Arrival to Noumea, New Caledonia.
We take the free shuttle from the dock, through the commercial port, to the cruise terminal. There was a wifi spot with coffee near the terminal. We blogged and emailed in an attempt to catch up.
We took the $5 hop on/hop off bus to look around Noumea.
We found McD's everywhere we have gone. We missed the sign advertising "Alabama Chicken Balls". We didn't ask.
On the advise of a lady in the cruise terminal we hopped off the bus near this restaurant.
Not a bad beer.
The food was excellent and reasonably priced.
Back to the wifi with lots of the ships crew communicating back home.
This is a smelter in the port just across from where the ship docked. New Caledonia is a volcanic island that is very rich in minerals -- especially nickel and chromium. The piles of stuff are coal and sulfur. As we were sailing away, we noticed a development at the opposite end of the island from Noumea. We learned that it is an industrial based development that uses some new technology to recover the nickel and chromium. It seems that it is very controversial since the new technology has produced some acid spills that is damaging the marine ecology.
