Prony Village

Prony was established in the 1860s as a penal settlement where convicts felled timber for the colony, and it was abandoned by the early twentieth century, leaving stone buildings, a chimney and a road system that the forest has since grown back over. A handful of people live there now. Offshore in the bay stands the Aiguille de Prony, a hydrothermal chimney rising from the seabed that divers visit.

What you actually see

• The overgrown ruins - stone buildings and a chimney taken back by forest.
• The convict history - the timber settlement worked from the 1860s.
• The Aiguille de Prony - the hydrothermal spire offshore, dived from boats.
• The bay - the enclosed water at the southern end of the island.

When to go

April to November is the dry cooler season. Roads in the far south are unsealed in places. Dive trips to the Aiguille need booking.

Honest expectations

There is almost nothing interpreted at the site and the ruins are hard to read. The road in is unsealed and rough. Facilities are essentially nonexistent.

Nearby

Cap N'Dua is south, and Yaté Lake is north.