New Caledonia. There are also plenty of other outdoor activites like scuba diving, snorkeling, horseback riding, canoeing, and kayaking.

If you were hoping for a gourmet holiday, you can find everything you could want on New Caledonia. New Caledonia’s capital, Noumea, also known as the Paris of the Pacific. Noumea offers delicate gourmet French food and wine along with the other benefits of a bustling cosmopolitan town. Some of the finest restaurants in the South Pacific can be found here. Claimed by France in 1853, New Caledonia has a well-defined French influence when it comes to food and wine.

There are plenty of restaurants, ranging from sidewalk cafes to elegant bistros. French cuisine is easy to come by, but other selections include Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and African food. Seafood is a specialty of the Island, including spiny lobster, prawns, crab, and mangrove oysters. One of New Caledonia’s national dishes is Bougna, which is fish or chicken, combined with sweet potatoes and bananas wrapped in banana leaves and then baked covered in sand on hot stones. For the adventurous traveller on a epicurean holiday, you can try a dish popular with the locals, bat stew.

You can make a holiday to New Caledonia anything you want it to be: a sailing holiday, a gourmet holiday, or a time to just relax on the beaches.