Part II: Journey from the 21^st Century to the Pages of National Geographic

Papua, New Guinea Expedition

(Sorry no pictures - internet not strong enough from the boat)

We boarded our expedition ship, the Oceanic Discoverer (also called the “OD”), in Cairns and spent the next two days familiarizing ourselves with the ship, the routine and the other passengers.  Our shipmates were from Australia, a few from the U.S., England, New Zealand, and one couple from Hungary.  Most of the two days was spent at sea en route to PNG, as Papua, New Guinea is called.  We did make a stop at a large coral reef called Osprey Reef; we spent time there snorkeling amid coral and colorful tropical fish.

Our first port of call was on the southeastern tip of PNG at a town called Alotau.  We experienced a welcome performance by dancers in costume.  Alotau was significant because it was the site of a WWII battle in which the Australians and American troops fought the Japanese.  It is also a central trading center where residents of outlying areas bring their goods and barter for their needs.  As I strolled through the market, I gazed upon produce for sale and saw copious amounts of betel nut being sold by a long row of vendors.  It is a stimulant that helps people get through the day.  Betel nut is chewed with a couple of accompaniments, one being lime made from coral.  It turns teeth red, and I understand it leads to other tooth and gum disorders.  More the pity, since I don’t believe there are many dentists in the area!  We also visited a village and enjoyed a lesson on native plants that cure illnesses.  Most of the houses have thatched roofs, palm frond walls and are elevated above the ground.

The next day was divided between water sports and village visits.  Dave had his first scuba lesson with Riccardo, the dive instructor, which he thoroughly enjoyed.  Renee took a ride in the glass bottom boat with some other folks led by a marine biologist named Mike, who is with us for the voyage and is guest lecturer on marine life that lives in these waters.  Our other guest lecturer is a social anthropologist named Maureen, who has studied the people and cultures of this region, familiarly known as Melanesia.

We also went to two beautiful villages, one on a little island called Dobu, where the school children welcomed us and performed songs.  Each was dressed in traditional costumes, and the adults danced, played the drums and sang.  The residents of Papua, New Guinea are very friendly people, happy to see visitors and not at all annoyed that we’ve come ashore to see them, walk through their villages and aim our cameras at them.  They learn English in school as well as their local native language, so communication is fairly easy.

During the next few days, our routine was similar.  We had a balanced schedule featuring water sports such as snorkeling on beautiful coral reefs with vast arrays of colorful, tropical fish, scuba diving on the walls that drop off the reefs, and kayaking in quiet coves where waterfalls tumble into the sea mixed with visits to colorful tribes of native peoples.  Each time we went ashore to visit the people of the local settlements, we seemed to go further back in time to more and more remote areas.  We started feeling as if we had entered a feature story in National Geographic with the tribal atmosphere of the jungle clans in their traditional ceremonial dress entertaining us with drums, dancing and chanting.  It was only recently (mid twentieth century) that many of these tribes and clans gave up head hunting and cannibalism due to pressure from the missionary groups that came here to ‘save’ them. 

On one particular visit, villagers came to the ship in outrigger canoes, collected us in groups of 4 or 6, and  floated us through a mangrove channel in the jungle to their meeting point in a muddy, shaded rain forest to dance, sing, play their drums, and demonstrate their skills at tattooing and making sago (palm) flour.  They wore colorful headdresses of Bird of Paradise feathers, necklaces of local seashells, faces painted with their particular tribal emblems, and they wore loincloths and sarongs of painted bark and cloth.  Most of the people are self sufficient, getting all of their needs from the forest and sea around them.  They also trade with other tribes for items not available in their area.             

We still have about two more weeks left on this comfortable and pleasant expedition cruise, so we’ll be catching everyone up to date as we go along.  Hoping everybody is doing well; we’ll sign off for now.

 

Blog Australia—New Guinea 

Part 1

"Whether the weather will cooperate?!"

After enduring one of the coldest and snowiest winters on record in mid-coast Maine, we were only too relieved to receive a weather report that promised milder temperatures and sunnier skies for our departure to Australia in early March.  We drove to Boston, spent the night at a hotel near the airport and flew out the next morning to Honolulu with a plane change in Newark.  

It was such a relief to leave the coats, gloves and boots behind and feel the tropical tradewinds caressing our skin.   Listening to a weather report before departing the next morning for Brisbane, Australia, I thought I heard the word ‘blizzard’.  Blizzard?  I must have misunderstood.  I left the ‘blizzards’ behind, didn’t I?  Well, not entirely.  Since the big island of Hawaii has towering mountain volcanoes, blizzards are not only possible, but were predicted for the day ahead.

The flights were all on time and unremarkable, except for their length:  11 hours from Newark to Honolulu and 10 hours from Honolulu to Brisbane.  After another overnight in Brisbane, we reached our final flight destination—Cairns, Australia.  We got in the rental car and drove south to Mission Beach, our first real destination in Queensland.  Along the way, we drove through sugar cane fields, banana plantations, hints of rainforest and mountains.  This area of Queensland is known as the “Wet Tropics” of Australia.  During the 2 hour drive, we had a chance to find out just how wet it is.  We knew that we were arriving during the wet season, but the rain poured in monsoonal torrents, making driving difficult.  Rivers and creeks were running fast and high.  We discovered on the news that night that we had skirted Cyclone Nathan, which had arrived north of Cairns near Cooktown.  Lucky for us, we were going south of Cairns, but still! 

