Tag Archives: sea princess

Alotau, Papua New Guinea

Wednesday, Nov 23:  This morning we awoke to find ourselves in Alotau, Capital of Papua New Guinea’s Milne Bay Province. 

It seems that every new place we come to becomes our new favourite!  PNG to our surprise was no exception.  Not on our bucket list, but hey – we are always open to new experiences.  Some people didn’t leave the ship (I think there were a few concerns about the Zika Virus). 

Alex (being ex-army) went off on the Battle of Milne Bay tour, to see various memorials and find out how the Japanese naval forces were ultimately defeated in 1942.

 

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Japanese landing site at Milne Bay

 

Meanwhile I joined the tour for the Ahioma Cultural Experience and we were taken by mini buses along rough dirt roads to a typical Milne Bay village and were welcomed by the chief.  Very interesting morning and we learnt so much.

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Amazingly, 48 different languages are spoken here of which our guide spoke two, including excellent English.  We were invited to see how the people live, and what a relaxed way of life it is.  Even though the ground looked stony, crops seem to grow well.  Each person has a garden with a few crops such as sugarcane, taro, yams and coconuts, which they share among families.

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Food is cooked in clay pots wrapped in leaves.  The uses for a coconut alone, apart from eating, were amazing – from a body loofah, making string or cleaning their cooking implements, to name just a few!  They eat pork and when we went to the seaside village, we saw how they make nets to catch fish to add to their diet.

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Occasionally, they barter their produce for imported goods but mostly “go to the environment” as we heard so many times.  There are not many jobs to be had, out of a population of approximately 74,000 (16,00 in the town) only a few people own motor vehicles and they don’t have much need for money.  What a stress-free way life!

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Cairns, Qld

Monday, Nov 21:  Today we arrived in Cairns, working our way up the east coast of Queensland.  Cairns is a major tourist destination because of its proximity to two World Heritage sites – the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree National Park.

We have both visited Cairns at different times in the past, and travelled on the Kuranda Scenic Railway. I had fond memories of travelling in a steam train up the mountain past gushing waterfalls on a railway which dates to 1891. 

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This time we discovered that the steam engine had long gone, now replaced by a diesel.  All the windows were small and barred which made taking photos difficult, especially as we were sitting in the middle.  However, it was still a nice trip through the rainforest, crossing 40 bridges and travelling through 15 tunnels.  Unfortunately the dry weather meant that the waterfalls were not as spectacular as we remembered them. 

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When we arrived at Kuranda, we had time to explore the local market and shops where we hoped to find some local crafts;  unfortunately all we found were cheap imports for the most part.   So, our souvenir consisted of a couple of postcards showing the scenery that we saw on the way but could not photograph very well.  All in all, a bit of disappointing.

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Northern & Western Australia Explorer

Getting excited – our next cruise starts tomorrow!

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Ports of call:  Brisbane Qld, Cairns Qld, Papua New Guinea, Darwin NT, Kimberley Coast(Scenic cruising),  Broome WA, Geraldton WA, Fremantle WA.

We will have a couple of nights in Perth and then will be hiring a car to drive to the Margaret River for a further night.

Returning to Sydney on the Indian Pacific (train) across central Australia and then flying back to Brisbane.

15 Days, 8 ports.  Should be fun, hope you will follow along!