Our last port of call was Lifou on Christmas Day... We, like just about everyone else, walked up to the church "Our Lady of Lourdes", it's a long steep climb but does have lovely views so worth the effort. When you get off the ship walk up past the cross and through the car park up the road, take a left turn and follow the road. It takes about 10, maybe 15 mins to get to the top. On the way there is another road that goes off to the right, this leads down to...

Mare…. This was a beautiful place a real unspoilt heaven on earth.Originally Mare was not on our itinerary, we were supposed to be in Lifou today and Isle of Pines on Christmas Day however the locals on Isle of Pines didn't want cruise ship passengers there for Christmas Day as they are very religious and either didn’t want to or can’t work Christmas DayThis was our first tender day so we were woken fairly early with the crew getting ready f...

Noumea… First port of call, we docked at 8am and we're all filing off by about 9ish. There’s a terminal building you walk into which has some markets up on top and downstairs the tourist info booth and money exchange as well as tour operators. I would suggest changing money inside the terminal instead of onboard… we didn’t buy much in Noumea but I think it’s best to have some Francs. We found the people not very friendly or help...