Lifou Things to Do

My plan to hire a car in Lifou fell flat when I found that a place described in Lonely Planet as 'Five minutes from Easo beach' turned out to be 20kms away.

So, my wife and I were rather late looking for an alternative, most of the cruise ship tourists having boarded mini-buses and departed by now. We wandered around the small market place and found a lady offering short and longer tours, the longer being 2 hours. We signed up for this tour and found that the tour consisted of the two of us and the driver. He spoke very little English, we spoke very little French. We had a great time!

As there were only the three of us we didn't feel self-concious having a go, and we ended up communicating really well. The driver (Jean) turned out to be the Pastor of the church in the next village - he only told us that after we had told him that we are both atheists! We wandered round the vanilla plantation and drank vanilla coffee with only two other tourists (French teenagers), then wandered down the cliffs at Jokin without anyone else around. On the way we had learnt a lot about the way of life, driving habits, wild animals (pigs mainly) and lots of other interesting information. On the way back we asked Jean to take us to his village to see his church, which he did even though it wasn't on the tour route. He then, much to our surprise, took us into his house to meet his wife and daughters.

After dropping us off at Easo Jean told us that he had really enjoyed himself, and my wife and I had a ball.

So, my tip is, hang back until the mini-busses have gone and get a personalised tour.

How much? Mmm, bit of a problem there, can't really remember if it was $30 for the two of us or $30 each. Either way it was worth it.

THis tour should leave you time for snorkelling just over the headland by the white church. My wife saw a sea-snake ...but that's another story.