New Caledonia Grand Terre West Coast

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Noumea

   Nouméa feels like a small French provincial city that was picked up and set down on a Pacific peninsula, and the combination is oddly charming. About ninety thousand people live here, almost half the territory of New Caledonia, and the town sprawls around a set of bays on the south-western tip of Grande Terre, with the lagoon, the second-largest in the world by reputation, stretching out in the turquoise light.

   Read the complete Noumea write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Noumea is where the day begins. Next is Bourail.

2. 2. Bourail

   Bourail is the main town of the middle section of New Caledonia's west coast, a cattle town of about 4,800 people that feels more like rural Australia than the Pacific. The surrounding plain is ranch country, dotted with niaouli trees whose pale peeling bark gives the savanna a ghostly look, and every August the town holds its big agricultural fair, a sort of country show with horses, cattle and a lot of barbecue. The Pacific side is only a few minutes away, and the coast here has long white beaches and a famous rock arch, the Roche Percée, with a standing stone beside it called the Bonhomme.

   Read the complete Bourail write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Bourail comes up about 163 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kone.

3. 3. Kone

   Koné is where New Caledonia stops looking like a holiday brochure and starts looking like a working island. The town sits on the west coast of the Grande Terre, about halfway up, in a dry plain of savanna and cattle ranches, and it has been the administrative centre of the Northern Province since the province was created in the 1980s.

   Read the complete Kone write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 267 km into the recorded legs you reach Kone. Next is Koumac.

4. 4. Koumac

   Koumac is the last proper town on the road north, and it knows it. A few thousand people live here, spread around a main street with a supermarket, a bakery or two, a petrol station and a handful of restaurants, and beyond it the sealed road thins out and the Grande Terre narrows toward its northern tip. The town sits on the dry side of the island, where the mountains hold back the clouds and the plains turn brown in the dry season, and the Tiébaghi massif rises to the west with its red mining scars, once the site of a large chrome mine that gave the district its livelihood.

   Read the complete Koumac write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Koumac, late in the day. Next is Poum.

5. 5. Poum

   Poum is where the road runs out of patience. It lies at the far north-western tip of Grande Terre, on a coast that faces the open lagoon and the reefs beyond, and you arrive after hours of travel through ranchland, scrub and small villages. The place is tiny, with a population in the low thousands at most, a handful of shops, a church and a scattered seaside life that moves at the speed of the tide.

   Read the complete Poum write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at Poum. That is the ride.