Jo (anne) vs the Volcano

When you come to visit PNG, you don't come to visit Port Moresby. Sure, you can go to Duffy and have their eggs benny, check out the amazing new exhibition at the Museum (seriously, it is awesome), maybe even check out a flick at Vision City (yes, we still think that's cool). But all every visitor really wants is to get out of PoM and see the real PNG - the Provinces.

Jo had already experienced all of the above in the space of a week (how lucky is she?) so it was time to hop a plane and head north to East New Britain. I am pleased to inform everyone that Air Niugini didn't let us down. Jo got a true PNG experience at the airport - complete with the system being down (how's a handwritten boarding pass for a souvenir?) and the traditional flight delay.

Thankfully though they were (following my definition) 'on time' (my definition: If Air Niugini gets you to the place you want to go on the day you want to go there, the flight is 'on time') and we arrived in Rabaul on Friday evening.

Saturday morning we set out to explore. We went into Rabaul to check out the tunnels. These are pretty amazing. The Japanese built them when they occupied the area in WWII. They had a series of tunnels at sea level which they used to unload supplies from their submarines and boats (sneaking the sub in the tunnel at high tide then unloading at low tide and the allies would be none the wiser). They also had a series of tunnels up higher on the cliff to help them spot and shoot planes.

We got to have a bit of fun crouching through the tunnels, and the Japanese troops had an awesome view.

It also proved the old adage that there really was light at the end of the tunnel...

We then kept with the lofty heights and headed towards town to get a birds eye view of Rabaul harbour.

Two cute little volcanoes really just make you want to break out into the Lava Song. Now keep in mind the volcano on the right sank the town of Rabaul under an estimated 4 meters of ash back in 1994 when she got a little cranky. In turn, the town moved down the road to Kokopo, though a lot of people have moved back (as you can see in the picture). Fittingly, this photo was taken from the spot where the Rabaul Volcanological Observatory observe the volcano.

Town was pretty packed on Saturday, with everyone lining the main road.

Rabaul was celebrating the Frangipani festival, which is turns out involved a parade. Not a crappy Cairns Festival parade (nope, not over that yet), but an awesome parade, which our car decided to gate crash. We ended up IN the parade. This was my view out the back of the car.

There was a common theme to the floats, with the volcanoes featuring heavily.

Though, there were some floats that seems to be trying to win the award for the largest number of people on the float at any one time.

We headed out over towards the volcanoes to check them out up close. Despite the fact that I was that close to an active volcano, with someone named Jo, I resisted the urge to throw her in as a ritual sacrifice (If you don't get the reference, we can't be friends anymore). If you look closely you can see the steam coming out. Her most recent eruption was only a few months back).

The volcanoes come complete with some hot springs, where you can even go and watch the locals cook megapod eggs.

Next up was the New Guinea Club, which is now a quasi museum of Rabaul's history. It has some of it's own WWII history....

This guy summed up my thoughts on that...

Outside is a Japanese bunker. The most amazing part of the bunker (where Admiral Yamamoto ate, slept and strategised during his time there in WWII) is the map room, where there are still Japanese hand drawn maps of the New Britain's and New Ireland provinces and Bougainville.

We had missed the post-parade sing sing, which disappointed me a little, as I'd been hoping to see a duk duk. later in the day, we were driving along the road after having been up at a lookout and guess what happened to be strolling down the street? Everyone in the car got excited, and as soon as we wound down the windows he rewarded us with a dance on the side of the road.

After a great day on Saturday we got up on Sunday looking forward to a big day out on the water. It started out as a lovely day.

Little did we know the ride would be a hairy one. Jo was okay, she likes roller coasters. Me, I like the little kiddie rides at Disneyland, not Space Mountain! There is no photos from the trip to and from the island. Mostly because it was not possible to hold the camera, and hold on to the boat for dear life at the same time. I managed to compose myself enough for a pic of the island (we were in calmer seas at this point).

If you want to visualise the ride, picture the opening credits of Miami Vice crossed with an episode of Deadliest Catch. At the same time, you have a high pressure fireman's hose filled with seawater pointed directly at your face for twenty minutes. Twice on the trip home the boat started to roll like it might capsize. You know when the locals on the boat look nervous that you need to start to worry.

The snorkeling was amazing though. Lots of fishies, even a shark! Sadly, they hadn't checked the tides, and it was too low to get to the island itself, which meant we needed to jump in from the boat, which was fine. Problems came getting back into the boat (which was not designed for mid ocean boardings). We both have some great bruises to show for our efforts getting back on board.

Back at the resort, we were happy to be back on solid ground. Nature however still wanted to mess with us and chose that moment to throw an earthquake or two into the mix (just to keep us on our toes).

Facing down a 6am flight back on a Monday morning (anything for solid ground at this point), we settled in for a drink and a sunset over the volcano, all in all pleased that it didn't decide to make the weekend anymore exciting than it had already been.

