Nouméa, New Calidonia

And sometimes dreams do come true. Not always, not every day, but every now and then, after 35 years, they do. I always wanted to come here. Why, actually? How did I even know this island at all, so remote in the Pacific, somewhere between Australia and what feels like nothingness? I no longer have any idea. I only remember that back then we were a small group of boys raising hell around Leinzell and on the Disco Express. Wolfgang Hurt Gasse, Vodka Lemon in front of the village disco, and one of us kept having visitors from New Caledonia, about our age. That is how a pen friendship began, by airmail back then, maybe three letters long, if that. A lot has happened since then. But the thought remained. I always wanted to come here. And everyone who knew anything back then just said: what do you want there? There is nothing there. Far too expensive, far too far away, not worth it. Yeah, yeah.

And now I am here. And it is exactly the way I imagined it. Only different. But not any less. If anything, more. Another world, really.

As always, I did not prepare. Why would I? Too much preconception only gets in the way. Roughly, I knew what one could do here. The real question, as always, is not what, but how do I get there, and above all how do I get back. Without a car, the options on this island are limited. And as we all know, a car is not an option for me. The few times I have really needed one were for moving house. But since I have by now developed an almost perverse pleasure in annoying Willi with that, that problem always solved itself. So thanks again at this point for all the times you drove the van for me. You never had to move that much furniture anyway. I left the fun part to you. Thank you.

So the options here are limited: the RAÏ long distance bus, private shuttle, Aircalin, or ferry. Add Easter holidays on top of that. And of course, as one would expect, this island is built for car traffic. You notice it immediately. Anyone without a car thinks differently here. Slower, more awkwardly, more dependently.

But let us start at the beginning, because the story deserves to be written down in all its small details. For me, and exclusively for me. Whoever happens to be reading along, fine. I share gladly. I also lash out gladly.

In Auckland, the ride on the SkyDrive was no problem. Neither was check in, nor waiting for the plane. The problems began on the plane. We were flying into a high pressure zone, which in itself is a good thing. Unfortunately it also means that shaking, wobbling and dropping, and that is not exactly my preferred form of entertainment. That loss of control. But at some point I could already see it from far away. The coral reef in front of the island, the clouds hanging in the mountains, that deep, lush green. And I was enchanted immediately. Even before the plane touched down, I was staring out at those evergreen mountains and knew that I was done for.

When I got off the plane and reactivated my phone, something else immediately became clear. With my existing connections, I would not be getting any signal here, or at least that is what I gathered from the first messages. It can be that simple. So, through passport control, where I was greeted with one of the broadest smiles I have ever seen, and on to biosecurity. And there I became instantly aware that we were in France again. While police and security forces in Australia and New Zealand tend to stay discreetly in the background, state authority in its continental European form is much more present. The strict policewoman at the entrance to customs looked at me and asked, how much money are you carrying? Eight thousand, I said. Her eyes widened and she told me to show it to her. Then she asked whether it was New Zealand or Australian dollars. I said Pacific francs, and the whole situation relaxed immediately. My camera equipment also drew some attention. Where was I going? I said I did not yet have a fixed plan. That seemed to satisfy her, she handed me a slip of paper and sent me on to biosecurity. The dog sniffed at me without much interest and the man waved me through.

Outside there was a sign about SIM cards, so I wandered over to the counter, and the enormously friendly man there sold me a working SIM card and installed it on the spot. So much for that, I thought. My shuttle driver was already waiting too. Again, extremely friendly. The airport is fifty kilometers outside Nouméa, and I had booked the shuttle into town in advance for just a few euros. I was allowed to sit in front, and he immediately gave me a taste of what was waiting for me. French. And once again I had forgotten all the painstakingly learned vocabulary. I nodded, I said ahhh, I said ohhh, and above all I said: fuck, this is beautiful.

The road was well built. To the left, cloud covered green mountains, to the right the flatlands, every now and then the sea. The driver dropped me at the hotel, and there too I was warmly welcomed. I am not used to that much kindness at all. I was allowed to leave my things there, and because it was still early, I headed straight back outside. First of all, I needed to find a good coffee. Which, as always in France, is difficult. And even here, on the other side of the world, it is not easy to find a truly acceptable coffee. I do not know how they do it. Surely it is not actually possible to get it that wrong.

What you notice relatively quickly, especially if you know even a little about the island’s recent history, is the barbed wire, the cameras, and that latent tension in the cityscape. And as reluctant as I am to say it, you also see two realities side by side here. Some people work, others, mostly men, sit around, beg from you, or simply drift through the day. When New Caledonia made headlines in recent years, it was mostly because of riots. Most recently even Emmanuel M. was here. And I want to stress one thing: I am not using the word Kanak here in the sense in which it is used as a slur in German. In New Caledonia, Kanak is the self designation used by many inhabitants. The term originally comes from a Polynesian word meaning man or human being.

The most recent serious unrest began in May 2024, after Paris wanted to expand the local electorate and thereby would have given long term non Kanak residents more influence in the provincial elections. Many Kanak and supporters of independence saw this as a dilution of their political weight and therefore as a threat to the decolonization and self determination process set in motion by the Nouméa Accord. The violence was the worst since the 1980s. Barricades, arson, looting, attacks on shops and vehicles, armed clashes, especially in and around Nouméa. Thirteen people were killed, later in some retrospectives fourteen, depending on how they were counted. At its core, the issue is still self determination up to and including full sovereignty. Anyone who is truly interested can look up the articles themselves. This will have to do.

