Discover your wild side with a journey through eastern Papua New Guinea, a historic and primitive landscape of remote communities and cultures little changed by the outside world.
With a cheer from the crowd surrounding a hut nearly buried in palm fronds, a precaution against the prying eyes of the village’s women, the dragon charges drunkenly into the sunlight and humidity. Its face is the blood-red of the betel nut chewers, its beard a flow of white cockatoo features, and its body a long, winding chain of feet that weave behind, stumbling blindly through the Sepik River mud. As it bursts from its lair and winds its way between towering coconut palms, villagers take turns to whip at the dragon’s brown “feet”, which are really those of the village’s men, who have hidden away for a week building the great beast (while also sampling their homemade hooch), in preparation for this important celebration.
As the dragon passes through thigh-high reeds, the crowd cheers, and children watch on from the shade of stilted huts, saucer-eyed. We din dins, or foreigners, follow at a discrete distance, as respectful as we are wary of the beast’s precarious behind. Finally, at the center of the village, the dragon comes to a halt, and we are officially welcome.
Papua New Guinea is a funny place. Wild and remote, it’s not everyone’s idea of a tropical holiday destination. Its infrastructure is limited, its population tribal, its villages scattered up rivers, perched on mountain tops, or hidden away on pearl-like islands wreathed by coral gardens. Languages, traditions, and mythology change frequently as you traverse the ruggedly beautiful coastline or delve into the deep jungle of the highlands, and little has changed since the first missionaries arrived to find headhunting tribes, wild landscapes, and biodiversity like nowhere else. It was, and remains, one of the world’s last frontiers.
But expeditionary cruise lines are working hard to open the country to tourists, to funnel much needed hard currency into the islands, while changing perceptions of this wild west of the Pacific. We’re visiting PNG aboard the National Geographic Orion, which is the perfect non-cruiser’s cruise ship. Unique in expeditionary circles because of its pioneering levels of luxury, the Orion is intimate and beautifully-appointed. Catering to only 99 passengers – more than most adventure ships but a fraction compared to mainstream cruise liners – she combines the elegance of a private yacht with the durability of a working vessel, complete with an ice-strengthened hull. Guests can lounge in their spacious staterooms – Owner’s Suites come with living spaces and Juliette balconies, perfect for early morning port arrivals – sample fine dining degustation menus and alfresco barbecues under the stars, and even while away their downtime in the outdoor jacuzzi.
However, when the ship comes to port, it’s all action, with zodiacs craned from the top deck and expeditions launched from the transom. Evening debriefs combine cocktail hour with lectures on biodiversity and culture by the multi-talented expeditionary team.
Papua had always been on my personal bucket list, as well as that of my brother, Daniel. Growing up in New Zealand, we had heard all the myths and legends trickling down from this distant Pacific nation and jumped at the opportunity to explore this wild landscape by sea rather than tackling the limited network of often treacherous inland roads. As an expeditionary ship, each day on the Orion features activities and excursions on a fleet of powerful French military-grade zodiacs, including ‘wet’ beach landings, river cruises, and village visits, interspersed with lectures and presentations by a knowledgeable expeditionary team made up of biologists, photographers, and adventurous spirits.
Our first taste of life in PNG on our 11-day cultural odyssey, which departed from Cairns in Australia en route to Rabaul, on the volcanically-active island of New Britain, is Alotau in Milne Bay, one of the few towns along the southeastern coast of Papua New Guinea. Despite its dusty roads and dilapidated markets, it remains a major hub for the hundreds of villages scattered throughout the bay and the off-shore islands. Milne Bay also saw extensive fighting between Allied and Japanese forces, including a decisive victory by Australian soldiers over attacking Japanese marines. A memorial on the town’s serene foreshore is a telling reminder of the soldiers on both sides who lost their lives so far from home.
I follow Papua New Guinea expert Justin Friend into town on one of his fascinating guided walks. A bellowing, towering Australian with a keen eye and a seemingly limitless knowledge of the country, Justin spent many years living in the Highlands, was married to a Papua New Guinean woman, and speaks fluent tok pisin, a lingua franca and the most popular of the 800 sing-song, phonetic-inspired dialects spoken in the islands. His love for PNG and its people is contagious – he can barely leave the port without people yelling out his name with a wave and a smile.
