Visiting Queen Hortense's Cave on the Isle of Pines in New Calendonia

Isle of Pines is probably most famous for it's beaches, and I have to admit they are pretty amazing, but after a few days of sitting on them you get a little cooped up and you decide to rent a car and go exploring.

One of the places you find is Queen Hortense's Cave or Grotte de la Reine Hortense to use the French term. It's at the end of a dead end road, and when you park the car the land owner will wander over from the field he is planting, you will explain that you would like to see the cave, he will take some money from you and point you to a track in the jungle and tell you to follow that.

There will be no one else here, because, well in most places on the Isle of Pines there will be no other people, and that's fine, you will walk through the rainforest for five minutes and it will be unbelievably lush and green and at the end of the trail you will come to the Cave.

It will be so much bigger than you expected. and being empty it will seem even bigger, it's the type of place where you will stop and look up in awe.

There will be a tiny bridge across a tiny creek, but you can't use it, you will need to walk further in until the stream get so small you can step across it

But the roof of the cave is still towering above you, the stalactites are still clinging on tight. Your eyes will need to adjust before you can take all of this in - the scale is immense

You push further and further back into the cave, you find side rooms and holes back to the sky, but all of that is a story for another day. Today you are in the main chamber and it's unlike anything else you've ever seen and somehow you feel like you are the only person who will see this today.