Carey has wanted to visit New Caledonia ever since we started planning our world trip. An excellent YouTube channel calledCrime Pays but Botany Doesn’t focuses on botany and brought the incredible plant diversity to Carey’s attention. New Caledonia has an insane number of endemic plants (and animals, but the plants are what makes the area famous).

How did this tiny group of islands get such impressive plant life? NC is one of the few islands in the South Pacific that broke off from the supercontinent Gondwana instead of being formed by volcanic eruptions. It broke off when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and the flora and fauna of the island has evolved separate from the rest of the world until about 5000 years ago when humans first arrived. It is similar to New Zealand in some ways – broke off ages ago, kept amazing flora and fauna, and got far enough away from predators to protect said flora and fauna so they could continue to evolve instead of going extinct.

The majority of tourists are French, Aussie, and Kiwi and French is the main language. Some people speak English, but it is rare to see anything printed in anything but French. They even import the majority of groceries from France (literally the other side of the world).

We spent about one week in NC before we ran into some trouble – but more on that later. A few of our favorite things –

  • Great Fern National Park is one of the most beautiful parks we have ever visited. The plants are insane and the park is home to the tallest fern in the world.
  • The beaches all over New Caledonia are lovely.
  • Fresh baguettes are everywhere and are just as delicious as the ones you find in France. Pair it with the imported cheeses and we had a delicious lunch. Good bakeries are also easy to find. Not as common as Paris, but close, and delicious.
  • One of our hotels was an old school bus a family had renovated and rents out in their front yard. It was one of the most creative and fun places we have stayed during our year away.
  • Domaine de Deva is home to lots of hiking trails with insane numbers of butterflies. We had never seen so many with such crazy colors in our lives. And, the views from the tops of the hills were pretty fantastic.
  • New Caledonia is home to the 2nd largest coral reef in the world (after the Great Barrier Reef). One of the tourism offices recommended an incredibly nondescript campsite with a beach for snorkeling. We managed to find it (it is not well-marked and everything was in French) and are so glad we did! We walked in on the left side (as recommended), started swimming, and were immediately in a beautiful, vibrant reef.
  • People are incredibly kind. Our rental car had tire issues and the company told us to go by a gas station for help. The gas station figured out the issue, fixed the problem, some people just hanging out at the gas station helped out in solving another issue with the car, and we weren’t charged a penny.

12 Days with “A Million Dollar View”

When we arrived in New Caledonia we saw a few peaceful protests. People were waving the Kanak flag and promoting independence. People were incredibly welcoming and we never felt uncomfortable. About a week into our time in NC, we found out our flight off the island had been cancelled because the airline was going bankrupt (a whole other thing for a completely different island, Vanuatu). In our dealing with that, we booked a flight to Fiji 5 days later than we originally planned to leave NC. The next day, the protests started to elevate.

Many bridges on the island have Kanak flags as a form of protest.

We got back to Noumea, the capital of NC, and saw slightly more abrupt protests. People were burning tires on the side of the road and yelling, but were kind to people who were kind to them. It did not seem like anything disruptive would happen and everyone we talked to was not worried. The next morning we were talking to our host about where to visit and she recommended staying close by since the area down south was experiencing some larger protests (e.g., burning of old cars). We spent the day nearby and enjoyed an amazing Mauritian dinner with our host and her friends. On our way back from dinner, the roads near our guesthouse were being blocked by individuals with machetes and guns. We made it clear we were American (not French) and they were incredibly welcoming and kind and let us by. One individual even asked us how far away our hotel was to make sure we could get there without running into more road blocks. Another wished us well.

Once we got back to the hotel, we didn’t leave for 12 days. The airport grounded all commercial flights. Over 200 million euro of damage had been done by the time we left NC. Food is scarce, and while France was quick to state that they had the situation under control, they certainly didn’t at any point while we were there.

The closest US Embassy is in Suva, Fiji and had minimal information on the situation for the first 4 days. We were eventually connected with two incredibly helpful individuals through the State Department – one in D.C. and another in Noumea. The Australian consulate lets non-Aussies sign up for their alerts and they were quite informative.

