Janine and I recently received a surprise job offer to do a geological survey of potential potters materials around Noumea in New Caledonia.

We only had to think about it for 2 seconds, before we said yes!

We are now back home again, hence our radio silence for the past few weeks. We were well looked after and found a lot of useful materials, as far as I am aware, no one has documented anything similar that we could reference. So we were starting from scratch. I approached it as I do here. Consult geological maps for insights as to the best places to look. As these were not forthcoming, we decided to just do a series of drives around the local area and see what turned up in the road cuttings and culverts. These give a great insight into what is under the grass in the countryside. 

The research that I did online before leaving indicated that the principal feature of the main island is a nickel-rich laterite material. New Caledonia holds about a quarter of the worlds nickel reserves. Fortunately for them the new era of lithium battery powered electrical devices relies on nickel as one of the primary mineral components.

Our lovely local contact, who we met online, contacted us after we were recommended to her by her friend, who it just so happens bought my book on Geology for potters online from us! After an exchange of emails, we decided to take the job. Everything in New Caledonia is imported with the possible exception of green vegetables, which can be grown locally. Our host has a plan to run a project to teach the local Kanak people to make pots again. Tribal pots were made there in the past, but are no longer made since colonisation. The same is true of the nearby island nation of Vanuatu. I had volunteered on an aid project in Vanuatu in the past, helping the late Alistair Whyte with his private aid project there. Janine and I have also volunteered on privately organised NGO ceramic aid projects in Egypt and The Philippines, as well as New Guinea and Cambodia over the years. So we had some idea of what to expect.

All pottery materials are imported into New Caledonia at great expense, so are not really viable for the local population on lower incomes. We hoped to pass on what we could learn about what it is possible to do with just using the local resources.

We were driven around and given a running commentary on the local issues and landscape usage. I spotted several dykes that had forced their way through the extensive and almost monotonous red/brown local soil profiles. These pale weathered siliceous intrusions hold a much more promising potential for glazes and bodies. We collected several samples that we took back to the studio for testing and analysis.

We also found several clay deposits that showed some promise, but they were so high in iron and very sticky clay minerals like montmorillonite, that they will probably only be useful as earthenware or mid-fire bodies.

I did however find two clay-like minerals that had some promise of firing to stoneware, but these were largely non-plastic or very low in plasticity. A more extensive and detailed search would no doubt find a more promising range of clays, but we only had 10 days to search for and then test what we had found. There is plenty of scope to continue this work and take the first series of tests to a more complex and useful result, but it will take more time. However, after this brief encounter, I’m convinced that there is plenty of potential to develop a locally available body of ceramic materials. 

The grid tile tests that we made, looking at potential glaze possibilities were very promising. Again there is more work to be done there to refine and develop these early results, but they were very encouraging.

We found a good black/brown tenmoku, a possible oil spot tenmoku, a very good jun blue and cloudy opal blue, and a couple of celadons. Some of the materials from the hard dykes that weren’t weathered so well were difficult to crush fine enough to get a smooth glaze, but the slightly specky glaze tests show such excellent potential that it would be worth investing in some finer milling equipment? We did the best we could in the very short time available and the equipment that we had on hand. I spent a spare moment throwing two large mortars and pestles for use in the future, as there aren’t any to be had in Noumea.

When we took a longer trip down the south coast to a place called Yaté, we found a lovely little beach with a gité, and had a very nice lunch of locally caught fresh fish, over-looking the beach. After lunch, we found both pumice and cuttle fish above the high-tide mark and collected enough to make a sealadon glaze test.

While we were there in Noumea, Janine taught a night class of surface decoration to some of the local potters at the local gallery and pottery studio.

We had a great time and were really thrilled that we could achieve so many promising results in such a short time. It wasn’t all work, we got a little bit used to island time and managed to fit in a few cultural visits to the museums.

There were some lovely old pots that are no longer made by the local people.

Sea food was plentiful, but swimming in the ocean has recently been banned due to two shark fatalities in quick succession.

It was a great experience, but not everything went to plan.

What should have been a short 2 1/2 hr. flight back to Sydney, turned into an epic 2 day travesty of on-going delays, cancellations and more delays.

We were up a 5am to get to the international airport in Tontouta one hour north of Noumea in time to book in for the early morning return flight, but the aircraft was delayed, so we waited. We eventually got on board, but after half an hour in our seats there was an announcement that the plane would be delayed for technical reasons. After another hour the technical issue was fixed, and we were apparently ready for take-off. We taxied all the way to the end of the runway and turned around. I imagined that we would then thrust full bore down the runway and take off into the wind. But NO. We slowly taxied back to where we had started and parked there. We wait…. We are told that they would need to get a technician in to look at the plane. I suspect that they needed a new rubber band for the propeller, and the only one available would have to bought on the internet on ebay and posted out from China? Expect some longer delay.