Playing Tourist

Usually when I have a weekend in Cairns it is focused around stocking up at the shops, running errands and eating. But given this is a tourist town it seems wrong to not every now and again join in the fun and pretend to be on holidays (even if it is just for the day).

So how did my attempt at playing tourist play out? Well it started with sadness. We all know that when it comes to eggs benedict I am a connoisseur. I am still recovering from an incident a few weeks back at home when I was served hollandaise sauce that was simply clumps of butter (yup, Duffy Cafe missed the mark that week) so I had high hopes stepping into a familiar Cairns cafe on Saturday morning. Sadly, though, we are on tough economic times where the volume of sauce needs to be scaled back. This was the saddest eggs benny I think I have had in a long time. If I wanted poached eggs on salmon I would have just ordered that....

As it turned out, Saturday was also the start of the Cairns Festival. So, on Saturday night I toddled off the esplanade to watch the parade. 

Now the parade was...interesting. It started with groups of school kids in uniform riding bikes, which left me pondering what kind of parade exactly this was. Eventually the floats started to arrive. There was a theme of multiculturalism. Which, as you can imagine, led to awesome displays by groups like the PNG Wantok association, and the Indonesian association of Cairns. There were some interesting interpretations of the theme though. Like the school that just whacked up a hills hoist and put flags on it...

 Or the radio station that went full Australian...

The list of groups in the parade were eclectic to say the least. There were the home schooled children who dressed up as insects (clearly art and craft is a significant part of the curriculum).

There were wheelchair athletes pulling their float (impressive).

There was also a marching band dressed as minions playing Pharrell's "Happy" on repeat, roller debry demonstrations, cos play clubs, dog adoption groups, swimmers wearing sting ray shaped hats and beauty queens. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Miss Ellis Beach Surf Club, blowing bubbles to her loyal subjects.

The night was capped off with a fireworks show over the water, which I freely admit is the only reason I stuck it out.

On Sunday I went all out playing tourist, catching the Kuranda Scenic Railway up to the rainforest. It was a leisurely ride up the mountain, learning all about the construction of the railway in the late 1800s, and the many uses they found for it through the war. Turns out most of the suburbs between Cairns and Kuranda are named after the nicknames the workers had for the foremen on those sites (and not all are flattering).

The ride took us past Barron Falls, where the train stopped for 10 minutes and we all got to get out and stretch our legs.

When I got to the village I decided to hit up the wildlife sites. First stop - the Butterfly Sanctuary.

This place is amazing. Tons and tons of pretty butterfly's in a small habitat that are in no way afraid of you. In fact the only thing to worry about is making sure you don't hurt one that decides you look like a nice place to land.

Next stop was Birdworld. 

Here you basically walk into a giant aviary with a bag of food and hand feed the birds. There are a group of Macaws which are the only birds you are not supposed to feed. The parrots however know that humans mean food and they will come and sit on your shoulder demanding to be fed. they are so "friendly" to the humans that they ever make you remove your earrings, because apparently they will try to take them if you are not fast enough with the food!

Next door to Birdworld are the Koala Gardens.  These guys probably have the biggest group of koalas on display that I have ever seen in a zoo. There were about 10 the day I was there. All, in typical koala style, very sleepy.

For a few extra bucks you can 'cuddle a koala' and get your picture taken. Given the last time I held a koala I was a very small child (and only know that it happened from the pictures in that lovely pink velour tracksuit) I jumped at the chance. Koala's are heavy, and clingy. It will cling to you like a tree branch, and those claws are SHARP. I still have scratches on my shoulder a week later.

After a thorougher hand washing (Koala's are great carrier of chlamydia) I went to check out the other animals hanging out in the Koala Gardens. There were kangaroos that you could hand feed, and there were wombats!

There was also a reptile room. This wasn't like a normal zoo reptile room where there is a lovely glass box between you and the snakes and spiders. These guys were free range.

I was out of there pretty quickly.

There was a small market outside the Koala Gardens where they had all manner of traditional North Queensland souvenirs. Who could go home without buying a new fridge magnet?

Or perhaps you were looking for something to place on your mantle or bar?

Maybe what you really needed was a new bottle opener. One with balls...

I had read in the pamphlet they gave us that there was a great pie shop in Kuranda, which I managed to track down. The theme of marketing poor skippy to the tourists continued there as well...

After lunch I did a spot of shopping. The models in the hat store were a little different.

I also pondered if the owners of this Aboriginal art store understood the irony of the building that they were tennated in - or if that was a f*** you to the first settlers.

It was time to head back down to Cairns. And this time the mode of transport was the SkyRail. This is basically a canopy ride over the top of the rainforest.

This was the view back over the Barron River.

And the view of Cairns as we approached.

Back in town that evening I decided to head to the library after dark, where there was an illuminated presentation happening. It was a story of summer rain, and the way the ecosystem reacts.

With that, it was up very early the next morning to make the trip home. And a week later, I am still pondering the presence of these dinosaurs in the main street...