We also were incredibly lucky in our choice of guesthouse, Rica Residence. It is run by the kindest person we have ever met. She made us feel welcome and safe, kept us updated, and is an amazing chef. She had just had a massive catering event cancelation so we had plenty of food (unlike many other places around the island). And, the view from her patio is lovely. She jokingly refers to it as her “million dollar view”. It isn’t easy to relax while in a uneasy situation, but staying with her and her partner had a lot of happy moments thrown into a messy time.

Through everything, we were incredibly grateful for our parents who helped us out while we were so unsure of the situation. They helped us find help, keep updated, and keep our heads on straight during a stressful time.

  • One of the many beautiful birds in the backyard.
  • Got to take a couple of walks.
  • Delicious donuts!
  • Got to make a small birthday cake for one of our hosts.

We planned to spend 10 days in New Caledonia. We were there 20. The international airport was closed for over a month. We’re only off the island because the State Department negotiated with Australia to get us on an Aussie military plane (and my goodness, was our day of getting to that plane a story).

  • Side of the road on our drive to the meeting point.
  • Plane to Australia.

So, how did they reach this point?

New Caledonia is a French territory in the South Pacific with a long and complicated history. The Kanak people have lived here for at least the last 5000 years. The French came in as colonizers in the 1800s. The French used NC as Britain used Australia – French prisoners were sent here and never allowed to leave. Today’s population is made up of Kanaks (indigenous population), decedents of the French prisoners, French individuals who have moved from France, and a very small number of expats from other countries. The total island population is just under 270,000. In the 1980s, the island came to a near civil war and an agreement was struck to move towards independence. It involved 3 separate votes. In each vote, the majority has voted to remain a part of France, but the most recent is seen as illegitimate. The most recent vote was during peak Covid times and was boycotted by pro-independence groups. The current protests are due to a change in the voting registration. Currently, people can only vote if they are born in NC or were here before 1998. The new law would allow people to vote if they have lived in NC at least 10 years. The Kanaks fear this will dilute their voting influence.

While in NC we heard a lot of different opinions on the issue. Many people who are pro-independence are still against the riots because of the harm it is causing the community (destroying medical and food resources, hurting an already fragile economy). People we talked to who are pro-France are worried the island will experience even worse economic issues if they are independent. Most of all, everyone we spoke to wants their fellow citizens to be safe, healthy, and able to eat – something that is difficult as things currently stand. It is almost universally agreed repealing the voting change is a good starting point.

So, main lessons learned –

  • If you give, the universe gives back – our host’s mantra. She gave food to anyone who came by in need and never ran out of what she needed. Friends would drop off bread, eggs, fresh seafood, company.
  • Journalism oversimplifies issues all the time. While I don’t support the burning of businesses, the Kanaks should not be portrayed as criminals. People were driven to extreme protesting because France has been ignoring them for far too long.
  • Never assume how people will act. New Caledonia is home to some of the kindest people I have ever met. Carey and I had to drive ourselves to the meeting point for our evacuation flight. Multiple people outside of NC told us not to talk to anyone. The roads were full of blockades and what should have been a 30 minute drive took us over an hour and a half. We did not see a single member of the French military or police force, but the protesters manning the blockades told us how to get around the blockades to the meeting point. They were incredibly helpful and kind.
  • Always have travel insurance and always make sure they have a capable team manning the emergency services team. Our emergency evac group lied to us and told us they had insurance approval to move us until the morning we needed to be moved to catch our evac flight. They then informed us they did not have insurance approval. I called the insurance company and got approval within 30 minutes, but by that point the State Department had called us and told us we needed to leave so we had to drive ourselves. So, we’ll be finding a new travel insurance company that doesn’t use Crisis24 (the emergency evac team we had) and really hoping we never need those services again.

A lot of people have said things like “I bet you’re glad to be out of there”. While we did not love being stuck in one place, New Caledonia is one of our favorite places we’ve visited this year. It is a gorgeous island and home to the kindest people we’ve met while traveling. We would love to go back some day.