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