Papua New Guinea

Well we've finally made it, after about 1 1/2 years of planning we have arrived here in the Frontier of Papua New Guinea.  It is a beautiful but rugged country with a lot of diversity.  Not a lot of roads either, making air travel a must to many places (unless you want to hike for a month).  This is usually good but also makes things quite expensive.  The climate here is something to get used to, It rains about 4 times a day, and just when you think it can't rain harder it does.  They get about 6-7 meters of rain per year!!  The temperature has been pretty warm, never lower than about 20 and than goes up to the low 30's during the day (but feels a lot hotter with the humidity in the 95% range).  The place here is quite nice, right on a river where frequent dips are needed to stay cool.  We have a couple more weeks here in Rumginea and than off to Madang for 11 or so days.  

C

In the land of OZ

 

 

It’s been good to be in Australia. A lot cooler than the last place, especially at night. We’ve camped a couple of nights in our little shelter and have been fairly cozy. This week, we took our open water scuba diving course. It’s a little unnerving. It’s a good thing they make you practice everything in shallow water before they bring you down for a dive. Once we actually got out to the Great Barrier Reef, it was good and I felt confident.

We had an awesome first dive actually. First off, we saw dolphins alongside the boat as we went along. Then there was a whale about 100 feet from the boat while we were hanging out on the surface. Underneath we saw tones of amazing fish and coral. We also saw a manta ray, and a sea turtle.

Sea life is so diverse from everything else. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been in or around the sea that much, but I find it fascinating! We’re going to dive again tomorrow!

 

~R