TheRamblingWombat Ile des Pins

A Postcard From The South Pacific

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This is the stuff that picture postcards from the South Pacific are made off.

Kuto is a crescent shaped, white powder sand, beach over a kilometre in length. It is lapped by the warm, transparent and turquoise waters of the South Pacific and flanked by swaying palms, and many of the island’s endemic columnar pines, providing ample shade between swims, sun bathing or strolls along the beach. If you are into beaches, what more could you possibly need? Continue reading “A Postcard From The South Pacific” →

TheRamblingWombat Ile des Pins

Kanumera Bay – Stunning

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Having completed a 2 hour island tour there was still more than sufficient time for a walk along a significant part of Kanumera Bay which, if forced to pick a favourite between it and Kuto Beach, I would rate it higher – because, at least when I visited, it was less busy and there was more shade, from a combination of palms and the Auracaria columnaris pines from which the island takes its name, for those wishing to linger. Additionally, I found the Bay to be a lot more photogenic and I trust I have managed to capture some of its beauty in the images attached. Continue reading “Kanumera Bay – Stunning” →

TheRamblingWombat Ile des Pins

Prisoners In Paradise

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Most visitors sunning themselves, snorkelling and otherwise enjoying themselves on Kuto Beach would be totally oblivious to the fact that most 19th century visitors to the Ile des Pins spent their time here locked up in cells with no opportunity to enjoy the island and its beaches as today’s visitors do. They would be oblivious to the fact that the island’s main colonial prison was a short distance from the beach. Continue reading “Prisoners In Paradise” →

TheRamblingWombat Ile des Pins

Pirogues And Pancakes At The Bay

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Pirogue at St Joseph’s Bay

During his second voyage in 1774, Captain Cook visited New Caledonia. Jacques Brosse, in his book, Great Voyages of Exploration, 1983, wrote:

“To the south of New Caledonia, he discovered a small island remarkable for its high conifers, which were so crowded together that from a distance they looked like basalt columns. The species belonged to the genus Araucaria, then unknown. These Auracaria columnaris, which measured as high as 70 meters, looked like giant pines, and Cook therefore called the place the Isle of Pines.” Continue reading “Pirogues And Pancakes At The Bay” →

TheRamblingWombat Ile des Pins

St Joseph’s – Remembering The Marist Connection

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Not being able to get into the Notre-Dame de l’Assomption church, due to preparations for a funeral being underway, I had a little time to have a look around the grounds of the adjacent St Joseph’s College. It was there I came across a commemorative monument recognising 116 years of Marist Brothers’ service to education on the Ile des Pins, through their operation of St Joseph’s, which opened here in 1877. Continue reading “St Joseph’s – Remembering The Marist Connection” →