New Caledonia Gare Maritime in Nouméa. The passenger-and-cargo boat "Havannah" sails to Port Vila, Malicolo and Santo in Vanuatu once a month. New Caledonia's road network consists of: New Caledonia New Caledonia (; ) is a special collectivity of France in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Chesterfield Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets. The Chesterfield Islands are in the Coral Sea. Locals refer to Grande Terre as "" ("the pebble"). New
Biodiversity of New Caledonia Winteraceae, Myrtaceae, southern sassafras (Atherospermataceae), conifers of Araucariaceae, Podocarpaceae, and Cupressaceae, and tree ferns. New Caledonia comprises fragments of the continental crust of Gondwana, dating to over one hundred million years ago (MYA), as well as volcanic material. The fragments apparently split from the Indo-Australian tectonic plate. Prevailing opinion holds that the archipelago represents the non-submerged regions of the continental fragment known as Zealandia. Zealandia broke away from the Australian part of Gondwana some 80-90 MYA. The separation of New Caledonia from mainland contact must have begun some tens of millions of years ago, probably during the Cretaceous period. However,