Hienghene town

Well, today has been something else that's for sure! We went ashore this morning in hopes of some provisions. This involved a half mile trip from the anchorage up the river. Hienghene is a pretty little town on the banks of the river with a small marina and information centre. However, extracting truthful and useful information out of the locals is like extracting teeth. We had a simple question - where is the shop and is it open? The man in the info centre said the shop was open. It is further up the river by the road bridge and we asked whether we could land the dinghy up there. The answer was yes so off we went. When we got there we found the only landing possibility was on the opposite bank so there we went. Then we walked across the bridge and on the way over we met a young Kanak girl who said the shop was "fermee - fini". This implied that it was no more. It was certainly closed but appeared to be only closed for lunch. Then we walked back and inquired at the local "Pompiers" - fire station where we received 2 more totally conflicting stories. So we got back in the dinghy and went back to the marina where we met Mary who had come ashore and had a chat for a while.
Then at 2 we went back upriver to try our luck again. This time it was open but it seemed that it was indeed in the process of shutting permanently because of "les aggressions". There had been a series of armed holdups by Kanaks and someone had been shot and killed. So, we bought a few things from the meagre stocks including a bottle of whisky and a sweet and a dry vermouth. No wine to be had. Apparently there is a market in the morning but we will believe it when we see it. Hopefully we'll be able to buy some fresh items. Who knows - no-one seems to know anything and those that do seem to are telling us things they think we want to hear!! Anyway, it all adds to the trials of cruising - it is definitely NOT cruisy!! More later.................
Love from us

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