We’re up at 5am to take
the hotel bus to Sydney
airport. We’re overloaded and expect to have to pay the excess. Even our cabin
bags are extremely heavy. Going business class is great, no extra charges and
you get called onto the plane first so there’s no jostling in the queue.
We stop long enough at Brisbane to get out and stretch our legs, and The Man points
out some of the air-bridges he helped to build when he was doing temp work in
Lower Hutt Then it’s on over the Coral Sea towards New Guinea. We both feel like kids
off on a big adventure. Below, the Great Barrier Reef
meanders lazily, like a kid’s squiggly drawing.
Port Moresby, what a shock! All the hills around
the city are very brown and barren, with big burned patches everywhere. It
looks like a war zone. The heat and humidity here is like walking into a hot
steamy bathroom. We clear customs quickly. They aren’t interested in our
cameras, just the amount of brandy we have, and The Man's fishing rods. The previous flight to Madang has been
delayed, we’re just able to get onto that rather than having to wait five hours
for our booked flight. It’s a bit of a
rush but we make it onto the plane. Moresby
Airport looks dirty and
overcrowded and doesn’t have air-conditioning, and only some of the ceiling
fans are turning, not creating enough breeze to cool anybody. The Air New
Guinea hostess makes her announcements in Pidgin then in English. We harim (listen) to her tok save (announcement) and pasim (fasten) our sia (seat) let (belt). Nau dispela balus I kirup, na igo igo long
Madang. (Then the plane took off for Madang)
Flying via Goroka to set
down and pick up passengers we were relieved to see the starkness of Moresby
give way to tropical green. We flew on above meandering rivers and high peaks, then over a the huge
Finestere Mountain Range, to descend across Astrolabe
Bay into Madang.
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