On January 17th 2012 I will have spent eight hundred and twenty-two days in New Caledonia. Well not really since I went back twice to Melbourne and once to Belgium… So about two years, give or take.<\/p>\n
It’s been … an experience, to say the least. I worked as freelance for the first time, I learned to sail, sort of, well I can steer. Oh okay I can’t really sail, I can hold my course anyways. So, I sailed, I fished, I dived, I discovered the largest lagoon on the planet, but most of all I met a great bunch of friends. Some of which will remain friends for life.<\/p>\n
I also found out about a part of history I never knew about, I learned how three communities live together, more or less. I can’t say Noumea is my favorite city on Earth but the North Province surely won my heart. I have loved the Melanesian people in their villages.<\/p>\n
So in October 2009, I arrived in Noumea with absolutely no idea what I was doing here, why I came or how I would make it work. Five months later, after a few sleepless nights and a much thinner wallet, my “carte de sejour” was granted. At last I could work, earn a living, build myself up again. I can only thank my partner at the time for her connections, if it wasn’t for her, I would not have met the people I worked with.
\nA few weeks later, another client, then another and another.
\nTwo years later, I am now able to finance my project : Melbourne to Brussels by four wheel drive.<\/p>\n
Well that’s a story for later.<\/p>\n
PS : this is my first post. I will dwell on the past couple of years later on. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On January 17th 2012 I will have spent eight hundred and twenty-two days in New Caledonia. Well not really since I went back twice to Melbourne and once to Belgium… So about two years, give or take. It’s been … an experience, to say the least. I worked as freelance for the first time,, Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[204],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-new-caledonia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27S7o-1F","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}