Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Crustacean Invasion (New Caledonia Part 2)


Me in my fluffy dressing gown.

Before we could stuff our faces with prawns, we were all dying to rinse the slimy layer of sweat that had set up camp all over our bodies since landing in Noumea.

Oddly, the hotel had put all four of us on different floors, Simon- room 204, Joel- 304, I was on 504 and Rechelle was in room 604. This of course led to a hilarious Brady Bunch-esque moment on the balconies before realising how ‘touristy’ we all looked shouting and screaming over our balconies to each other.

“Joel, Joel look up!”

I pity the guy in room 404.

The rooms themselves were beautiful and way beyond anything I was expecting. Ginormous beds complete with matching fluffy white dressing gowns, flat screen TV and lounges, fully equipped kitchen and launderette, bathroom with a tub and balcony with sun chairs overlooking the water.

Room 504

Serious luxury.

After taking a million photos of the same things at different angles, I hopped in the shower, chucked on some clean clothes and headed on down to the resort’s restaurant, Le Cafe Terrasse.

It was lovely to finally be able to sit down, all refreshed with the other Facebook fans and get a chance to chat and relax, cocktail in hand after a hectic morning of flights and transfers.

We were told the staff could make us pretty much whatever cocktail we wanted, so I opted for a Margarita (seemingly stronger than the ones back home) and sat back, letting the warm breeze work its way through my hair matched beautifully by the sound of the string quartet wafting over to our table.

Joel and I

Rechelle and Si.

It was a Thursday night (there was no time difference from Sydney) which meant all you can eat prawns. They were cooked a couple of different ways and we were told to pick two dishes at a time, as well as a side and the waitress would simply come over and see what we were after for our next round.

My personal favourite from the cold options were the prawns with a selection of mayos and from the hot, sautéed prawns in a butter and basil sauce.

Delicious food.

All up between the four of us we had three lots of two plates of prawns. That’s a total of six plates of prawns EACH not to mention the various sides of veggies, mash potato and fries. To say we had our elegant sufficiency would be an understatement.

Several hours later and after quite a large game of “Getting to knooooowwww youuu” we rolled our fat prawn-filled bodies out of Le Café Terrasse in an attempt to find a nearby bar to have another cocktail.

It became quickly apparent we were all too tired from a long days travelling so we admitted defeat and all headed back to our respective rooms, making plans to meet at the breakfast buffet bright and early the next morning.

Looking down to the pool at La Promenade.

I was looking forward to Friday- although I had visited countries such as Mexico, Thailand, Fiji and Vanuatu as well as a family vacation to the Whitsundays, I’d never been snorkeling before and was keen to squeeze some flippers on and get amongst the Nemos.

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