Noumea Without a Tour

I originally wrote this as a Facebook post, but so many people commented saying how useful it was for a shore day in Noumea without a tour so I’m putting it here for everyone to find.

I did a cruise with P&O from Sydney in December 2024 to the Pacific Islands and Noumea was our first stop. These islands were new to me, so I was excited to get out and explore.

There are several Noumea shore excursions available, but I just wanted to take a look around and enjoy some local snorkelling without the expense and restrictions of a tour.

Here is how we spent our day. I hope it gives you some ideas for yours.

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Noumea, New Caledonia

New Caledonia is interesting. It is considered part of France, one of 13 territories outside of Europe, so I guess I can’t claim it as a new country

You may have heard there was some civil unrest earlier in 2024 – that was all about gaining independence from France. It hasn’t happened, but who knows what the future holds.

I was asked by a reader if Noumea (the capital) felt safe – and honestly, it wasn’t even something I thought about.

I did vaguely know about the unrest, but there was no sign of it. These are such laid-back, friendly people I can’t even picture it.

With a population of around 100,000 in Noumea (New Caledonia in total is around 300,000) it’s a reasonable-sized city with everything you would expect in a city that size.

Yes, you can find both McDonalds and Burger King here!

In terms of currency, it is officially the South Pacific Franc (CFP), but Australian Dollars are used everywhere too.

We found prices listed in both everywhere we went – but we were in the tourist areas. I would expect further afield to just find CFP. Card transactions were done in CFP.

I also saw some places that appeared to accept USD and Euros. We used AUD rather than change money for the few small transactions we didn’t use a card.

Expect prices to be expensive – remember pretty much everything has to be imported here. A 500ml beer at the craft brewery was 1000CFP or about $14AUD.

Meals on Duck Island were getting towards $50AUD and cans of soft drink, $9AUD. Hiring a sunbed was $20AUD. Pastries at the patisserie were around 500CFP or $7AUD.

I feel this is a given, but I will say it anyway – Noumea is in the tropics, it is hot and steamy. Make sure you dress appropriately, have sun protection (even if it’s overcast) and pack plenty of water.

Our Day in Noumea

Our ship docked at the container terminal so we had to bus about 5 minutes from there to the cruise terminal. I’m not sure if all ships dock here. I expect some smaller ones might dock directly outside the terminal.

We jumped on the Noumea hop on hop off bus to get around.

We bought our combination tickets with the Aquarium in advance and they were really easy to swap over at their tent when we arrived at the port. In fact, we jumped the line because we had already paid!

As we entered the cruise terminal, tours etc were sold in the tents to the right (including our tour). If you haven’t booked in advance, there are plenty of options here for you to choose.

The hop-on hop-off buses were found to the left of the terminal, perhaps 100m away – but they were easily seen.

If you did want to change some money, there was a currency exchange inside. There was free wifi here too, but I didn’t try it so not sure how good it was.

We went to the Noumea Aquarium of the Lagoon first (my husband loves aquariums). It’s small and as you would expect not as amazing as aquariums in big cities, but still quite cool.

Look out for the nautilus shells – I’ve never seen them anywhere else. The glow-in-the-dark coral display was fun too, with the lights going on and off to show the difference.

We really enjoyed seeing the huge turtles in the tank outside, and up behind the turtle tank there are some great views over Lemon Bay.

You probably only need to allow and hour at most for the aquarium.

While here, we recommend using the toilets as they were pretty good, and there is free wifi available if you need to look something up or check where you are going next. I logged on briefly and it seemed to work fine, but didn’t really use it for long.

Just around the corner is the water taxi over to Iles aux Canards (Duck Island). Wander down to the umbrella on the beach for your tickets (Cash or card, $15AUD each return, only 5 minutes) over to the island where we had lunch.

Now I don’t necessarily recommend this. Lunch was expensive and while not terrible, it was rather average.

Instead, get lunch before or after coming over. There is a restaurant right near where the water taxi leaves or a Burger King across the road.

I spent an hour or so snorkelling which was fun. There were plenty of fish and some nice coral.

There is a row of five bouys just off the main beach which the water taxi driver recommended. He called it the “fish highway” and was where to see the most fish and turtles.

Sadly I didn’t see a turtle, but I heard others did the same afternoon – I just missed it.

Don’t forget to bring your reef shoes (I did!) as the beach is all coral, and use plenty of sunblock. Even on an overcast day, I ended up with some sunburn on my back from my time in the water.

We got the water taxi back and walked back around to Lemon Bay (about ten minutes) where we had a drink at the craft brewery.

In all my reading before we got here, Lemon Bay (Baie des Citrons) was said to be “the” beach to swim at. It looked okay, but I liked the look of Plage de l’Anse Vata, right near where the water taxi was, even more.

The road that goes along Lemon Bay is filled with restaurants, cafes, and, where we went, Les 3 Brasseurs Craft Brewery.

Simon tried their blonde beer, which he said was quite decent, and I had a delicious mango mocktail. Again, there was free wifi here, and we did use it a little while having our drinks.

After our drink, it was back on the hop-on hop-off bus to the cruise terminal. There are two stops along Lemon Bay, so it is easy to meet the bus here.

Before going back to the ship we walked down the street to a French patisserie (Le Moulin, cnr Rue de Verdun & Rue du General Gallieni – but if you look for it on Google Maps, it seems to be called Les Petits Choux) for a sweet treat.

We had heard the best place for pastries was elsewhere, but this one was convenient and tasted pretty good to us!

We left the ship at about 9:15 and got back at about 4:30. We didn’t feel rushed, taking our time to look around.

So if you are visiting Noumea on a cruise, you can easily do something like this if you don’t want to go on a tour and have a great day.

Other Noumea Tours

Once back on the ship, of course we got talking to other people about their day and we heard about some other great tours.

We heard the most about Signal Island where it is possible to snorkel amongst turtles. If we are ever back there, I think this will be my choice. Everyone raved about it.

The 20-minute boat ride over can be a bit bumpy, and there isn’t a whole lot on the island, but it seems that nearly everyone sees the turtles they have come for.

You will need to bring all your own snorkelling gear for this one.

The Green Train was popular with those with limited mobility who just wanted a tour of the city.

While the hop on hop off bus doesn’t give a lot of history or information about Noumea, the Green Train does. It does a different loop and stops at different places.

Here are some other interesting tours that you may prefer.

Remember that you might want to book these well in advance if you want to do them. They are likely to sell out whenever a cruise ship with thousands of people on it arrives in Noumea.