Hiking the GR1 - Stages 6 and 7

An epic misadventure spread across two days.  We hiked 30 km, gained 1700 m of altitude and battled the onslaught of Cyclone Solo to conquer Stages 6 and 7 of the GR1.  Click above for picture album.  Geotracks here: (gpx) (kmz)

Kincso has been accepted, and likely will attend, U Cal Berkeley in the fall.  She leaves New Caledonia in less than a month.  We still had four sections of the GR1 to complete.  This weekend was the one penciled in to complete the final two legs (we'll fill in the skipped legs later) and we had my friend Paul along for the adventure.  Due to the remoteness and difficulty of access, you really need to do these two legs consecutively with an overnight at one of the refuges high up in the mountains.  There was news of a forming tropical storm (which became Cyclone Solo) but we apparently misread when it would strike New Caledonia, thinking we had until Sunday evening before the rains would hit.  We were wrong about that.

Ildiko dropped Kincso and me at a meeting point where Paul, his wife and sister picked us up and we headed for the Parc de la Riviere Bleu.  Once there we drove to the furthest point - Pont Perignon - where a park ranger took us deeper into the park to the start of Stage 6.  We hiked about 8.5 hours on Day 1, mostly through thick rain forest and relentlessly uphill for the second half of the day.  Many rivers were crossed and we had some soakings and Kincso got a nasty cut crossing a particularly slippery set of rocks.  We didn't make it to the end of Stage 6 - which was 15+  km but there was a smaller shelter at the 13 km stage and we spent the night there.  The A frame huts proved to be a huge benefit because the rains arrived shortly after we got there.  There was just enough firewood to warm a sandwich and some chicken bouillon.  We were inside by 7 pm and out of the torrential rains that fell all night long.  Upon waking, the scene outside was surreal.  Standing water everywhere and steady heavy rain.  Nothing we had was dry.  

We faced the final 3.7 km of Stage 6 - all uphill - to get to the start of Stage 7, which itself was a 15 km hike mostly downhill back to Dumbea.  The effect of the rain on the paths, the footing, the rivers, the red mud roads at the end - words can't do it justice.  This was without a doubt the toughest two day hike I have ever done, and Paul and Kincso concur.  Kudos to Kincso for persevering, and learning what amazing inner strength she has - and to Paul who was a positive force and morale booster the whole time.  Our pictures (link to full album at picture above) may not have captured the surrealist aspect of the whole hike: we went to great lengths to protect our electronics from the biblical rains and simply could not risk taking them out at times.  But hopefully we captured enough to paint a picture.  These two stages of the GR1 are in another league relative to the other stages, and we are all thrilled to have finished them off, likely never to be repeated.

We did place two more geocaches as we've done for each leg (linked here and here).  The final kicker to the whole hike was that the good park folks CLOSED the car park access where Ildiko was to  pick us up, and so just when we thought the whole ordeal was over ... we had to hike two more km out the access road to get back to the closed gate, thus extending the Day 2 hike to a full 10 hours done completely in totally wet cold clothing and footwear.  Good times.  How soon can we complete the other legs?

Hiking the GR1 - Stage 3

Distance: 15.3 km.  Elevation low/high/total: 163/491/555 m.
Difficulty: 5.0/10.  Scenic: 5.0/10

We had Simon along as company on the 15.4 km Stage 3 hike
Click on the pic for link to picture album, geotrack links: (kml) (gpx).

Less than two weeks after completing Stage 2 of the GR1 (the Nouvelle Calédonie Grande Randonée 1, or GR NC1 as it's officially titled), Miss K and I were able to tackle Stage 3, thanks to the willing participation of an SPC colleague, Simon Nichol.  Heading out on an early Good Friday (hence, work vacation day) morning, we drove to the western terminus of the hike, which is near the eastern entrance to the Parc de la Rivière Bleu, dropped his truck there and then the three of us drove over to Netcha which is the eastern terminus of the hike.  We managed to hit the trail just after 9:30 AM on a semi overcast, quite pleasant day for hiking.

While the overall length of the hike suggested  it might be a bit of a challenge, in fact this was the easiest of the 3 stages to date.  The 15.4 km hike took about 4.5 hours and involved two relatively modest hills (well, one was modest) and provided some spectacular vistas.  We crossed a couple of creeks as well as a mostly dry riverbed that was littered with thousands of huge boulders indicating that, on occasion, some serious flooding (from a typhoon, perhaps) washes through the valley here.  We placed a geocache (linked here) at the top of Agathis Pass, where we also enjoyed a nice lunch.  Next up is Stage 4, which is inside Parc de la Rivière Bleu, and hopefully we'll tackle that shortly. 

