Showing posts with label True North. Show all posts
Showing posts with label True North. Show all posts

Friday, September 20, 2013

Papua New Guinea part 5

We visited the Vitu Islands, and anchored inside the collapsed crater of an old volcano.  The people here had a small boat-building business.

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We had planned to snorkel and see some of the underwater life but the locals told us a crocodile had been sighted that morning lurking about so it was decided that snorkelling would be just tempting fate. We rode around in the tenders instead.

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The sides of the inlet were so steep!

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It was another magnificent day althought overcast and extremely humid.

The next day we took a trip in the helicopter over Mt Uluwan, which as you can see is an active volcano.

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We also flew over these waterfalls in the Nakanai Mountains, which are so remote that they don't even have a name.

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We also took the tenders up the river and had a really good morning tea tied up under a large tree.

The next day we arrived in Kavieng and spent the morning sitting on the beach before heading to the airport and flying back to Australia. All in all it was a gorgeous trip and definitely a relatively safe way to see Papua New Guinea, which is usually getting in the news for all the wrong reasons. The staff onboard True North were wonderful and nothing was too much trouble. The chefs were tremendous and delivered five star meals every single day. It was a pleasure to travel on the True North, and I would highly recommend it if you ever get the chance.

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Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Papua New Guinea part 1

I'm finally getting around to writing about our trip to PNG last November.  Sorry for being so slack about it.

We flew to Cairns and stayed overnight before being picked up at our hotel by some of the lovely crew members from True North, the ship we would be sailing aboard for our time in PNG.  Being on a charter flight meant no nasty queues at Cairns airport, which is always a good thing in my book.

We arrived in Madang and were taken by coach to the boat.

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Taking just 36 passengers, with 20 crew to look after us, it really is a gorgeous ship.

Our first stop was Bagabag Island, which is very pretty. Our first adventure was a helicopter flight over KarKar Island, mostly made up of an active volcano.

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The villagers on Bagabag Island were simply lovely, and escorted us on a walk along the water's edge. The little kids, some of whom had never seen white people, were having the greatest time ever, it felt. Every village we visited was given a present of books and colouring pencils and footballs or other things, which were always a big hit.

This is a toilet in a typical PNG island village:
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Yes, it is a hut built over the water.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Next up...

... is Papua New Guinea.  We leave on 13 November for Cairns, to board our charter flight to Madang.

Once we get there we'll be board the True North ship for 11 days of sailing around the east coast of PNG.


Looks pretty magical, right?