Beachy Papua New Guinea

This post was written in 2014, but probably mostly current. Lengthy message to a tripadvisor correspondent who wanted to know about beaches in #PNG. It wound up being a fair slab of a tourist guide. My knowledge is a bit out of date; after some pleasant times in PNG I left two years ago and … Continue reading

Independence day

The posts here and earlier are snippets from my introduction to Papua New Guinea, and thus an introduction to this blog. They have a touristy feel to them. Wonderful to have a job that permits touristy moments! The lengthy time gap appears because…

Air Niugini Lounge Goroka

View of the Air Niugini Paradise Lounge in Goroka – all of it. Entered from the right side of pic after passing behind the check in desks. There was nowhere left to fit a chair. I declared an overflow seating area and pulled up a chair in the door…

Highlands Highway

The Highlands Highway, running about 500 km from Lae to Mt Hagen, is the lifeline of PNG. This view is typical, about 10 km east of Goroka. The road is spectacular in places, where it descends into deep valleys then winds over passes 2500m high, o…

Goroka is coffee

Goroka is the leading centre in PNG’s small coffee industry, with hundreds of small growers in the Eastern Highlands and a many mills. here, in a coffee warehouse, samples of coffee from a batch that has been milled are ‘cupped’ or graded to deter…

Goroka street scenes

View from the verandah of the Bird Of paradise Hotel in Goroka, on a cool morning – maybe 20 degrees. Goroka is about 1500 metres above sea level and has a mild climate – maximums in the mid twenties year round, with a rainy season. The vendors be…

Welcome to Goroka!

The unique uniforms of the Asaro Mud men are the tourist attraction in Goroka, although they actually come from Asaro, about 1/2 hour further up the Highlands Highway. The legend goes that, when the Asaro tribesmen were going to have a bit of a wa…

Mount Hagen Street Scenes

The centre of town. Looks like a provincial town, even though it is the third largest centre in PNG, but teeming with people and surrounded by settlements. The highlanders are short and very friendly, but quick to anger, with a constant undercurre…

Keep Mount Hagen friendly

Some friendly reminders…

The Dandenongs? No, Mount Hagen!

Mount Hagen is the ‘capital’ of the Highlands of PNG. Because of its 1700m elevation it has a mild climate with temperatures from about 12 -29 year round. It is surrounded by much larger mountains; the actual Mount Hagen, some distance to the N…