deb&john

Hi Deb and John,

 

Enjoy, I'm jealous! It was a fabulous holiday, just what we needed and such a beautiful country to visit.

 

In the end, we brought some Aussie currency (about $150 and aimed for small notes) and visited the ATM at Noumea as soon as we arrived for local cash. We took 15,000 xpf out at the atm and it worked out to $180 Australian once that was exchanged by our bank.

 

I found there were some places where you were at an advantage to spend francs (for example, one of the beach stalls on Mare charged $3 for a cake or 200 xpf, some of the little stalls on isle of pines were similar that way), some places where it didn't matter but I preferred to spend local just out of respect for turning up in someone else's country (e.g. the tourist info centre at Noumea had a smaller hop on hop off bus that visited the areas we wanted to see, it was $42 Australian for our family or 3500 xpf and that exchange rate is spot on). There were other places where you really had to have francs. We went to a beautiful boulangerie for lunch on Noumea and it was francs only, same with admission to the aquarium and most of the market stalls at Port Moselle. There were also lots of places where it was better to spend AUD because they used an exchange rate that actually favoured our dollar (an even 1000xpf = 10 AUD), most of the beach stalls on Mare were that way.

 

The amount we had was just about right. If we had more, I would have bought more souvenirs and things but we didn't need more. I'm not a big shopper, though. We spent on a gift for my dad that was the equivalent of about $25AUD, a few little souvenirs like a pair of clay earrings and some stubbie holders, a small gift (around 500 francs each) for a few people at home, lunch for four in Noumea (4 eclairs, four bottled soft drinks, and 4 filled baguettes), admission to the Aquarium, hop on hop off bus tickets in Noumea, lunch, drinks, coconut and hair braiding in Mare, and my kids spent some of their souvenir/entertainment budget on the islands, about $80 between them. If you were buying lots of souvenirs you'd probably want more, and if you wanted some of the lovely dresses and sarongs and things you'd probably want more.

Thanks so much for ur feedback really appreciate it, did you see any turtles or do u know where the best 0lace would be to see?

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Hello. I'm just wondering if anyone has first hand experience of being able to hop onto a tour bus upon arrival at Isle of Pines (from locals offering them) and if there are people able to take you to specific sites on the island? The sites that we're particularly interested in going to are:

 

* Turtle Bay/Brush Farm

* The Natural Aquarium

* Visit St Joseph Bay and ride in a native outrigger/Pirogue

 

Ideally, we'd like the opportunity to be able to get into the water with the turtles if they're around because they're very friendly and it's my daughter's dream to do so. So in saying that, we don't want to just go on a boat ride, we'd like to stop and be able to jump in the water.

 

Jean and his private tour company are booked for that day and another has yet to respond so I don't like my chances of being able to book a tour before departure. So it would be peace of mind to know that we might be able to get something being offered on the day by locals near the pier. Any advice or help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Angela

Hi kippeth, just wondering if you have been on cruise yet and if so whether you went to turtle bay?

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Hi, we are going on cruise in September 2017 and would appreciate any feedback you have from ur holiday as we too are interested in ur question😀

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