Milne Bay - even better than last year

I think we should make this an annual event. This time our friend Guy took Rich, Brett and I to some of the islands south of Alotau. We went to an island inhabited by a small family with a massive guesthouse perched on a hill. After crazy hours at work the past couple of months I crashed in a hammock for quite a bit of the time. The food there was amazing considering the ingredients were few. Definately recommend Galahi Island to anyone.

We then went to Gonu Bala Bala Island further south and stayed with another nice family in their village. White sand beach, good snorkelling in rockpools and the highlight for which we went there for - swimming with Manta Rays. There is a natural manta ray cleaning station 20 metres or so off the beach. The kids there were great - imagine growing up with a bunch of friends and running around an island, exploring, snorkelling, fishing...great life!

We visited Samurai Island which was the second biggest city in PNG - 40 years ago. Now you can see a lot of old unkept buildings which adds a historic charm to the place and makes you wonder what it would have been like back in the day.

Morobe puts on a Show!

Had a great day at the Morobe Show. Never seen the streets of Lae so packed before. It was like New Years Eve in Melbourne the year 2000 - okay not quite, but for Lae this is BIG!

Highlights were all the traditional sing sing groups that had come from around the country. Especially interesting was a dance that seemed to be focused on warming up for reproduction! Check out the video...

Should I even be telling you about this place or is it best to keep it under wraps?

It was a perfect one week break. No reliant access to internet or phones and we left our laptops at home. Tufi, Oro Province would be a 6 hour drive south of us if there was a road. There’s not, so it was a flight down to Morseby and back up to Tufi (quicker then a couple day boat ride). We reacquainted ourselves with diving, went snorkelling, paddling through fiords in an out rigger canoe. Highly recommended, especially the little village guest house south of Tufi – Garewa aka Paradise.

Nemo with blue highlights

Friendly piglet

Check out the water - snorkelling at our doorstep

Garewa guest house - take your pick of two private beaches

New friend - Manchu (UK) and us outside guest house

One of the many fiords

Diving

A slightly confused cleaning wrasse

Close up on coral

Squid

Saturday afternoons

I love Saturday afternoons relaxing on the veranda, reading a book, playing the uke, singing, chatting to friends. I love our veranda!! If I lie in the hammock at the right angle I can look up into the sky, see the palm trees and imagine I am on a secluded island with the wind blowing gently on my face… (rather than surrounded by houses boxed in by razor wire!)

A weekend away

Brett, Bonifas, Richard and I went to Boana over the weekend. A mountain village in a nearby district (3 hrs away). Our Rural Economic Development (RED) project is working there and has assisted the community in becoming a registered Cooperative Society Limited. They sold their first load of green beans for export last week. Previously they had only sold the parchment to a middleman. Now they’ve networked with a factory in Lae, paid for the parchment to be made to green bean and then made a connection with an exporter. The coffee will then go overseas and be bought by different roasting companies.
We went walking around the mountains yesterday, tasted some of the best mandarins, bathed in some rapids. In the late afternoon we went to see the villages natural gas pockets at work - they had put a paint tin upside down on one and you can light it and heat up a kettle. It started to pour and I realised that the plant that mum used to grow when I was 6 that she called and umbrella plant was probably actually used for just that! The children grabbed me a big taro leaf and we all went running back to the village with our green umbrellas overhead. Last night I sat in on a meeting with the cooperative society members and our RED coordinator - Bonifas. For anyone who knows how interested I am in coffee and fair trade would realise how much of a wonderful process this is for me to be witnessing and be a part of!

...and we wonder why things take so long to get done

At work we've been waiting for some certification from a government department for some time now. My colleague called their office up again yesterday. The certification is finally ready to be sent to us! The only problem now is that their department does not have enough money to buy a postage stamp to send it...

New niece!

Richard and my uncle and aunt status was reconfirmed with the birth a girl, Finley to Leon and Tamara. Now Willow has a little sister to play with – well, she’ll have to wait a little until she can actually play! It was great for me to be able to catch up with the family in Brisbane on my way home to PNG.

There's always a walk

Whenever I visit my parents Dad will always ask if I'm up for a walk on a Saturday. We went walking around the Hawkesbury River area with mum, dad and my uncle today. I can’t believe I hadn’t known about this place before when I was living in the area. Dad assures me I did walk it when I was 2 – can’t remember that, really! Jerusalem Bay was gorgeous.

A day of indulgence

I'm lucky enough to be in Sydney for meetings - which means I can catch up with family and friends on the weekend. Sarah, Dave and I went to The Rocks for a Coffee, Chocolate and Tea festival. While I had the opportunity to consume all these variety of foods I thought I would go for it! Mmm, my belly's full of coffee, strawberries, dahl & roti, corn off the cob and to top it all off my favourite ice-cream - Gelatisimo!

I love my work!

Well - hey, I do get a little tired of sitting in front of a computer but the intermittent trips to the field make it worthwhile!

The Fun Run

Last year, not too long after we arrived I saw heaps of people wearing a bright yellow t-shirt. Set on getting one I discovered that the Trukai FunRun had already been held for the year. This year I was all ready, bought my 2007 yellow shirt which is the entry pass for the run.
I would describe it as Lae’s version of the City to Surf. Except slightly smaller and more informal. There we were together with our friends at the 400m track, following the guy on the stage who was leading us out in stretching exercises - suddenly the whistle blows and people start to stream out two small exit gates onto the road. There was a massive bottle neck but we eventually made it out the gate to start our run – which started as a walk as there were so many people in the race! We eventually got the bright idea to slip in behind the army troops that were singing and paving themselves a way through the parting crowd. We ended up running the whole way – once we actually found some space to run. Not too bad for two of us who hadn’t trained. Granted it was only about 6 km. Now I have my fancy yellow shirt…

Not so little anymore

We've had our cat - Wara - for over a year now and he's really grown up these past couple of months. Likes staying around the house with us which is rare for a male. Also likes to knock things off benches onto the ground and sleep in our pot plants...he keeps us amused!

To think we were going to climb Mt Wilhelm!

We did have planned for this Easter long weekend a climb of PNG’s highest peak – Mt Wilhelm. We’d had it planned for the last 4 months or so with a fitness regime which included a lot of stair walking. Unfortunately, my reoccurring malaria kept hindering the fitness progress. Although, with my recent bouts of malaria I am not feeling horribly sick in bed, I don’t have that much energy after a day at work, hence limiting the physical activity I had planned.

We decided to postpone the hike for later on in the year. Luckily as on Wednesday I was tested positive for malaria again, for the 8^th time. Then yesterday Rich was feeling sick with nausea and headaches that we took him to get a malaria and typhoid test. As I was in the waiting room while Rich was seeing the doctor the nurse came in and asked me, “Do you want to see your husband, he has been admitted.” Admitted! I went into see him and he was lying on a bed and the doctor was putting a drip into his hand. There was little communication as to why this was all happening, so naturally I started to get quite anxious. Turns out he had a viral infection and his white blood cell count was significantly high. He was dehydrated, hence the drip and starting taking antibiotics. After 5 hours he came home and Nurse Me learnt how to change my first drip! (Although an hour later the drip stopped working so I called Raul, my boss who also happens to be a medical doctor. The malfunctioning drip wasn’t a result of the inexperienced nurse’s actions). Rich came off the drip and today he’s walking around, although still weak.

To think we were going to climb Mt Wilhelm this weekend!!