It's a matter of east and west

New Caledonia is an overseas territory of the French Republic. If you leave out the New Guinea area, the island of New Caledonia is the largest in Oceania —some 250 miles long and 30 wide. The colony includes the Loyalty Islands 60 miles to the east, the lovely little resort Isle of Pines the same distance to the south-east, and four islets called the Huon Group about 170 miles north.

On New Caledonia itself, there is the lush, wet east side, where broad rivers run to the sea past coffee groves, coconut plantations, shining white beaches, and thatch villages of smiling Melanesian people. This is vintage South Pacific and, with some fine French inns, a spot for knowing tourists.

Most going to New Caledonia don't see the idyllic east, however. You land at a far-out international airport in the south-west. Miles of dry, rocky hills dotted with scrubby gum tree roll into Noumea.

It's the mountains behind that have made New Caledonia famous. For huge deposits of nickel lie just below the surface of the barren mountain tops, and from the miles of bulldozed red scars the impression is the French will not rest until they have carried the island away.

The west is the dry side of New Caledonia. It's too much of an over simplification to say the French live there making money off nickel while the natives live off the lush land in the east. Still there is some truth, a bit of comfort, and even more concern about that generalisation.—JG.