Cowboys and croissants: the secret side of New Caledonia most Australians don't see

My horse's name is Happy. Why? Because he is. Equines aren't generally known for their cuddly disposition, but this serial smoocher greets me with a velvet-nosed kiss.

It really should have been on both cheeks. Happy lives in New Caledonia, where everything comes with a French flourish.

His home at Far West Ranch is immaculate. Owner Marion Berge keeps one of the tidiest tack rooms I've ever seen, and her horses are in peak condition and clearly adored. No wonder Happy's a blissed-out boy.

Before we're even aboard, we bond with our mounts, grooming them while Marion explains the importance of gentle handling and how to penser cheval - "think horse".

Around us, their buddies relax in the shade of paperbarks while cattle roam undulating plains stretching up into mountain foothills. The view and the vibe are pure Home on the Range, more Montana than Melanesia.

Think New Caledonia, and it's fair to say that surf rather than turf comes to mind. The South Pacific archipelago's poster-creatures are the dugongs, turtles, corals and other submarine celebrities in the world's largest enclosed lagoon, an aquamarine heaven of 24,000 hectares encircled by 1600 kilometres of barrier reef (the world's second largest after our own Great Barrier Reef).

But today our feet stay dry on the west coast of Grand Terre, the main island. This is cowboy country, known as la brousse ("the bush") and home to Broussards, ranchers and drovers whose pioneer ancestors arrived in the mid-1800s.

Frontier traditions of hunting, fishing, farming and horsemanship still thrive. Every year, thousands converge at the Stetson-bedecked Bourail Fair, a festival of rodeo, shearing, lumberjacking and country fare.

We're sampling Broussard life on a ride with Marion, a former blacksmith who learned her cowboy skills here. She proudly shows us the gift she earned from her stockman mentor on becoming a full-fledged Broussard: a stunning palomino mare named Princess.

Our trail winds through golden grasses and elderly banyan trees. Then we round a corner, and suddenly we're face-to-face with New Caledonia's more famous postcard: snowy sands and dazzling blue lagoon.

"The horses love to swim," says Marion. At high tide, she adds, visitors can help bathe them in the balmy waters. Cowboy life here comes with some uniquely tropical perks.

This swift shift from bush to beach comes courtesy of New Caledonia's geography. Baguette-shaped Grand Terre stretches some 400 kilometres from top to bottom, but less than 50 kilometres across.

In short order you can toggle between the west's dry savannah and prairie, the east's humid jungle and waterfalls, wetlands in the south and 1600-metre peaks up in the spine-like mountain chain cresting the island's length.

Only slightly further afield, the archipelago's 140-plus islands include the four Loyalty Islands and Isle of Pines, each riffing sweetly on a theme of tropical paradise.

Then there's Noumea, the capital, proof positive that New Caledonia is a French overseas territory. A stroll through the capital's boulangeries, boutiques and bars, along a yacht-filled marina and buzzy seafront boulevard is a trip straight to the French Riviera.

Except without the jet lag, because we're less than three hours' flying time from the Australian east coast - closer to home than New Zealand, Fiji and Vanuatu.

Even better, it's minus the crowds. With an average of 15 inhabitants per square kilometre, New Caledonia is one of the world's least densely populated territories.

That sense of breathing space is never far away. Just an hour's drive from Noumea, we enter the vastness of Grand Terre's Great South, and its 22,000-hectare Blue River Provincial Park, the country's largest national park. Here you can hike, mountain bike or kayak for days on end, rarely seeing another soul.

I'd marvelled at this dramatic, unexpected terrain from above as we flew into Noumea; great tracts of metal-rich red earth, their rust, vermilion and ochre traversing wetland and ancient pine forest.

Up close it's otherworldly, with eerie vistas like the Drowned Forest, where bare niaouli branches pierce Lake Yate's glassy surface like skeletal limbs. The trees were submerged in the 1950s when the waters were dammed to supply hydroelectric power for nickel mining.

Mining ceased in this area with the national park's creation in 1980, and the denuded sections are slowly regenerating. Our guide, Axelle, shows us extraordinary endemic plants that somehow flourish in metal-saturated ground. Scientists come to study their anti-pollution properties, she says. "They can soak up toxins and still grow."

