Qualla: Païta https://qualla.com/paita en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/s/n/6/paita-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Païta https://qualla.com/paita Païta: Introduction https://qualla.com/paita/ Photo credit Torbenbrinker, CC BY-SA 3.0. On a rock along a small river in the southeast of Païta, someone pecked lines into the stone that look like suns. Or like flowers. Nobody is quite sure what they were meant to represent. The dating is uncertain too - possibly as old as the 13th or 14th century B.C., placing them among the earliest human artifacts in New Caledonia. You reach them by climbing cement stairs behind a wooden pavilion, follow a short path to the river, and there they are: quiet, weathered, unsigned. Today Païta is the commune that holds La Tontouta International Airport - the gateway through which almost every visitor to New Caledonia arrives. The tourists who come to the island mostly pass through Païta without knowing it. The petroglyphs have been watching them pass for three millennia.

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Image: Torbenbrinker | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/s/n/6/paita-wp/rsn6-pa-ta-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Païta: The Commune and the Airport https://qualla.com/paita/ Photo credit Roman.b, FAL. Païta is one of the suburban communes ringing Nouméa, New Caledonia's capital, in the South Province of this French overseas territory in the southwest Pacific. The airport, La Tontouta International, sits within Païta's boundaries and handles flights from Paris, Sydney, Auckland...

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Image: Roman.b | FAL

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/s/n/6/paita-wp/rsn6-pa-ta-the-commune-and-the-airport.mp3 0:06 2 full Païta: The Climate of the Leeward Coast https://qualla.com/paita/ Photo credit Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0. Païta sits in the rain shadow of New Caledonia's central mountain range, which means it receives noticeably less rainfall than the eastern windward coast. Its climate is tropical savanna - Koppen classification Aw - with March as the wettest month and the hottest averages in Febr...

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Image: Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/s/n/6/paita-wp/rsn6-pa-ta-the-climate-of-the-leeward-coast.mp3 0:06 3 full Païta: The Little Train That Ran https://qualla.com/paita/ Photo credit Torbenbrinker, CC BY-SA 3.0. About a mile north of the town center sits the former railway station of the Noumea-Paita railway. A small locomotive - used until 1940 - is preserved there as a memorial to a railway that once connected the commune to the capital. The line was narrow-gauge, built in the late 19t...

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Image: Torbenbrinker | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/s/n/6/paita-wp/rsn6-pa-ta-the-little-train-that-ran.mp3 0:06 4 full Païta: Before the French, Before the British https://qualla.com/paita/ Photo credit Torbenbrinker, CC BY-SA 3.0. The petroglyphs are older than any of it. Archaeologists studying Pacific rock art have associated similar designs with the Lapita cultural complex - the seafaring Austronesian peoples who, beginning around 1500 B.C., colonized most of the islands of Remote Oceania, including New...

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Image: Torbenbrinker | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/s/n/6/paita-wp/rsn6-pa-ta-before-the-french-before-the-british.mp3 0:06 5 full