Idyllic Plage de Tiberia of New Caledonian's Ouvéa Island. Photo / Chris Shorrock
Chris Shorrock experiences the serenity and natural wonders of New Caledonia’s Ouvea Island, ‘the island closest to paradise’.
We hop down on to the powder-fine sand just as the sun sinks towards the watery horizon. Tiny fish skitter in the shallows, and the gentle lagoon waters lap at our feet. A round green head pops up a few metres from shore.
“What was that?” My husband, Rico, asks as he pivots quickly from the fisherman’s son doing backflips further up Fayaoue Beach.
“Another turtle,” I reply serenely.
It’s only our second evening on Ouvea, but we’ve already lost count.
With its Trou aux Tortues – or Turtles Hole in English – and its skinny waistline – only 40m across in places – turtles are to Ouvea what rats are to New York City. That is, you’re never more than a few metres from one.
We had yet to learn that when we booked the trip. Leafing through travel guides and blogs in search of inspiration for a short honeymoon getaway, we stumbled upon Ouvea and booked on impulse. One of New Caledonia’s Loyalty Islands, Ouvea is only a 40-minute flight north of the capital, Noumea, but has somehow escaped any hint of mass tourism.
Our flight – with no seat numbers, sit where you like – is half full, mostly local families returning home for the school holidays. As we approach the island, the orange glow of the setting sun lights up the scattered cauliflower-like cumulus clouds, and a thin strip of tropical green curls into the distance below - Ouvea. The surrounding ocean slowly slips from view as the thick forest canopy comes up to meet us. Bright-green clearings are stamped out of the forest, each sheltering a traditional thatched Kanak hut.
Ouvea isn’t big. It stretches for 35km in a golden arc of sand and forest along the eastern side of its Unesco World Heritage-listed lagoon. The population of roughly 3500, primarily native Kanaks, is loosely scattered along the island’s forested back-roads. Amenities are limited to a couple of shops (or alimentations), a pharmacy, a bank (with ATM), the odd boutique hotel and a smattering of tribal homestays.
As the plane touches down we whizz past tethered cows and taxi over to the pocket-sized airport. There’s no baggage carousel, so we wait for our luggage as it is hand-delivered to the terminal, along with numerous cardboard boxes, chilly bins and even live taro plants. Outside the airport, we find our car rental in the surrounding commotion, more by chance than design.
“Parlez vous anglais?” I utter hopefully, making use of my limited French.
“Non,” comes the smiling response.
We quickly reach the ceiling of our French language skills and revert to scribbles and gestures. As we do again at Snack O’Kafika, the beachside shack where we stop for a delicious seafood dinner. Our arrival at Beauvoisin, a tribal homestay in the north of the island – one of those clearings with a Kanak hut – follows the same set piece. It’s all refreshingly isolating.
And so the following day, as we meet our guide Antoine for a tour of Ouvea’s shark nursery, we aren’t perturbed by the lack of a common language. The shark nursery is in the far north of the island, where a shallow inlet provides safety for growing black-tip, white-tip and lemon sharks. Meeting Antoine beside the imposing Saint Joseph Church, we follow him in our rental car along a sandy forest track, stopping to remove large coconuts from our path along the way. On reaching the beachfront starting point for the tour, it seems like every tourist on the island is here, all 15 of us.
We would’ve been out on the lagoon, exploring the castaway islands of the Pleiades du Sud, snorkelling with the manta rays and visiting the intimidatingly named “shark trench”. But the wind is up, and no boat trips are running. Ouvea’s lagoon is the star attraction here and became a Unesco World Heritage site in 2008. It is home to all manner of marine life, from coral reefs to majestic manta rays. And those friendly green turtles. Getting out on the water would have to wait; thankfully, there’s plenty to see from shore here too.
And so we follow Antoine as he leads us north, stopping along the sand to show us medicinal plants – eyedrops, sunscreen – and the odd baby shark close to shore. As we reach the island’s northern tip, we wade into the shallows. Lemon sharks - about 2m long - are cruising menacingly close, but Antoine isn’t worried. Reassuringly, the sharks move deeper as we approach, and we watch from what now feels like a safe distance as they glide past, fin tips slicing through the swell.
The name of the adjacent inlet is translated to us as “die tomorrow”, and with a name like that, we’re glad to find there’s no more wading to be done. This is where the sharks lay their eggs in December, and Antoine explains the mating process in great detail. He reinforces his words with diagrams in the sand and gestures that suggest a long, thick, curved object. We get the idea, despite our basic French.
On the way back, our translator (a fellow tourist) is obviously fed up with her extra responsibility. As the only English speakers, we are left to ourselves. Serene in our isolation, we dawdle along with the warm salty breeze at our backs. The 25km long Fayaoue Beach stretches ahead, past the sun-bleached church of Saint Joseph, towering above the palm trees, towards Mouli in the south.
Behind the palm trees and the church is the tangled forest. Home to the endemic Ouvéa green parrot, tribal villages and hidden caves, the forest also shelters the Trou aux Tortues. Seemingly punched from the forest floor with a giant hole punch, the turtle hole is an almost-perfect circle. It’s connected to the ocean by an underground tunnel, through which turtles come to feed off the algae growing on the rocky walls.
The turtle hole has little signage and only a rough path through the forest to reach it. But the walk is short, and we have the place ourselves. It takes patience to spot our first turtle, but soon we watch a pair munching their way along the wall together. Then another pops up directly below our rocky perch, almost close enough to touch. It’s a steep descent, but if you come with reef shoes, you can snorkel here too.
We’re still keen to get out on the lagoon, which is heralded as one of the most beautiful in the South Pacific. Back in the lush gardens of our tribal homestay, we bump into Marc, the proprietor, who gladly calls around the local boat operators.
“Mercredi,” Marc reports back regretfully, with accompanying gestures of wind and waves.
Mercredi. Wednesday, the day after we’re due to leave.
“Beach?” suggests Rico.
It’s not a bad option. And really, we’re spoilt for choice. This is the “island closest to paradise” after all. It’s a nickname derived from a Japanese novel of the same name, written in the 1970s, and it’s easy to see why the name stuck.
As we hop down the last step at Plage de Tiberia, it’s as if we’ve stepped into a travel brochure. Or a movie set. Tropical forest tumbles down limestone cliffs on to a footprint-less beach of icing-sugar-fine sand. The water is calm here, serene, sheltered by the curve of the island, and disturbed only by a surfacing turtle.
Yeah, this is paradise.
Getting there:
Air New Zealand and Aircalin fly direct from Auckland to Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia. Ouvea is a further 40-minute flight on New Caledonia’s domestic airline, Air Caledonie.
Details:
Tourism operators on Ouvea are small-scale. Most hotels and guesthouses offer meals to guests and non-guests and can organise tours. Car hire and accommodation are best booked direct. For more details and contact information, see iles-loyaute.com
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