Volcano

Today has been great. This was our spare kind of day so we started to walk into town (1.5km) when we were offered a lift by an old guy in a toyota crew cab. He spoke great english so we said yes. He turned out to be the mayor and a big all things english fan. We drove slowly (good as his windscreen was covered in cracks) and he told me about all the major things happening in Rabaul and his plans for the place, hes opening the new market here tommorrow. Everyone we meet already seems to know who we are, where we are staying and what we're doing, Rabaul really doest get many visitors. Anyway we thanked him and walked up to the volcano observatory, lots of
beautiful gardens, plants ect. Got to the observatory which is 4 prefabs and a big ariel with great views over the town and both volcanoes (one each side of town). It is not really open to the public, so we just took the view in. Then, as it started to rain a chap came out saw us and got the head of the station to come and say hello. He was an english expat who was great. He showed us round (banks of 1950's sizemographs) and told us that 11km cubed of magma is under our hotel, but that at the moment its fine. He had done a bit of caving and just recieved last septembers Nat Geo magazine which had dave gills PNG cave article in so was really interested. Wants us to give a talk to the Rabaul History Soc on the way back through.Then did a walk up an extinct volcano behind the observatory. Very thick bush. Good jungle training. Saw lots of big butterflys, praying manitis, birds of prey, strange plants and no one else. After a few hours our water supply was low so we headed down and got a coke in town. Then used a PMV (guy with a van) to take us 30km to the new capital to use the bank and arrange stuff. Driving a bit scarey but lots of helpful guys on the van, one who had been to palmalmal our next stop who said its great and has a shop. Drank a coconut which was nice. Had dinner with the owner and some other expats. Conversation was all about making your gold ore higher quality, shooting raskals (robbers) in Port Moresby and other informative things. Off on the boat to Palmalmal tommorrow, dont know if will be able to email much, definitely nothing for a few days until I reach the sat phone.

See yer
Andy

Port Moresby

Hi Folks
We got into Port Moresby very early yesterday. It is nearly 30C and the whole town is covered in flowers (hibiscus, bouganvillia, frangipani, ginger) and smells lovely. The hotel was great and only charged us for one night. Hotel surrounded by barbed wire and were told not to leave the compound. Ulrich couldnt get any cash at the airport so we had to go into Port Moresby centre to get cash which I was not happy about. I got the hotel to drive us and convinced the driver to wait right outside and not drive off. In the end it was fine and we got to see a bit of PM which is like Exmouth but with flowers and coconut palms, didnt feel scarey at all. Flew to New Britain today via a suprise stop over in Bouganvillia Island. Rabaul is great and this hotel is lovely, no barbed wire, great food and a hugh room. We are right under the volcanoes one of which is venting lots of smoke, which looks impressive. We went into whats left of the town (most of it was bureid in 6m of ash in 1994) and bought food for the boat trip to Palmalmal on Friday. It was a great place, quite busy and a contiuously people were saying hello and Good afternoon sir at us. The fresh food market was great. We bought tiny bananas which taste so good, much sweeter than home and they cost 1p each (bought 20). Tomorrow I will be mainly eating coconuts and pawpaws. Lots of people chewing beetlenut which I have been warned off. We arranged our ship schedule for friday at the shipping company so thats sorted. Might pay a bit more for a cabin rather than the deck as the volcano is blowing smoke the way we are going so any rain on the deck will be acid (learn this and lots of top tips from a gold mining engineer whos staying here). Tommorrow we are going to be tourists and walk up to the volcano monitoring centre ( no where near the active volcanos) then go to Kokopo to the bank (the new capital rebuilt 20km away from the volcanos). In Kokopo they still use shell money for small items so quite fancy using some of this. Picked up an info note from the others cavers that they left for us, so all in all its great and running smothly.

Cheers Andy

Am now in Singapore

I'm in Singapore and have just sorted out boarding passes for the next leg to Port Moresby. Ulirich (the guy I'm meeting here) has already picked his up and I've got a seat next to him, but havent got to the gate yet where I guess we will meet. Managed to use my CC to phone and confirm with the hotel in Port Moresby that they got my reservation and they will pick us up. I though Kuala Lumpa airport was big, but singapore airport is massive. I might go and visit the cactus garden in a minute....... KL claims to be the best airport in the world, but in my mind that title firmly belongs to St Marys (Isles of Scilly) terminal 1.Malaysia appears to be covered in Oil Palm plantations. They strecth all round the airport and from the air just go on and on. Quite unbelievable. Useless KL fact; It now has the biggest hotel in the world (6100 bedrooms). Has beaten the big one in vegas. It is advertising everywhere and its big draw is.................Cliff Richard is playing some dates there!
Bye
Andy

PS I forgot my watch, so bought one. Glad I did as they are pretty much essential! Took a while to find a non gold jewel encrusted one.

The speleo hammock