We waited some more in our seats and there is an announcement but sitting directly behind us there are two rows of very noisey young French men who talk and jostle each other so vigorously, that we can’t hear what is being told to us, but we can tell that these young guys are not pleased with what has just been conveyed. They ark-up and cause even more of a stir. We are eventually told to disembark and wait in the departure lounge. More abuse from the Gauls, who are galled by the decision. I’m OK with it actually. I’d rather that the plane breaks down on the runway than half way to Australia.

We were apparently told to go back through emigration and customs again, our flight has been officially cancelled. We go back, get our exit stamp cancelled in our pass ports and wait in the departure area. We did that for another 12 hours, while the noisey French guys get drunk at the bar. Earlier on, the lady in charge of the airport comes out of her office and speaks to us, actually them, as she doesn’t repeat it in English. The young French hoons yell and scream at her, one even goes right up to her face and vents his rage right into her face, screaming at her. It’s so appalling. I would expect her to call security and have him detained, but she keeps her cool, although visibly distressed. She returns to her office and there is no more direct communication with us, thanks to the drunken dick-heads.

There are occasional announcements over the PA, that were sometimes contradictory. Always in French, however there was sometimes an English version that followed. But with the brain-dead Frenchmen on the flight who were now thoroughly drunk and always yelling and yar-hoo-ing very loudly every time there was any announcement. So much so, that we could never hear the detail of what was said. 

Our sponsor and lovely friend, had seen on facebook that the flight was cancelled and called her friend who she knew was also on our flight. He searched us out, found us, and as a local French speaker, told us what he knew, but it wasn’t very much. We were stuck there in limbo. We just had to wait.

Eventually there came the news that another plane was due in from Brisbane later that night, and we would all be flown to Brisbane. The plane did eventually arrive, an hour late, and after cleaning we were all issued back through customs and emigration again and onboard. It was now 9 pm and we felt like zombies.

We were told that after arrival in Brisbane we should search out the AirCalin representative and she would find us a hotel and another flight onwards to Sydney the next day.

We eventually found her, along with the other 50 to 60 odd passengers who had wanted to go to Sydney. We get allocated a hotel room pretty quickly, but then there is a wait of another couple of hours in the queue of passengers to get our chance to speak to this singular person who is doing the onward bookings on her mobile. We are all sitting, or laying on the floor waiting for our turn. When it comes she tells us that we will have to pay for our own taxi fare into Brisbane to the hotel and back, but there is a mechanism to claim a refund. We get our flight number and taxi away. We finally get into the hotel bed at 2 am.

It’s been a very long and stressful 21 hours of frustration, not improved by our close proximity to drunken dick heads.

We sleep until 7am. Not long enough, but it’s bright daylight out there. We go down to breakfast and return to bed for a little lay down, and suddenly awake to find that we have slept for several hours and we have to rush to get back to the airport for our return flight at 2:30

We needn’t have rushed! The flight before us is cancelled by Qantas, a regular trick performed by them to block other airlines from using the gate. Our Qantas Flight is delayed for an hour. We finally get on board to some relief. But it doesn’t last long. There is a call out for a missing passenger. Will Mr SoandSo please make himself known to the staff. He doesn’t. Eventually the announcement is made that the flight is now delayed further, as the missing Mr. No-show, has a bag in the hold and it has to be found and unloaded.

Finally, another hour later, we take off. Now very late indeed. It will be getting dark soon after we arrive. We need to catch a train to Picton, but it is the weekend now and there is track work, so all the trains are cancelled on our line and we must take several busses to get to Campbelltown and onto the evening train to Moss vale. Then call a friend to come and pick us up at the station, as there are no busses on weekends to our part of the remote world.

Trivial First World problems I know. But they seem to be quite big when you are sleep deprived and stressed. Our beautiful friend Leonard has kept in touch by text and offers to come and collect us from Mascot. Such a lovely gesture, we are past our use-by dates and very grateful of the offer. Even with Leonard’s help, we still only get back home on dark. Len stays over and we thank him by opening a 2009 vintage bottle of superb quality red wine that we had hidden away at the back of the cellar. We share it over a quick pasta dinner. We are able to go to the pantry and get a bottle of our own home grown and bottled tomato passata sauce, an onion, garlic and olive oil, a great friend. We are home safe. 

What more could you want?