Notre voyage en brousse

Words-wise, this will be a short-ish post, but i thought it would be good to share some of our photos from up north in New Caledonia. Essentially anything outside of Nouméa (but particularly the northern province) is known colloquially as "la brousse," and for good reason. Currently the population of New Caledonia hovers somewhere around 225,000. OVER half lives in Nouméa or "Grand Nouméa" (the "suburbs," if one can really call them that, directly outside of Nouméa). Outside of Nouméa no municipality has a pop. of over 5,000 people. Meaning New Caledonia is essentially one small to medium-sized city and a lot of very small villages and tiny Melanesian hamlets.

Anyhow, my point is that the "brousse" is really that-- the bush, in varying degrees of third-world-ishness and disconnection from "the grid."

We spent two days "en tribu" (staying in a tribal village) in the tribe of Werap, in Hienghene. On the third day way drove allllll the way to the "bout de la Calédonie," the very northern tip of the island, and stayed in a cute, rustic hotel/resort-y thing in the hamlet of Poum. More description to come, but i'll just say that Renault Twingos are not really meant to drive on unsealed roads.

We happened to be staying in Werap while the tribu was hosting a meeting of women from around the Northern Province (there to discuss women's health issues). For some reason this included a "defilé" or fashion show.

Here are our accommodations:

And the local scenery: