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Blogs from Papua New Guinea, Oceania
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May 15th 2013
On Sunday I went to church with Kumi. Kumi is the first Papua New Guinean I ever met. He works construction with Mike Chapman, and has very good English. I asked Kumi how old he was and I got the typical PNG response, "I don't know", followed up by the estimate, "maybe 24?" We walked to his church in the village of Tumba, which is about a 50 minute walk off of the mission station. Along the way, I plied Kumi with lots of questions and learned a lot more about PNG culture. Among the more important things that I learned: 25 kina is a good deal for a chicken. Since I was the only white person at Tumba, I got a good deal of attention, especially from the children (or "pikininis" as they are called ... read more
Diving Father Islands and Kimbe Bay....pretty impressive!
Published: July 12th 2012Oceania » Papua New Guinea » West New Britain » Kimbe
July 8th 2012
"Diving is only as good as your ten best diving pics"...coming back on this... So where do you start writing such a blog....the words won't do it, and the pictures.....just half of it...so let's jump in the water... Before joining the MV Febrina I spent my two last days diving out of the Walindi resort. First day two pretty average dives. It was like, ok, is this it? I hope not. Second day, two more dives and PNG started to honor the reputation it deserves! The next step was joining the MV Febrina for four days and a half of diving. In total, I did 21 pretty cool dives. How do you rate a liveaboard (and this is my 12th)? It depends on few important things. First, the diving...I know, this is pretty obvious...second, the crowd, ... read more
PNG....and few flights to get here...
Published: July 9th 2012Oceania » Papua New Guinea » West New Britain » Kimbe
July 2nd 2012
Every great meal need an amuse-bouche, this time, the amuse-bouche is average, and the meal was amazing. What do I mean? I've got too many pictures to sort out, so here is already something to start with. As it happened the last summer, Tiffany and Leslie are spending few weeks in Vietnam with their Mum. July is not high on the business agenda, beside being connected, so this is my little yearly holidays...I've checked, Leslie and Tiffany are doing well....they don't know yet what I've dived, neither do you... Pretty soon, I'll have dived in more countries than my age. Could have been done faster...but I'd better aim for quality than quantity....so her it is...one more diving adventure. Cindy, I'm in your garden...Shane....would have been fun to have dinner in the most expensive Holiday Inn in ... read more
March 13th 2012
Tuesday 13th March: Today has been a total relaxation as we’ve been at sea. We crossed back over the Equator late this morning so watched other people being covered in gunge. We would have to give the prize for the smelliest crossing the line ceremony to the Queen Elizabeth. Here on the Mary it was largely food dye and spaghetti. No match for the QE’s rotten vegetables and fish guts! We went to another lecture today and I really enjoyed this one. Cunard have art galleries on all their ships and they’re run by Clarendon Fine Art from Mayfair. That means we can hardly afford to look, never mind actually buy anything from them but one of their people did a talk today on Rolf Harris and it was fascinating. I learnt loads about ... read more
March 12th 2012
Monday 12th March 2012: Oh my good gawd it was hot today. It was 31ºC with 75% humidity. I don’t even manage to sweat that much in the gym! Richard described today as like walking around inside a recently boiled kettle. But it was worth it because Papua New Guinea is like nowhere else we’ve ever been. We’re on the island of New Britain – which is just south of New Ireland - and much of this place was wrecked by a double volcanic eruption in 1994. Thanks to the work of the volcano observatory here, the islanders got 2 days warning of the eruption so most people were saved. 5 though lost their lives here and the main town was wiped off the face of the earth. As we were driving through what ... read more
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March 11th 2012
Sunday 11th March 2012: An interesting start to our day today: we solved one mystery and discovered a new one to add to our To Do List! We went to a lecture given by Dr Stephen Payne. Not a name we expect anyone to know but it turns out he is the naval architect who designed the Queen Mary 2. He’s going to deliver 6 lectures and today’s was about the Mauretania. So here’s the mystery we solved. Richard’s mum had always said that she sailed from her home in Canada to her new, married life in England on the Mauretania. But we learnt recently that the Mauretania was sold for scrap before mum left Canada. So did she mis-remember or did we mis-hear? We learned today that the Mauretania had been such a ... read more
March 10th 2012
Saturday 10th March 2012: Today marks the half-way point in our 4-month long sabbatical and it’s been a lovely, sunny, lazy day. We’re now in the Tropic of Capricorn in the Coral Sea and the humidity level is rising significantly. Over 60% today and it will get wetter yet. It made our time in the gym somewhat less than invigorating this morning. Just knackering!! We went to a lecture today … and quickly regretted it. It was by the Fiction Reviewer of the Sunday Times and he talked about various journalistic critics – theatre and book reviewers. But he had no visual aids and I don’t know about you but I can only listen and pay attention to someone talking for about 7 minutes and then I drift. He talked for 50 minutes solid ... read more
March 9th 2012
Friday 9th March 2012: What an interesting day. Or at least we managed to get enough interesting things into one hour this morning that was more than enough for the rest of the day! Painful start – back to the gym for the first time since leaving the Queen Elizabeth. About the only semi good thing I can say is that I broke a sweat a lot quicker than I did nearly 2 weeks ago! And then it was breakfast and we really enjoy going to the main dining room and socialising and we hit lucky today. A table for 6 with everyone really nice. And then all the lights went out. And all the engines stopped. And the emergency lighting came on. And we all thought surely we’re not going to become a ... read more
Papua to Brisbane
Published: December 19th 2011Oceania » Papua New Guinea » Madang (province) » Madang (town)
December 9th 2011
It was a long trip from Papua to Brisbane--nearly two weeks at sea. The trip covered just as much distance as is usually covered in an Atlantic crossing. Our route took us along the north coast of Papua and Papua New Guinea, where we made a brief stop in Madang to refuel. We passed some interesting scenery along the coast, including an active volcano, and the mouth of the Sepik River. We also encountered an incredibly intense storm full of thunder and lightning and extremely heavy rain. I had major concerns that we may be struck by lightning after seeing a large ship, only a few miles away, be struck by two lightning bolts at the same time and become disabled. Madang itself was an interesting place. I only had about an hour or so to ... read more
August 20th 2011
Day 9 August 13, 2011 Ioribaiwa to Goldie River - 8 hours There are some celebrations in the camp. Today is the last full day of trekking. The end is finally near and we are all so ready for this to be completed. Although sad to be finishing at the same time. It has been such a journey in so many ways. We hike today from the Ioribaiwa village to the Goldie River an 8 hour hike. We have a really difficult descent down with a little plateau in the middle. The path is muddy and we have to wear our gaiters and Bushman's Insect Repellant Cream is a must today, even though we all use it everyday. The trail is difficult to describe as it varies so much. At times it is nothing but gnarled ... read more