So I walked through the streets, gathering first impressions of this city, which has just under eighty thousand inhabitants in the urban core and around two hundred thousand in the wider area. At first my internet was working, and I was able to mark places and routes. As is my usual way, I always begin by making wider and wider circles around my immediate surroundings, and then return again and again to the starting point. What I saw pleased me. Everything was different. Different in a way that you cannot quite grasp at first. Every little nuance is slightly off, and that is exactly what makes it interesting.

When I was finally able to get into my room, I first collapsed under the air conditioning. The temperatures and humidity are at Brisbane level, as is the early hour at which the sun goes down. I managed to go out again that evening, ate something, and because I had absolutely no desire for complications, I went to McDonald’s. And I have to say, I had never had a Big Mac that tasted of fish before. Never mind. I was tired and simply fell into bed afterwards.

The next morning meant getting up early. Early, for me, means eight o’clock. I was at Port Moselle Market, tried yet another coffee there, and once again regretted that I do not eat fish. The display looked genuinely good. I wandered through the city, coffee here, coffee there, and at some point I noticed that I suddenly had no signal anymore. At first I suspected my phone and went back to the hotel, also because I still had not prepared anything for the next few days. There are surprisingly many possibilities here, and I looked into all of them only to realize in the end that I could not decide.

Should I go to the Île des Pins, with its sandy beaches and bays of breathtaking beauty? Sometimes reachable by ferry, though probably clearly better by plane, which since March no longer departs from Magenta Airport but from the big airport outside town. Or perhaps one of the other islands, whose airports, as I was told at the hotel by the truly excellent reception staff, are partly closed? The people here really are helpful and kind. Or six hours by bus to the north or east, getting off there, finding accommodation, and then just walking? I was trapped in possibilities. And to some extent I still am as I write these lines.

The internet still was not working. I walked up to a viewpoint, became increasingly irritated because it deprived me of the ability to look things up while I was out and about. Back at the hotel again, they told me at reception that I should go to OPT the next morning, and that they could sell me something that would actually work.

That evening I went out once more, again to the harbor, again to the market, again to organize something to eat. You have to imagine it: I am here in the middle of the Pacific, and they have pastry shops and baguettes here just like in France. And what can I say, the basic bistro salami you buy at a gas station here is better than anything you can get in Australia or New Zealand. So it can be done after all. Add a baguette and voilà, living like God in France, in the middle of the Pacific.

So there I stood at the harbor with a few little pastries, waiting for sunset to take some photographs. I think that worked quite well. But I also seem to have attracted the attention of a guy who kept coming up to me and trying to talk to me. Unwashed, dreadlocks, gaunt, two heads taller than me. And me? I barely speak French, so I simply kept walking. Later he intercepted me again. I stayed polite, said I had no money, went back to the hotel, dropped off my shopping, and then went out again to have a drink in the restaurant next door.

There I was, staring into the distance because the internet still was not working, and of course he showed up again. This time with a woman who smiled at me and waved. At that point it became absolutely clear what he had been offering me all along. Forget it, my friend. I am really not interested in that sort of thing. Cheap sex, possibly with a walking active sexually transmitted disease, or sex in gernerell. What for? I am past that age. What I am looking for cannot be bought. I am looking for something that no longer exists, and I have made my peace with that too. He waved, she smiled, I ignored them both. The woman at the next table then started complaining loudly, the two of them disappeared, and shortly afterwards she said something to me as well, something that did not sound friendly. I think I understood enough. Typical me. I walk through the streets, take an interest in art and sunsets, somebody tries to sell me something, and in the end the people around me get upset with me. That is how things go in my life these days. Always in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. I have accepted that too. I am apparently a disappointment to all uninvolved parties.

The next morning took me, then, to OPT NC, the Office des Postes et Télécommunications de Nouvelle Calédonie. Right, the internet issue, which still was not working. My contact had written to me on WhatsApp that they were working on it, but I did not really believe him. So off I went. Take a number, choose the right category, and do all of that without a phone to translate for me. I had to concentrate, but somehow it worked. Do not overthink it, just do it. After ten minutes it was my turn. I had put together my little sentences while waiting and was ready. Identification, identity card, brochure, tariff selection. Everything was going well. Then she looked at me, said something, and once again I understood nothing at all. She smiled, typed it into her computer, and turned the screen toward me. Software problems, it said. She did not know when they would be fixed. Maybe this afternoon, maybe Monday. I carried on through a few electronics shops, got sent back and forth across town once more, and there too they only told me that the telecommunications network in New Caledonia was currently partly out of service and nobody knew when it would be working again.

Welcome to another world. And I slowly realized that I was beginning to enjoy exactly that.

I still have not solved my biggest problem. I have only bought myself time by extending my stay in Nouméa by another two nights. Otherwise I would have had to leave tomorrow morning. Since everything here still functions in a surprisingly analog way, and you are tied to counters with opening hours and to communicating with people who all speak only French, that was probably not a stupid decision. I also spoke with Fanny at reception, who truly has been a great help. Her answer to every plan is: yes, lovely, you can do that, you should go there. And then she asks: do you have a car? No. Then it gets difficult. Yes, you can take the bus. Yes, the planes are flying. But how do you get from A to B once you are there?

That is exactly why I have by now started throwing all plans overboard and returning to the original one. That is right. I am currently making the rounds of bicycle shops.

In that spirit.