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Once you get away from the main towns of PNG, you will soon start to see examples of simple accommodations used by the locals. Over the centuries, they have learned how to make simple but effective dwellings using the raw building materials that are close at hand.
This village on the outskirts of Wewak had the typical houses perched on wooden 'stilts' a few feet above the ground. In addition to allowing for more cooling breezes to waft through, the floor is also is one further step removed from the various creepy/crawlies! Some houses also put wooden railings around these posts and used it as a fenced off area to store some of their small livestock.
As for the houses themselves, typical construction consisted of various combinations of Pandanus Palm wood floors, thin bamboo rafters and thatched Sago Palm leaf shingles for siding and roof.
Updated Jul 9, 2005
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PNG was a rugged place then and it still is today. In the Sepik River area, the mass of large and twisting rivers and lagoons makes travel by road very difficult, so the dugout canoe is the favoured mode of transportation by the locals. These canoes are also used to sail along the coast and for short hops to the close in-shore islands.
The canoes are made from a large log, which is usually towed to the owners village where the middle part is then gouged out using an adz. The final touches are done by burning the interior to help seal the wood from insects, allowing these canoes to last for about 6 years. Although large canoes are used by the men for their expeditions, women also use smaller ones for early morning fishing expeditions. I spotted this one paddling along the coast not far from Cape Wom.
Updated Jul 6, 2005
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There were some nice beaches along the shores to the east of Wewak Point, including the one where the Windjammer Hotel was located. Also, to the west of town at Cape Wom was another great beach. I saw some nice sized swells coming in during a few of my walks along these beaches. However, because Wewak was not a tourist hot-spot, the beaches were not regularly cleaned and could be a bit littered with debris that had washed ashore from coconut palm trees or just flotsam from the ocean. Nevertheless, the locals were not shy about going in for a dip whenever they felt like it! Being here on business, we usually did not get a lot of free time to just be 'tourists'.
Updated Jul 6, 2005
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There were some nice beaches along the shores to the east of Wewak Point, including the one where the Windjammer Hotel was located. Also, to the west of town at...
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Wewak - Papua New Guinea's Remote Northern Shores!
Wewak is quite a pretty town, located along the palm tree-fringed coastline of East Sepik Province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. I managed to visit here about 5 or 6 times during my...
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