NC, July 2010, La Foa

With the parents of Manu (our friend from the yacht Betsy) Jean-Pierre and Réjane, we made a day trip inland.

As soon you leave Nouméa where 80% of the population lives, you are in the bush.

We visited a penitentiary close to la Foa, 90 minutes driving North of Nouméa.

In the 19^th century lots of convicted where deported to New Caledonia, and penitentiary built.

They were self sufficient and even had a post office, bakery cooking place and places to store the crops and provisions.

Today they are all closed and abandoned. With the help of the government and volunteers “friends of jails”, some of them get restored.

The one in Teremba was active between 1871 and 1909. The convicted were placed in a status of half liberty and grow crops, and be part of the development of the place.

But for the irreducible, individual cells were on the menu.

We stopped in La Foa in a funny restaurant for Lunch.

At the bar, the sealing is covered with hats of all kind (more than 5’000 pieces.

Manu joined us for lunch and we spent some time together with his parents and enjoyed the meal.

He works in the maintenance of air compressor and runs the entire Island to take care to them. Sometime he has to drive 5 hours both ways to get a half hour job done.

After lunch, we walked around the restaurant to a park exposing Totems.

 As we were waiting for the letter from the Indonesian Consulate, we decided to make a little tour around in the lagoon. 

We went up to Prony to see the whales. At this time of the year, they stay around New Caledonia. Unfortunately they were not around as we were there.