Alotau is best known for its lively markets, where villagers from the province gather to sell produce, carvings, and the most prized commodity of all, betel nuts, which are chewed by virtually everyone in Papua New Guinea, resulting in plenty of teeth and gums stained a bloody red hue. The bright white eyes, dark cocoa skin, and tribal facial tattoos of the stallholders captivate the camera lenses of the Orion passengers and offer a tantalizing first taste of this mesmerizing country.
Expedition cruises are all about these cultural meetings, with opportunities to engage real people, in their ancestral villages, without a tour guide flag or staged photo opp in sight. Exploring Samarai Island, once the pearl of Milne Bay and a popular settlement for expatriates living in PNG, Dan and I follow the sound of laughter and find a gang of gleaming children diving off a jetty. Escaping the oppressive tropical heat, Dan strips down and jumps into the brilliantly clear water to a roar of laughter from the kids and their parents resting in the shade of the nearby market stalls.
At Kitava, in the Trobriand chain, an idyllic archipelago of coral atolls once known by shocked missionaries as the Love Islands because of its unique matrilineal society, we watch school children perform both ancient tribal dances and contemporary interpretations, their feet kicking up the sand as they writhe and wriggle. The faces of these pint-sized warriors are blackened with charcoal and brilliantly-colored parrot feathers dance from their necks and from the tips of their crude spears. Their school chums lie in the sand and giggle, their feet swaying in the air in time with the drums.
Our island exploration continues as the sun peaks above the horizon at Tufi, on the cusp of Cape Nelson. One of PNG’s best-kept secrets, Cape Nelson was created by the eruption of three towering volcanoes, the fast-flowing lava flows from which created a series of unique fjord-like formations called rias that boast depths of up to 90 meters and cliffs that climb vertically 150 meters on each side. At the end of these rias, mangrove forests act as fish hatcheries while the entrances are protected by brilliant coral reefs.
While guests depart for snorkeling at the outer reef, village tours, or hiking through lush vegetation and paddocks of tropical flowers on the Suicide Point walk, Dan and I make for the beach, a slither of paradise fronted by a sun-kissed turquoise lagoon and backed by rolling hills in blazing green hues. Hearing drums beating in the hills behind the beach, we go to investigate and are welcomed into a tiny hillside village overlooking a particularly deep ria. Village elders have gathered to welcome officials from the capital Port Moresby with a traditional ‘sing-sing’, a series of dances and songs which tell the history of the village. Four generations of one family perform the timeless dance steps, their elaborate headgear ablaze with the features of cockatoos, lorikeets, and birds of paradise.
Up the coast, we travel by traditional outrigger canoes for the journey up a shallow river that winds its way through dense jungle. A father and son crew our simple outrigger, dipping their oars into the water with little, well-practiced flicks of the wrists. Both are dressed in traditional loincloths and the bright feathers that wrap their biceps burst into colour as the sunlight punctures the canopy above. The silence of the jungle is deafening until suddenly tribesmen carrying spears attack from both sides in a simulated ambush that has me nearly clambering out of the vessel and into the murky water. The young boy at the bow quietly suppresses a laugh as I rearrange myself on the rather precarious raft with a newfound respect for the early explorers who delved deep into the Papuan jungle, many never to return.
Our cruise nearly over, and our final destination, the volcanic mountain of Rabaul, only a night’s sail away, Dan and I board a dive boat bound for the seas outside the eastern town of Madang, where we plan to discover a local legend. The American B-25 bomber was shot down by the Japanese over 70 years before, crash landing in the sea and settling 30 meters below the waves. For my brother and me, exploring this tangible, hidden piece of history is a truly unique, and humbling, experience. The warm tropical seas of Papua New Guinea have been surprisingly merciful; an inquisitive moray eel now calls the starboard wing home, and delicate lionfish frolic in the bullet hole-ridden fuselage, but the ancient bomber is still in remarkable shape. We dive deep, ducking below gun turrets and taking turns to sit in the cockpit, streams of bubbles dancing up to the surface above. The experience is exhilarating.
I’m sad to be leaving Papua the next day as our charter jet sours into the sky, bound for the civilization of Australia. The past 11 days have been a kaleidoscope of colors, cultures, and encounters that won’t soon be forgotten, but I’m comforted, looking down at the endless jungle, the towering peaks, and winding rivers below, that there is still be plenty of Papua’s wild side yet to be discovered.
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