 | Port Moresby Flights and Airline Tips | Tips 1 - 10 of 10 |  |
I did a lot of flying in Papua New Guinea. Because Port Moresby was cut off from the rest of the country by the 14,000-ft high Owen Stanley range, I had to hop on a flight out to some remote power station about every 3 weeks for 2-years running when I was into that part of my job! Overall, I thought that Air Niugini did very well considering the terrain they were working with. A lot of people took a few small glitches to heart, leading to a common expression that someone had been 'tangfued' (a 'Typical Air Niugini F*** U*') when they were stranded somewhere!
We flew into and out of PNG on their Boeing 707s (12 hours in the air for the direct flight to Honolulu). For internal flights I would take the occassional twin-jet Dutch-built Fokker F-28 but more often the twin-turbo prop Fokker F-27. Later on, the F-27s were replaced by Canadian-built de Havilland Dash-7 four-engine turbo props. For those tough flights into really out of the way places, it would be via the world's trustiest bush plane, a de Havilland Twin Otter on one of the private airlines like Douglas Airways or Talair.
I count myself lucky that I never had any bad experiences whatsoever in my time flying all over the country. If anything ever went wrong, you had a landing choice of mountains, jungle or deep ocean!
This pic shows our 707 arriving in Sydney, Australia for our first flight into PNG as we travelled from Canada. Leave a Comment Theme: Airplane |
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My fleet of cars in Port Moresby was not the highlight of my life. I started out within a week of our arrival by buying a real piece of junk - the white 1971 Subaru FF1 seen here. Of course the fact that it only cost me 800 Kina (US$1200) should have been a bit of a tip-off. There were holes in the floor that could be seen through, the clutch did not work so you had to gun the engine to get it synchronized with the transmission for shifting and a few other little odds and ends. Since I was mostly out of town, my wife finally prevailed upon me to go 'upscale' a bit, leading to our purchase of a used blue 1974 Mazda station wagon. It was actually quite a good car, but the engine had a strange rattle to it. Sure enough, several months after we bought it, the engine suddenly seized up while Sue was driving it. Luckily, I happened to pass by in a company car just moments later, while she was sitting there on the side of the road. We pushed it into a nearby garage and I told them to put a new engine in it while I then proceeded to fly out of town for my next assignment. The car worked very well after that!
There was a road system around Port Moresby, so it was possible to drive up into the mountains or up and down the coast in both directions. Between this and just needing the car for driving around the quite spread-out POM area, a working car was essential. Leave a Comment Theme: Car/Motor Home |
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About 1-year into my 3-year contract, we became friends with a great couple from Australia who had just arrived on the scene. Bruce was ex-Royal Australian Navy, so he knew what he was doing when it came to sailing and things mechanical.
Our two families lived only one house apart, our wives became best friends and we both had girls of the same age, so we ended up having many great times together. The best of those were aboard Bruce and Margaret's 26-foot schooner 'Iki Oma'. It was powered by a Volvo-Penta engine and had a great little cabin with a kitchen and sleeping berths. Some of our fondest memories are of nights spent on this boat while anchored at some small island off-shore from POM.
After we returned to Canada, their whole family made a major crossing of the Coral Sea and Solomon Sea in this vessel to reach Rabaul. We still maintain contact all these years later.
Here, the vessel (foreground) is at anchor in Bootless Bay, southeast of Port Moresby, with the typical low hills with scattered trees in the background. Leave a Comment Theme: Ship/Boat |
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When we wanted to see a display of traditional native dancing, we would head for the hills surrounding Port Moresby. Part-way up the highway to the Sogeri Plateau, was the very nice Kokoda Trail Motel, complete with a restaurant/bar and swimming pool.
The children had a good time there and Sue and I enjoyed the cooler airs of the high ground. It was also here that local dancers would put on a traditional Asaro Mud Men show. This custom arose from the Eastern Highlands area near Goroka, where it is said that the men of the Asaro tribe were defeated in a battle with a neighbouring village. In order to redeem their honour, in the customary New Guinea way of 'payback', the warriors covered themselves in mud and wore ominous face masks as they launched a counter-attack. Thinking that they were being attacked by the ghosts of their enemies, the warriors of the other village fled the scene! Leave a Comment |
We were not the only ones enjoying our perch above the waterfront. The locals turned out in great numbers as well and a few of them were up there with us for the view.