Depardieu and the wind turbines of Plum

Distance: 9.3 km.  Elevation low/high/total: 6/434/537 m.
Difficulty: 6.5/10.  Scenic: 8.5/10

A solo hike up above the village of Plum to visit their wind farm - click pic for album
The geotrack is linked here(gpx) and here(kml)

https://goo.gl/photos/FgeLRcLDbcBeHRMY7

Once again I found myself without a hiking partner but my feet were so itchy I just had to get up and out.  Quite often, on my way down south, I pass the lovely little town of Plum - last village before you head into the mountains.  A string of wind turbines can be seen up on the plateau above the village and, turns out, there's a hiking trail to get up there.  So, up I went early on a hot Sunday morning.

My friend Paul later told me this trail was known as the "goat scramble" and it was tough going for awhile.  The trail is quite vertical in places and you haul yourself up hand over foot across sharp rock and brush.  As it's on the lee side of the mountain, the air is rather dead and I lost a lot of water weight (i.e., I sweated like a pig).  But the view up there was spectacular.  The best of all though was my meeting with an unexpected giraffe.  There he stood, proudly surveying the scene beyond the line of wind turbines.  I named him Depardieu because, well .... French, big nose, stoic, gerard le giraffe ... seemed a natural name.  I placed a geocache at his feet (linked here), and then headed back.  There's not really a trail to follow heading back till you're about half way down and can then follow the power lines.  The descent was even trickier in places - loose stones, slippery dirt, the usual.  It was, all in all, a lovely way to spend a weekend day.

ps - I'm in the market for a hiking buddy, as my usual companion is about to leave New Caledonia and start college at Berkeley in a few weeks.

Hiking the GR1 - Stage 2

Distance: 13.0 km.  Elevation low/high/total: 255/602/694 m.
Difficulty: 6.0/10.  Scenic: 6.5/10

A 10.8 km hike, though with entry and exit, was a total of 13 km long
click picture to see picture album, here is the link to the geotrack

Finally, Finally!, everything came together so that Miss K and I could tackle the second leg of the New Caledonia Grande Randonée, otherwise know as the GR1.  She's leaving in 6 weeks or so and we have 6 stages still to do!  The difficulty with arranging this hike is that ideally we would have two vehicles so we could park one at each end and skip the hitchhiking that was necessitated in Stage 1 (when we had two cars but parked in the wrong place).  However, we were not able to find companion hikers so based on my confidence things would work out, off we went in the Frog.

And, you know what, things worked out WAY better, than they had for Stage 1.  We parked at the access road for the southern entry point, hiked 2.2 km in to the official start of Stage 2 and off we went.   The weather was pleasant, not too hot, often breezy, a bit of rain at times and the main 10.8 km section took about 3.5 hours to accomplish.  The main item of note was the intense interaction we had with several extremely large spiders along the way.  I was walking point and twice I felt spider web suddenly across my face and spinning around saw Kincso walking in the same, now stretched, web with a giant resident spider only inches from her face.  I figure I saved her life at least twice, maybe thrice.  There's a bit of spider in the pics and video.  Of course, we placed another geocache (link here) as is our intent for each stage.

Once we hit the main road and started hitchhiking while walking the start of the 8 km return trek to our jeep, it wasn't too long before a kindly family stopped and picked us up.  Next week, we hope to tackle Stage 3 which is one of the longest toughest legs (19.5 km) and tentatively have co-hikers lined up as hitchhiking in that stretch of the GR1 would be nigh impossible.

Ruisseau des Kaoris - a thermal hot spring

Distance: 9.7 km.  Elevation low/high/total: 0/154/299 m.
Difficulty: 3.0/10.  Scenic: 7/10

A great little hike that leads to a low key thermal springs spa
Click on pic to view album of pics
Link to the geotrack is here,

An old friend of mine, Jim Greiner, and his wife visited us for two weeks in mid February.  Near the end of their stay, Jim and I got away - just the two of us - to tackle a hike I'd wanted to do (and possibly claim an FTF on a geocache).  The hike is just past Prony Bay and ends at a thermal hot springs.  The creek that delivers the warm water is called Ruisseau des Kaoris and is fully described here.  On our way to the hike, we explored a bit with Frog (my venerable Land Rover) and managed to get ourselves into a bit of a pickle but we just as quickly 4WD'ed ourselves out of trouble.  We parked the frog (here) and set off on the hike.  It was a very hot, sunny day so we got a good workout even though the total hike was just a tad until 10 km.  We wandered through forest, on very slippery dried red mud, forded streams, walked through an abandoned fish camp - much of the usual stuff for a New Caledonia hike.

