 | Madang Flights and Airline Tips | Tips 1 - 5 of 5 |  |
The easiest and most common way to reach Madang is by aircraft, usually from Port Moresby after about a 1-hour flight over the intervening central mountain ranges of PNG. I travelled that way a few times but the trip I most enjoyed was when I drove overland to Madang by myself in an Elcom Landcruiser.
On that trip, I had to visit all substations in the central mountains to carry out tests at each one. I flew into Mt. Hagen from Port Moresby, where I picked up a Landcruiser for my journey. After performing tests at Mt. Hagen, Kundiawa and Goroka, I spent the night near Kainantu with Elcom friends who worked there. The next day I checked out the Kainantu sub before heading down off the mountains toward the eastern coastal plains. It was on these flatlands that I had to veer off the main sealed Highlands Highway (which went to Lae) and instead took the un-sealed road to Madang. Because this road ran parallel to the Ramu River, which flows out of the mountains and toward the north coast, the trip entailed several fords of smaller tributaries where there were no bridges. It was quite an adventure to be travelling along by myself in this remote part of PNG! The day after finishing work in Madang, I back-tracked on the same road and ended up in Lae for my final tests before flying out from there! A recent (2004) posting on the web by a tourist says "we take the Ramu Highway south out of Madang in a convoy of 15-seater minibuses in various states of disrepair. They are crammed with people, pigs, chickens with cargo on the roofs: bananas, buai (betel nut) and sweet potato. This road to Lae is the only 'interstate' in the country and, despite its extraordinary convolutions and steep pitch in parts, is mostly sealed and in good condition. Once over the tortuous Finisterre Range the road opens out into the vast Ramu Valley. Gone are the coast's omnipresent coconut plantations - this is cattle and sugar cane country".
This photo was taken near Kainantu on a back road that was not in as good a shape as the road to Madang! Leave a Comment Theme: Car/Motor Home |
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One of the unique sights while in Madang is their 7000-strong resident population of Speckled Flying Foxes (Pteropus conspicullatus), a type of giant fruit bat. Known as 'kwandi' by the locals, they get their name from a band of straw-coloured hair around their eyes. Although they have an impressive 4-6 ft wingspan (1.5-m) these bats only top the scales at 1.3-lb (600 grams).
Normally, the bats nest in large 'camps' in the treetops of the forests, but residents noticed them moving into town in the mid-70s. It is not exactly known what caused this, perhaps due to the extensive logging in the forests surrounding Madang. The result is that it is now easy to spot these bats nesting during the daytime high up in the tops of Casuarina trees that are scattered about town. They seem to have learned over the years to stay 20-25 m above ground so as to remain out of effective rock-throwing range!
They do not actually sleep all day long and their high-pitched screeching can be heard as you walk near the trees. However, just before dusk, they get serious and begin their mass migration to the countryside in huge flocks as they seek out their typical food of fruit, flowers, nectar, buds and insects. So many of them take flight at this time of day that the airport has to temporarily suspend operations for safety reasons.
The Spectacled Flying Fox was placed on the 'Threatened Species' list in May, 2002. Leave a Comment Directions: Around Madang |
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Because the Madang coastline lies along a geological fault line at the edge of the Pacific Ocean 'Ring of Fire', the area remains very volcanically active. Visible from the town is the large conical Karkar Island, located some miles off-shore. Further up the coast to the west, the smaller Manam Island erupted in Nov-Dec, 2004 forcing a total evacuation of the island.
From a tourism point of view, one beneficial side-effect of this historical activity is that the seabed has been raised by the various eruptions and earthquakes, resulting in easier diving access to the local coral reefs. Advantage can be taken of this by signing up with the local hotels for reef or wreck dives in the clear waters around a number of smaller islands and reefs located very close to town. If you really want to 'chill out', some of these small islands have guesthouses with boat and canoe rentals! Leave a Comment |
All along the north coast of Papua New Guinea, the locals live in many small villages with simply constructed housing typically looking like these dwellings. Over the centuries, they have learned how to make shelters using the raw building materials that are close at hand. This makes recovery a bit easier following typhoons, tsunamis or earthquakes given the lack of rapid assistance from the central government!
This village on the outskirts of Madang 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, construction consisted of various combinations of Pandanus Palm bark floors, thin bamboo rafters and walls made of lashed central spines of very large Palm leaves. Thatched Sago Palm leaves themselves are used as shingles for siding and roof. Leave a Comment Directions: Anywhere along the coast |
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If you don't feel like getting wet, a nice drive along the coastal roads is a good bet. Situated by a small spit of land sticking out into the Bismarck Sea, Madang is such a scenic spot with its palm-fringed beaches, close-in off-shore volcanic islands and the landward backdrop of the Finisterre Mountain range that it well deserves its reputation as the 'prettiest town in the South Pacific'!
There are opportunities to stop and have a look at some of the local villages or you can take a tour inland to see what all the plantations are about. Leave a Comment |
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on September 7, 2005