Nature-lovers flock here too. The mega-biodiverse park is home to most of New Caledonia's land birds, including a feathered curiosity found nowhere else in the world.

Less than a decade ago, the cagou, a flightless white bird with a strange barking cry, seemed doomed to be the next dodo. Laying just one egg a year in a ground nest and fatally fearless after enemy-free centuries, the gentle bird known as the "ghost of the forest" was an easy feast for introduced predators.

A government conservation effort has boosted their numbers to more than 2000, with the majority inhabiting this swathe of protected rainforest, says Axelle. "It's safe for them to breed here."

As if to prove her point, a cagou couple emerges onto the trail nearby to perform their elaborate courtship display - a twirling dance in perfect step, wings fanned out like flamenco skirts. These forest ghosts are very much alive.

We feel like applauding. Same when we meet the king of this ancient forest, the Grand Kaori. The park's largest conifer is more than 1000 years old, and its three-metre-wide trunk towers 40 metres above us, a living symbol of nature's resilience.

We switch scenery again, this time to the interior's rainforest-cloaked mountain slopes and emerald valleys, to meet members of New Caledonia's indigenous Kanak community.

The Kanak people have inhabited these islands for thousands of years, and today comprise just under half New Caledonia's population. Their culture is deeply connected to the land, and many still practise subsistence living, harvesting a bounty of fruit and veggies, chicken, wild deer and fish.

We'll be entering the lands of the tribe of Koinde, and first, there's the traditional welcome custom. I've seen such moments slickly packaged for tourists in other parts of the world, but there's nothing staged about this gracious, sincere exchange of respect and warmth.

We offer small gifts to the tribe's senior women, then our group leader asks permission to visit, adding that we come hoping to learn, share stories and make friends. In return, they tell us we will be protected as cherished guests, welcome in their home and at their table.

We are all women, and both sides smile when one of the tribe's young lads is ushered forward to speak. Everyone recognises the studious politeness of a teenager told by grandma to come meet the visitors.

Formalities done, we chat, the multilingual ones translating. There are 28 diverse Kanak languages in all, and many are fluent in several as well as French.

With tribe member Marie-Claude, we walk through the verdant Koinde land, admiring all the good things growing here: breadfruit, taro, yam, honey, and coffee too - not just any old bean, but the revered Le Roy varietal favoured by Jacques Chirac and Honore de Balzac.

Isle of Pines, a little island roughly 10 kilometres in diameter and named for the curious needle-tall columns of araucaria conifers capping its mass like a punk hairstyle, lies 100 kilometres to Grand Terre's south. A two-hour ferry ride or half-hour flight from Noumea transports you to scenes that seem the template for every South Pacific brochure: the lagoon's mesmerising blue melting from rich topaz to shimmering eggshell where its shallows meet creamy sands.

On Uri Bay, we board a pirogue, the traditional Kanak outrigger canoe, and sail across luminous blue, between giant coral boulders.

These vessels, constructed around a single dugout trunk, are built by a handful of master boatmen, the closely guarded knowledge passed through generations, never written, only shown and spoken.

Henri, the veteran piroguier captaining our vessel, occasionally calls "tortue!" to indicate a sea turtle in the crystal water. Stingrays glide close, too, while silver gulls circle above.

Later we take a short jungle trek to Oro Bay's exquisite Natural Pool, a sandy-bottomed basin with its own vibrant coral reef. It's sheltered, shallow and an easy snorkel spot but brimming with marine life, from giant clams to clownfish.

It seems we've barely towelled off before we're back across the water in Noumea for a day. Plenty of time to savour cheese, crepes, croissants, hot chocolate and chablis, and this Francophile's favourite treat: combing the aisles of French supermarkets and pharmacies for goodies otherwise found only via long-haul to Europe. I'm reminded of how fun it was in my London days to pop over to France for shopping sprees.

For this alone, and especially given the affordable airfares, I'd come to New Caledonia for just a weekend. But now I've glimpsed the layers that lie beyond, I'm eager to dive much deeper - and not just into the water.

The writer was a guest of New Caledonia Tourism