It had rained prodigiously the past few days before the hike and, as a result, all the rivers in the southern half of the country were swollen and fierce.  The point at the hike where we should have crossed the river (that empties into the bay) was simply not crossable on this day.  That little detail wasn't going to stop us.  We backed further down towards the bay and I decided to swim across to the other side ... only it turned out we could wade across as it was low tide!  We quickly found the thermal springs - a lovely spot with a developed pool and picnic table and platform and completely barren of other folks.  Though we were sweating profusely, we were determined to take a dunk in the hot springs, only to find that: they weren't hot at all and, in fact, the pool was rather refreshing  No disappointment there though!  Later, we found the geocache (FTF!) and then took our time on the hike back, stopping and swimming wherever possible.  A highly recommended hike - only 200m of elevation gain/loss, 10 km round trip, and absolutely lovely.

Hiking the GR1 - Stage 1

Distance: 14(22) km.  Elevation low/high/total: 6/354/617 m.
Difficulty: 7.5(9.0)/10.  Scenic: 6.5/10

An intended 14 km hike that turned into 22 km - click pic for album
The geotrack (use Google Earth for best view - you may need to download and then open with Google Earth)
Here's a very large geotrack with embedded pics

Whew, this was a doozy!  Miss K and I have been planning on starting to hike the "GR1" (Grande Randonnée or Great Hike, a set of seven challenging hikes that take you along half of New Caledonia) for a couple of months. With Ildiko and Iris away on Lifou, here was our opportunity to hike the first stage, which is a 14 km jaunt starting at Prony and ending at Refuge de Néocallitropsis.  To help with logistics, I talked two work colleagues into coming along - they wanted to mountain bike the stage while we hiked.  So we drove to Chutes de la Madeleine Parking, where I  inexplicably thought was the end of Stage 1.  We left the Frog (our LandRover) there, Kincso and I jumped into Paul's truck and we headed to Prony where Stage 1 of the GR1 starts.

We said goodbye to the mountain bikers and over the next five hours we made our way along the trail, stopping for lunch at Twin Falls (we'd been there before), and generally found the hike not overly difficult though a bit lengthy.  We placed a geocache along the way as we plan to do for each stage.  It got more vertical the last few kilometers and as we started to approach the expected end of the stage, it steadily dawned on us that someone was guilty of VERY POOR PLANNING.  At Refuge de Néocallitropsis (end of stage 1), there was a camping location and an explanatory billboard about Stage 2 which began there and was a 10.9 km, 3.5 hour hike that ended at Netcha (near Chutes de la Madeleine).  We were out of water, my legs were dead and it was approaching late afternoon.  We were at least a couple of kilometers from a road.  So we filled our backpacks with river water and started off bushwhacking to the east where we knew the main road was located.  Eventually we found an old dirt road and within a half hour were on a totally empty paved road.  We just kept walking - three vehicles passed us during the next hour but none would stop to give us a ride.  Finally, when we were within 1.5 kms of Chutes de la Madeleine, a van with three cleaning ladies stopped and drove us to our vehicle.  As I write this the following morning, my legs feel every extra km.  We're hoping the other stages of the GR1 are as fun as this one was!

To the summit of Mont Dore

Distance: 7.3 km.  Elevation low/high/total: 61/731/699 m.
Difficulty: 7.2/10.  Scenic: 9/10

A medium difficulty solo hike to the summit of Mont Dore - click pic for album
Two geotracks - one with elevation, one with enroute pics

As the end of the holiday break was nearing (work resumes Monday), I was still feeling a need for more hiking.  Unfortunately, the usual hiking suspects were in various forms of physical discomfort or already hiked-out so I took off early Saturday morning for my first solo hike in some time.  I wanted to see if I could make it to the top of Mont Dore, the brooding mountain dominating the skyline east of Noumea.  The hike wasn't as taxing as the one to the top of Mt. Mou, but it was a good workout nonetheless.  The views were spectacular and the weather could not have been more perfect - mid 20s C (mid 70s F) and a constant breeze of 20-30 knots.