Port Moresby was a magnet for people from all over the country. However, because of the several hundred tribal languages spoken in various isolated communities, they needed a common 'lingua franca' so they could communicate with each other. This language was the very ingenious 'pidgin' English, which actually makes some sense if you use it long enough. A few examples:
How much does that cost?
Em i kostim hamas?
(Him he cost how much?)
When will the plane arrive?
Wataim bai balus i kam?
(What time by airplane he come?)
Where are you from?
Yu bilong wanem ples?
(You belong what name place?) Leave a Comment |
Being from the Maritime Provinces of Canada, I have always liked looking around harbours. Port Moresby was no exception, so we paid a visit one day to view two unusual vessels anchored there.
The 22,300-ton 'Fedor Shalyapin' was a Russian cruiseship touring the South Pacific, with its next scheduled stop in Sydney, Australia. She actually began life in 1955 when she made her maiden voyage from Scotland as the Cunard liner 'Ivernia'. When Cunard cut back on the cruise business, she was sold to the Russians in 1973. After a long and illustrious career, this old lady finally came to rest in Ukraine where she languished dock-side for a few years before being broken up for scrap in 2004.
In the foreground of the photo is a famous Tall Ship, the 150-ton 'Eye of the Wind', with her bowsprit sticking out toward the right side. This topsail schooner was originally built in Germany in 1911 as the 'Friedrich' and she has been around the world a few times since then. The 'Eye of the Wind' has also featured in the movies 'Blue Lagoon', 'Savage Islands' and 'The Bounty'. Little did I know that I would run into her over 20 years later at the Halifax, Canada Year 2000 Tall Ships regatta! Completely refitted in 2001, this vessel can accommodate 30 passengers. Leave a Comment |
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These Estuarine Crocodiles are now threatened world-wide, surviving in only a few places like PNG, Australia, India and Southeast Asia. They normally inhabit the coastal waters in river mouths and mangrove swamps but they can also survive further up rivers in fresh water.
Males can grow to about 7-m (22-ft) in length but 4-m is a more common size. As they grow in size, their diet can change as well, from small fish and snakes to barramundi, sharks and even livestock and humans if the opportunity should arise!
Once the keepers of the wildlife farm began tossing out the chickens for feasting, the crocs went wild trying to claim their piece of the action! Note the dry eucalyptus type forest in the background, typical of the Port Moresby area. Leave a Comment |
We were fortunate to be in Port Moresby in June, 1980 when the city hosted the 3rd South Pacific Festival of Arts. This was a major cultural show that drew participants from all over the South Pacific Ocean and Australia.
It kicked off with a huge armada of traditional canoes of all types sailing in to Ela Beach from the Coral Sea. We found ourselves a perch on Paga Point, a narrow strip of land that stuck out from the beach, so we could have a bird's eye view of the activities.
It was quite a sight to see the various colourful sails of the canoes and the many different types of boats. Leave a Comment |
Driving past the harbour toward the northwest, one could access a group of low hills overlooking Port Moresby. We had some great sunset views of the harbour from that vantage point. While there, we were intrigued by these strange-looking plants which dotted the sides of these hills. I thought they were Palm trees of some sort but they are actually Cycads, not closely related to Palm trees at all.
Apparently, this ancient species of seed tree is a left-over from the Jurassic Period of 206-144 million years ago when they grew everywhere. For whatever reason, this species is now close to extinction in the wild. Leave a Comment |
Just on the outskirts of Port Moresby, as you head inland for the mountains behind the city, is the Moitaka Wildlife Farm. This facility carries out research on crocodiles and also has on display a few other animals and birds native to PNG.
Once per week, the crocs in this little pond are fed a meal of chickens. It was quite a tourist attraction, so we decided to check it out one weekend. Here, our two oldest girls are taking a stroll down to the feeding platform as the show is about to begin.
One other thing I remember about Moitaka is that Elcom had a 25 MW combustion turbine generator located near here. With the on-going drought affecting hydro production, power supply for the city was heavily dependent on this machine. One night, after the lights suddenly went out, I headed for Moitaka to see what was wrong. It turned out to be a transmission line fault here caused by a large Python snake that had crawled up a typical steel lattice-type tower and got itself electrocuted when it tried to get across the insulators. I found it lying on the ground beneath the tower - I never would have guessed that snakes would want to crawl up a 60-foot tower! Leave a Comment |
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on June 12, 2005
