PNG part 2

We're sitting in the Brisbane airport, waiting to get me checked in, but the airport is really strict about opening only 3 hours prior to leaving, so I guess it's a good thing the plane this morning was so bloody late, cause it means Sara & I don't have to hang out here as long as we might have . . . still a bloody long time!

So here's an update about what we did when in PNG:

• Kate & Sara walked into a freshwater stream and fed eels - apparenlty they LOVE mackerel & are super slimy when they swim around your legs, glad I didn't have to participate in that part of this ATW trip!
• Took a trip 200km down from Kaveing to a Shane's place called Central New Ireland Surfing & Rubio Plantation for the weekend.  Where Sara, her cousin Tim, Kate, and her dad all did a hike on the Saturday morning through a rainforest along the coast & up onto a cliff over looking the Pacific Ocean.  Sara & Kate went boogie boarding all morning & again in the afternoon, until Sara got bite by a shark . . . okay not really, but that sounds way cooler than got thrashed by a wave & pushed into a bed of coral, which cut up her leg rather well, so that ended her boogie boarding for the weekend.  She will be okay, thanks to Kate's fantastic first aid kit from Canada, she's now wearing a large clear bandage which breathes, but doesn't allow anything else to get into it.  Sara is sorta hoping it leaves a cool scar, but with this new bandage it might heal well . . . only time will tell
• After Sara's dad left, she & Tim went snorkling one afternoon around Raul island, about 40 minutes by boat outside of Kaveing.  They saw tons of fish, coral & Sara saw her first sting ray & reef shark!
• On the flight yesterday from Kaveing to Port Moresby (POM), the flight stops over in Kokopo to pick up some more passengers, but before landing the pilot took us over the still actively smoking volcano - SUPER COOL!!!
• This morning after I was checked in at POM the plane was delayed & Air Niugini offered up free crackers, cheese, tea & coffee - how nice right?  Well until Sara realised the cheese was rather warm & looked kinda oily in the package, so she looked at the date (thanks to cousin Tim saying he's been burned a few times with out of date items in PNG) and discovered it was 1 month old, so she skipped that!

Well that's my PNG experience in a nut shell!

Kokopo, Papua Nwe Guinea

We all made it safely in Papua New Guinea. 

Dad & Sara arrived last Thursday into Kokopo and their nephew/cousin Tim & partner Kate arrived Friday morning.  Kokopo is the town right next to Rabaul, where the volcano erupted in '94 and destroyed the city of Rabaul, so people sometimes say they're going to Rabaul, but what they really mean is Kokopo, cause the airport doesn't exist anymore & the volcano still smokes today!

We had quite an adventure our first day out, we took a PMV (public motor vehicle, aka a minu bus van) to Rabaul to check out the volcano ash.  We ended uyp having to walk 2 miles from the last bus stop to the Rabaul hotel for lunch (one of two hotels left in the city, which during the volcano explosion they stayed to keep the place safe) and it's a rather depressing state, with the foundations of houses but no roof on any of them & hardly any people around.  After lunch we decided to go see General Yamomoto's bunker, which supposedly had a map on the ceiling.  It started to rain & the sky was rather black, but we headed in that direction & along the way picked up some local children who showed us right to where we wanted to be, which we wouldn't have found without them cause it's so dilapidated.  It was SUPER cool!  But on the way back to the PMV stop (ya know 2 miles back) we got caught in torrential down pour, so by the time we were at the stop we were SOAKED!!

After waiting for 20 minutes Kate went to check into other options.  Turned out she found out the road washed out & so now "buses" (mini vans really) running, so we used my dad as an excuse to get a ride in the back of a pick up truck.  Kate knows the local Pidgin language, so she convinced this guy to take us back cause "the poor old white man needs his evening medicine" (this cracked me up so much I had tears running down my face, cause anyone who's met my dad know's he's in great physical health, but the PNGian man didn't know that) so after an hour long ride in the bed of a pick up truck we made it back to the hotel we were staying at.  On the bakc of the pick up we met a great girl who told us a story about how missionaries got eaten by the locals many years ago - I'm going to write a book called Tim & Kate's Outrageous Adventures, cause it's impossible not to have crazy things like this happen in a country like this!

Thank goodness the locals are friendly & helpful or we'd probably still be waiting at the bus stand, cause the road was washed out & had a raging river in another section for a few days! 

The weather is very hot & humid & of course there is not A/C, we're lucky to have electricity throughout the night to keep the fans going.  We're having a great time, I think dad might not have been prepared for it quite as much as he thought, but he's taking it all in stride & keeps on smiling.

Now we're in Kaveign at Tim & Kate's house, where today it's been pouring rain all day long - thank goodness we did the laundry yesterday!