Mission Beach is a small community on the Queensland coast.  It is known for sightings of the endangered bird—the cassowary.  Cassowaries are huge, just a bit smaller than ostriches, and very primitive looking—like holdovers from the era of dinosaurs.  Driving into town and all over town are signs for cassowary crossings, recent cassowary crossings, etc.  The bird’s numbers have been decreasing quickly because of run ins with autos, in which the bird is always the  loser.  We stayed in a little piece of heaven called “Boutique Bungalows”, a small B & B with 3 bungalows.  Each was neat and clean and had a small kitchen. The owners of the B & B, Sharon and Steve, also run an animal rehabilitation facility called “Wildcare”.  Their specialty is orphaned wallabies, but they also care for birds, reptiles, and nearly anything that comes their way.

Cassowarry

Coastal Carpet Python

After serving us a delightful outdoor breakfast the next morning, the baby wallabies were brought out in tea cozy sort of pouches, similar to their mothers’.  We were permitted to hold them for a while, giving them some TLC that they’re missing, due to their mothers’ absence.  They were very placid and relaxed, enjoying the warmth of human contact.  The second day of our stay, we were sitting at breakfast bemoaning the fact that we hadn’t yet spotted a cassowary, when lo and behold, a cassowary walked into the garden.  These birds are very large and very prehistoric looking.  The colors on their heads and throats are beautiful blue and orange, quite iridescent.  This cassowary is a frequent visitor to the B & B and goes by the nickname, “Peanut”.  We also had a chance to hold a Coastal Carpet Python and visit a Papuan Frogmouth (bird) inside the house.  The frogmouth had gorgeous red eyes and a mouth just like a frog, hence its name. 

Papuan Frogmouth

 We left the humid coast for the Atherton Tablelands, a cooler, drier, mountainous area situated west of the Queensland coast.  This area is of volcanic origins, and the soil is very rich.  Agriculture is an important business here, with sugar cane the most abundant crop; banana plantations are second.  Fruit, especially mangoes, corn and veggies are also grown in abundance.  We came here to visit the rainforest and look for birds and animals.  The rainforest now remains in isolated pockets, since agriculture has taken up so much of the land.  We stayed in the rainforest at a lodge and enjoyed waking to the sounds of the birds each morning.  There was good bird viewing, and the owner took time to map out places in the local area for us to visit.

Lumholtz's Tree Kangaroo

The first site was a tea plantation where the rare Lumholtz Tree Kangaroo lives.  A tea factory visitor center employee pointed the way to the trees where the kangaroos live.  We spent time watching them and aiming our cameras in their direction.  Later, we visited the curtain fig tree, an enormous fig vine that overwhelmed a tree and appears to be a waterfall of aerial roots that have grown to the ground.

Curtain Fig Tree

During our stay we received an email from the owners of the next B & B we were to visit, warning us not to come.  This accommodation is in the lowland rainforest of Daintree National Park.  Last week, during Cyclone Nathan, they received over 20 inches of rain in 2 days, causing floods.  The water has receded but the cyclone, instead of moving on and dissipating, has been hanging around, is expected to intensify to a category 4 storm and come back to the Queensland coast later in the week.  So, we cancelled our reservations and contacted another resort on high ground in the Tablelands.  We will be watching the storm to see if our cruise will be impacted, since the cyclone’s landfall will be within a couple of days of our departure and could well be in or near Cairns, the port of embarkation.

                 
So, in the meantime, we spent the time enjoying our new accommodation in another sector of rainforest.  The birds and animals seemed to be more abundant here with sightings of wallabies, pademelons (small kangaroos), parrots, sulphur crested cockatoos and a beautiful buff breasted paradise kingfisher. 

The dreaded cyclone did make landfall in the middle of our stay here as a Category 4.  Luckily for us and for most of the north Queensland coast, it hit the far north, which is very sparsely populated, and it will have no impact on our cruise departure in a couple of days.  We did get some showers as a few outer bands of the storm spun off in our direction.  I should digress a moment to mention how different the weather reporting is in Australia.  After living in Florida where the approach of a hurricane is accompanied by 2 days or so of 24 hour news coverage on local TV stations with ominous sounding music heading the reports and news anchors wearing expressions of anxiety and fear, we were quite stunned that the storm is barely mentioned here.  You have to work really hard to find any information about it.  It’s true that we’re staying in a location with no TV, but we have internet and car radio.  The radio announcer seems to think it’s more important to talk about electricity rates not rising, showers in Tasmania, or the latest scrimmage in Parliament than to mention a Category 4 typhoon slamming into the coast.  Go figure!

  

Rock Wallaby

The day after the storm, we visited a site called Granite Gorge, so called because of the granite boulders strewn all over the area.  We set out on a trail to see the rock wallabies, a separate small species of marsupials that lives among the boulders.  After a few minutes of walking on the boulders, the going got tough.  Huge boulders mixed with small ones and steep uneven areas with crevasses made it seem more like a crawl on all fours at times rather than a walk or hike.  But we persevered and overcame the challenge.  At least we were wearing walking shoes, whereas others were clad in sandals and flip flops.   I don’t know how they made it.  This place was richer in bird life than all the others combined that we have visited.  But we’ve been told that during the wet season, the birds are not as visible.

Laughing Kookaburra and Rainbow Bee Eaters

So, Part 1 is wrapping up now.  We head out to Cairns tomorrow to prepare for our cruise the next day.  More later…..