travel

Loyalty Islanders live their life the old way

A Regular Pim Department

Reporting News Of South

Seas Tourism And Travel

From The Inside

By Kathleen Hancock

Life still goes on in the old way in the >yalty Group, a string of lovely atolls lying out 60 miles east of New Caledonia. The ndsome, honest and hard-working Loyalty anders are about as attractive a people as you 11 find anywhere in the South Seas.

HEIR fertile islands are the market garden of New Cale nia and their coasts provide a Dd part of the fish that finds its y on to the tables of Noumea’s cerning gourmets Lranspac, New Caledonia’s inter [ airline, flies Herons to the three tin islands—Lifou, Ouvea and ire—several times a week. Mare s no accommodation for tourists, t at Fayaoue, on Ouvea, the Arab der, Yussef, keeps a little inn. The ?king is admirable; the bungalows nple and clean; the sweep of the zar-white beach breathtaking.

The lagoon at Ouvea is one of the )st beautiful in the Pacific, and a iulous hunting ground for shells, id you can sail down the coast in fishing boat to the atoll of Mouli, ross a narrow strait at the tip of ivea.

Mouli is a tiny gem of an island, : in a jade and turquoise sea. Its

250 inhabitants are a good-looking racial mixture, springing from the mingling of Melanesian and Poly nesian blood after an invasion from the Wallis Group at the beginning of last century.

They are a friendly and hospitable people, and a “bougnia” may be held in your honour—a feast of yams, manioc, wild onion and chicken, baked in coconut milk in deep earth ovens. On state occasions a pig is

killed—its meat grilled on pointed sticks over fierce fires of coconut husks.

Mouli’s dazzling white beach, with its many-coloured lagoon, is a swimmer’s heaven. And its windward coast —half a mile across the island— provides an exciting stretch of wild seas and rocky coves.

Like all the Loyalty Islands, Mouli is a “reserve indigene”, protected against the encroachment of the

In the photo above, the author of this article is seen with her husband return ing from a coral-col lecting expedition in the Loyalties in an outrigger canoe. At right, a Loyalty woman prepares a coconut for lunch.

filised world. You must have a rmit to go there. .

But in spite of this insulation, erre Doumai, the “grand chef” of e island, is a forceful and pro essive character. He sees that mtations are regularly replanted, iports new and better varieties of m and sweet potato for his people, j’d like to see a small, bungalow tel at the far end of Mouli’s beach.

On Lifou

There’s also limited accommoda m in two bungalows on Lifou, ?gest of the Loyalties’ three main ands. Here, bush walks, limestone ves, underground lakes, vary the ttern. And it’s no trouble at all find a couple of willing Lifou boys take you out to the reef in a ■ogue.

In Lifou’s villages, time has stood 11. The women sit plaiting baskets weaving mats outside their round, ehive huts, while their men fish ; island’s teeming coastal waters.

The Loyalties may owe their un jched simplicity to the fact that ;y were discovered late. Cook issed them altogether, and so did Entrecasteaux. A British merchant ipper, William Raven, finally ;hted and named them—in 1793.

But it wasn’t till 1827 that Dumont Urville explored the group, and Dugh the islanders were converted Protestantism by British mis maries in 1840, the Loyalties re fined unclaimed until, in 1857, the ench realised they had a no-man’s id off the New Caledonian coast.

This, understandably, caused a rtain amount of unease. A party soldiers wais dispatched from New iledonia to Lifou, where they were :eived with something less than thusiasm by islanders and mis maries alike. After a few skir ishes, the group was claimed for ance, and good relations have en the rule ever since.

As yet, these islands are unspoilt the gimmicks of the present day. le planting of yams, the migrations fish, the path of the moon—these ings mark the calendar.

If a Loyalty man goes to work on e New Caledonian mainland, you ay be sure that a few short years 11 find him back in his island home, nd when the time comes for the sitors to end their short stay on ic of these enchanting islands, they ill feel, as I did, that they could end a lot longer in the company these gentle and charming people.