Blogs from Papua New Guinea, Oceania

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 6 August 10, 2011 Efogi to Menari. We depart Efogi and the morning is misty over the valleys. Today's walk involves up and down a little hill and a big hike uphill passing over Brigade Hill and The Saddle and crossing the Vabuiagi River. Today we hike 5 hours and it is very very steep. We walked up and across to Brigade Hill, the mist was closing, creating an errie sombre atmosphere. There were 76 stakes in the ground noting the graves of soldiers killed in battle. Their bodies were later removed to the Bamana War Cemetery in Port Moresby. The Japanese had waited and waited to attack. The Australians wait at the top of Brigade Hill. After a few days nothing happened. At 2am the Japanese attacked. They had made long ladders and lay ... read more

I walked to the airport with Robin as an escort early in the morning. I got to the MAF booth and found out that the flight was going to be sometime in the afternoon. There is no strict schedule - it leaves when ready. So I had most of a day to kill and was trying to get to Wewak to catch a ferry to Vanimo at 3pm. I wandered around the airport area for some time, buying a few oranges to eat, and reading my book. Eventually at about 1:30pm I got on a plane with a Canadian couple. It was the same plane and same pilot as before. The flight was about the same but got a few more good pictures of Wewak as it was daylight this time. I arrived in Wewak about ... read more