Blogs from Oceania - page 5

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

It started raining on Saturday night, just the odd torrential shower or two. Sunday was spent relaxing whilst the showers contined through the night again. Monday morning showed a wonderful full half circle rainbow and brilliant sunshine, so we quickly packed up and were on our way by 9.30am, as the weather predictions were for more showers. Being the optimists that we are, we put our wets on, just in case. A very wise move on our part. From Murray Bridge we headed towards Nhil, and of course, it wouldn't be S.A. without the wind. The first downpour hit us as we were going through Coomandook. We carried on to Coonalpyn and stopped there for morning tea and for Gail to put on a thermal top. It was the best tasting hottest coffee around and really ... read more

Woke to more rain. When it cleared, motored into the northerly wind and an hour later we were at Horseshoe Bay, Peel Island. S27 30.212 E153 21.813 A good chance to properly test if the autopilot followed a waypoint on the chartplotter and it worked well. Not as far as we would have liked to have got but a lovely place to stop in a northerly wind, and we even had some sunshine. We have been here before but never with it so quiet, with only one other boat in the bay! Though a few others joined us later. Motored over the clear flat water for a stroll on the beach. Naomi brought her rod and I tagged a small fish but it got away. Heading back to the boat, we pushed the dingy away from ... read more

Of course we knew it theoretically - our islet is a reef. But it is still a special feeling to stand with your bear feet on a beach that obviously consist of tons of corals. The island of Bora Bora itself is an extincted volcano. Around it corals built a ring that turned into a reef and became more and more massive. Millenniums passing by the volcano sunk into the ocean creating distance to the reef. The reef on the other hand got so wide that plants and animals saddled down on it. This way the beautiful geography of Bora Bora developed into its current formation with the shallow, turquoise lagoon and the ring of islets (motus) around it. From our bungalow on the motu we are directly looking onto the main island with its amazingly ... read more

Diesmal schreibt die Chefin. O.k. - so fängt's an: Wir stehen im Flughafen von Cairns (sprich - Käääns) und haben zuerst mal Probleme, ein Telefon aufzutreiben. Dieses brauchen wir, um die Mietwagen-Company anzurufen, damit die uns abholt (wir haben natürlich wieder mal die exotischste am Platze, die nur in der Stadt eine Filiale hat), um unseren "Karito" in Empfang zu nehmen. Frank schafft es mit seiner Hartnäckigkeit, auf unsere in Alice Springs und Melbourne aktive australische Simkarte (jetzt inaktiv, weil Guthaben verfallen) noch 20 Freiminuten bei dem armen Mensch von der Telefonfirmenhotline rauszuschinden, und wir können also anrufen. Unser Auto ist, wie könnte es anders sein, ein schönes weisses japanisches SUV Marke Subaru mit "Gott sei dank" Cruise Control! Hatten wir in Neuseeland leider nicht! Unser B&B in Cairns heisst bezeichnenderweise Rainforest! Wei... read more

Here we are now at Bora Bora, one hour flight north of Tahiti in French Polynesia. This island is by many said to be paradise on earth and we can only agree, it is beautiful. The rocky mountains on the island are all covered with green and they are surrounded by a lagoon with turquoise water. We are staying on one of the motu, coral islands, on the outside of the lagoon. The view over the lagoon towards the island is fantastic! The climate here is much warmer than on Rapa Nui. The temperature is around 30 degrees and the water is about the same. So far we have stayed on our motu and just enjoying the place. Canoeing in the lagoon, snorkeling and walking on the rough outside of the reef. We're staying at a ... read more