Recommendations for New Caledonia

Hi

We are going to New Caledonia for 10 days in October. Flying into Nomea at about 11.30pm. Does anyone have any recommendations for places to stay that are relatively easy to get to that late at night?

Also, we would like to do a home stay for a couple of days. Again, any suggestions of good places to go? We are interested in gardening/cooking/agriculture and would like to see something of the rural areas. I speak functional french and hope to practice while I am there. Our preference would be to catch local buses - happy to be 'slow travellers'. Is that feasible? I don't know much about the country and it's hard to work out whether our usual method of catching public transport everywhere would be OK.

Yeh, I saw that hotel but it sounded pretty ordinary on Trip Advisor. We may be better off going into Nomea.

I'm sure any accommodation that you are likely to book in Noumea would arrange a transfer for you from the airport.
Sorry can't help you with the home stay question.

Hi,
I'm only researching at this stage but Tour Du Monde looks like a goer. It's about 30 mins from Noumea but near the international airport and offers breakfast plus dinners around the hosts' kitchen table to talk travel. Reviews are good on tripadvisor.com.au

Have fun!

You're probably already in NC or have come back, but just in case, you need to look at La Foa/Sarramea for lodging in rural areas. (Sarramea is 130 km from Noumea.)

There is a lady in that area called Mme Moglia who is an excellent cook (I believe she or her son has written a cookbook on local cuisine) who has such an establishment.

Edited by: tropicgirl

Yes, we were already in NC. We ended up staying at Tour du Monde for a couple of nights which was really pleasant. They arranged the transfer from the airport. From there it was easy and cheap to catch the bus into Noumea. We also stayed at the New Caledonian hotel right in the centre of Noumea which was close enough for us to catch the boat to the isle of pines for a few days and explore the city on foot as well as visit the beaches. If you were travelling without a time-frame and on the cheap it would have been possible to travel all around NC on buses. Not being able to do that we took a bus tour that took us out through Foa and Sarramea for one day and the only other 'spare day' we took a bus out to the Dumbea River. NC certainly isn't geared up for free-wheeling independent travellers who are relying on public transport, but it's not impossible. However, if I was going again with such a short time frame I would pre-arrange a little more because the kayaking we were hoping to do didn't work out at short notice. Best things that happened because we caught public buses was meeting a relative of Tjibaou at a bus stop, visiting an art exhibition with a bus driver becase the bus was early and no-one else was on it, being asked to turn to Christ with the same bus driver and being welcomed on board with bows and dramatic "Madam, Monsieur!".