France: less than 3 hours from Sydney

Now I knew they spoke French in New Caledonia, but less than 3 hours from home and we might as well have been in France. The architecture, the people, the cars, even the supermarkets were straight from France. Butter, cheese, salami, yoghurt, biscuits, wine, foie gras... pretty much everything, oh and the pastries, yum! 

There were a few things that weren't particularly French, like the reefs and the tropical fish. We jumped into the natural pool - picine naturale, a short stroll along a sandy tidal river bank on The Isle of Pines, and in the middle of chasing the multicoloured fish we found ourselves surrounded by a bigger school of fish. You'll see a short video of these below which turned out to be, I think,  quite mesmerising.

I could have stayed on the island a whole lot longer. Spending most of the daylight hours on or in the water is my idea of a perfect escape, and The Isle of Pines is made for exactly that. Oh and the food, bloody expensive, but oh so fine.