Papua New Guinea – My final few days and some final thoughts (Aug 20th, 21st, and 22nd)

Emotionally recovering from the remarkable experience at the Mount Hagen Cultural Festival, the last evening, after we flew back to Port Moresby, was spent having a delicious group dinner – though with horrendously slow service – at a local restaurant named “Bacchus.”  Yup – kind of a weird name, given our locale, made even weirder by the painting of a bacchanalian scene on the wall and the piped-in music that sounded like we were all waiting for massages at a spa.

That, though, was countered by how great it was to finally have a hot shower and catch a shave before dinner, and then the company, the conversation, the memories, the laughs, and a small birthday celebration for one of our co-travelers.  To top it all off, her husband figured out how we could stream the FIFA Women’s World Cup final into our private dining room, which was super for the birthday girl since she’d be rooting for Spain over England.

On the morning of August 20th, it was one last breakfast in Papua New Guinea before the 3-hour flight back to Brisbane.  On-board, the woman who had celebrated her birthday the day prior graciously shared some of her raspberry fondant birthday cake with me, her husband, and another co-traveler.  Not to be too cute, but it was a sweet way to end the time in PNG.  Upon arrival in Australia, two folks immediately caught flights back to the States, and the rest of us headed to our local hotel for a final dinner, as most everyone was leaving the next day.

That next day – my last day away – I had a full day to spend in or around Brisbane before catching my flight back home.  Someone had mentioned that there was great whale-watching not far from where we were, so I tracked down the company and made it happen.  It was about a 45-minute drive to the town of Redcliffe – where The Bee Gees grew-up after they moved from the UK to Australia.

It was a gorgeous sunny day, temps in the high 70’s with very scattered clouds.  The cruise out of Moreton Bay was about 90 minutes to just past Moreton Island, which apparently has the tallest sand dunes in the world.  The ocean side of the Island is the Coral Sea.

And apparently that is prime whale-watching territory.  Once we arrived there, we had a spectacular two hours of humpback whales, with three or four pods appearing off all sides of our boat, one or two whales sometimes swimming right in front of the bow of the boat or swimming off the side of the boat.  There was breaching in the distance, tail and fin slapping, and we also were treated to a group of eagle rays and two pods of dolphins as we cruised back into Redcliffe.

It was a helluva way to spend my last day before the 26 1/2 hour trip home that began that evening.

Papua New Guinea is an amazing place.  The chance to get so close to cultures that are so ancient and so close to what they have been since white men first interacted with the local tribes is a remarkable experience, unlike all the experiences I’ve had before.  If you choose to go, do it because you seek that cultural interaction – not for the hotels or for the service or for the food.  Be off the grid for a few days.  See the clothing and the dancing and the face-painting and the singing and learn the ways they spend their daily lives.

I continue to be amazed as to how lucky I am to do trips like these and incredibly grateful for being able to do so. We’ll see when and where I head off to next.

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