Adventures in the Wild

La Cascade de Tao

No visit to the northeast coast would be complete without a visit to the Cascade of Tao. Rushing down the flanks of Mont Panié is the most impressive waterfall on the island. I went there with David, one of my companions on the Mont Panié adventure. There’s a small fee of 200 CFP (~$2.80) collected by an old Melanesian man on the way in, who advised us that given that it was raining, it would be too dangerous to attempt the walk to the base of the falls but we could still visit the swimming hole lower down. I joked with David that I didn’t understand a word that the old man said, because I’m just a stupid tourist from Australia and I don’t speak French. But the joke was a private one and lost most of its punch when I had to translate it into French just for David to understand it.

The walk to the base of the falls was indeed slippery and dangerous, crossing over the river at several points, but with care, and provided that one is not too proud to sit down to negotiate difficult sections, it was doable. It is at times like this that one is reminded that such rivers aren’t really designed to be climbed, with sloping rock surfaces covered in slippery algae seemingly everywhere.

The falls themselves are massive, and form several sections and cascades below the main part of the falls. However, for me a lot of the appeal is that the falls are also at the point where the rainforest almost, but not quite, reaches the sea, being the wettest point on the north east coast.

The Other Barrier Reef

Which coral reef, comprised of a barrier reef system some 1500 km long and enclosing a lagoon of 24,000 km2 is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site? If you said the Great Barrier Reef then you would be forgiven, although it is actually some 1,100 km longer. After a campaign lasting some six and a half years, the New Caledonia Barrier Reef was listed on the UNESC World Heritage Site register under the name The Lagoons of New Caledonia: Reef Diversity and Associated Ecosystems on the 7th of July this year.

On planning this trip, I'll admit that the main attraction of New Caledonia was the flora. But it would be a bit disingenuous to say that I didn't intend to do any diving, because I did make the effort to bring my dive certification and log book. So, it was no surprise when on finding a convivial place to stay in Hienghène, it was almost impossible to resist the draw of the ocean.

I ended up diving on both Friday and Saturday, and very nearly did so again today. The two days couldn't have been more different above the water. On Friday the weather was overcast and grey and it rained most of the morning, whilst on Saturday the day dawned bright and clear, with water like glass. But underwater, the reefs were glorious regardless of the weather.

I won't attempt to describe what we saw over the four dives, as I'm loathe to lapse into purple prose, but suffice it to say that these were the healthiest reefs I have seen anywhere, at least since the big bleaching event of 1998 had such a devastating impact on the Great Barrier Reef, with a staggering variety and beauty of form and colour in the shallow water reefs. The fish life was patchy, with some locations seemingly having hardly any fish, but then just when I had written off the location, we would come across a bommie where every colour and form of fish were swimming around, like the best you would see in any documentary. The one thing missing though seemed to be fish of any great size, and I suspect that the impact of overfishing may be to blame here, but perhaps this may change with the listing of the reef and the increased money that it will generate from diving.

A specialty of the location were extensive caverns and swim throughs copiously arrayed with Gorgonian sea fans, which Thierry, the owner of the local dive operation, was very proud to show off to visitors. I have to thank Pascal Ripoche for the pictures I've included in this post as my camera is strictly for terrestrial adventures only.

Yours truly posing in front of one of the signature Gorgonian sea fans.

The locals were friendly.

The Romance of Karst

Those who know me well will know that I love karst. Karst is a wonderfully evocative word for the distinctive landforms that develop on limestone or dolomite bedrock. Apparently the term derives from the Slovenian word kras, which is the name for a mountain range on the border between Slovenia and Italy. But for truly dramatic landscapes you can't beat tropical tower karst.

In perhumid climates, where rain falls pretty much year round, tower karst is generally white or near-white and covered with lush green vegetation. I've spent many happy days wandering through these kinds of landscapes, riddle with caves, enclosing miniature worlds of tropical forest, in Sulawesi, peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand. The famous Guilin Hills in China are perhaps the most widely known example.

But where the climate is more seasonal, the karst environment is less forgiving for plants, and the limestone weathers to produce sharp knife-edged citadels, their surface blackened with a film of cyanobacteria. I remember first being stunned by this kind of landscape while watching a documentary on the Tsingy de Bemaraha in Madagascar. To be sure, there was the mysterious nature of the worlds contained therein, with their assortment of lemurs and other oddities, but the landscape itself demanded attention. When whilst living in Cairns, a friend took me on a visit to Chillagoe caves, I was amazed to find a similar landscape there, with enormous structures like elaborate castles supporting a weird sort of seasonally deciduous vegetation, islands in a sea of eucalypt savannah. One visit wasn't enough, and every time I visit the region I'm drawn back to photograph the spires.

So it was only natural on seeing pictures of tower karst in New Caledonia that I would have to visit. Limestone karst runs in a small belt along the coast starting just north of Hienghène and stretching south for several kilometres. The harbour of Hienghène is dominated by a karst island known as "La Poule"or the chicken, but the main block lies just to the south and is known as "Les Roches Lindéraliques"

It's a little slice of paradise, with one of the best deals on the island. Backed by the dramatic towers of Les Roches Lindéraliques, with the ocean to the east, Camping Koulnoué is a campsite where 400 CFP ($A5.60) gets you a campsite, but where along with the cold showers and toilets of the amenities block there is also free WiFi and electricity if you're prepared to move to the power points. It is also the home of Babou Plongée the only diving operation in the area. I can see myself staying here for a number of days.