PAPUA NEW GUINEA
EXPEDITION
AN UNMOTORISED CROSSING
18th April 2014
Week 6: Mianmin to Telefomin
After an abnormally long day clambering over mountains, we were ready to rest in the shadow of our recent feat. It was not to be. The river which curved, moat like around this mountain had burst its banks, scuppering our plans for a ‘relaxing’ evening. With no terrain suitable for pitching camp on our bank, we had no choice but to cross, facing the deepest and quickest water of our journey to date. We were both unceremoniously dunked requiring Ishmael to lend a hand to our clumsy efforts. Although we made it across in one piece, our wet bags presented an added challenge to the scrambling that followed; we slipped, stumbled and fell up a stream, eventually reaching our bedroom for the night – an abandoned pig sty.
After our hard earned rest, we woke the next morning and continued further up the steep slopes before reaching a small village with a flat and open path leading away from it. According to the locals, this was a ‘highway,’ an old road that led directly to our next rest point, Telefomin. Whilst not a highway as we would recognise it, this path made our journey infinitely easier. Over the previous three days we had averaged less than 1km/h – with the aid of the highway we covered 14.5km to Telefomin in one day, arriving, gleefully, two days earlier than expected.
Compared to the villages we have most recently stayed in, Telefomin is a hive of activity with a school, police station, a guesthouse and shops with sugary treats that we gorged on. After checking in with the police, settling into the guesthouse with a fire and munching away, we fancied our chances with the school internet connection but, not surprisingly, were unable to access the web.
Whilst revelling in our tech-free time, we are looking forwards to checking in on our fundraising efforts for Child Fund, and reading some of your comments on our updates. The continued messages of support through the sat phone and twitter do just as good a job at helping us to tick off the miles.
Our time in the mountains may be coming to a close but with the final hard leg along the Hindenberg Range about to begin, and our paddling stage in sight, we look forward to arriving in Tabubil and the many more highs that we will no doubt enjoy along the way. We expect the next stage, from Telefomin to Tabubil to take a further 5 days.
Happy Easter.
Rich
[blog called in via AST Satellite Comms]
As I write, we are about to embark on our final arduous stretch of walking the Star Mountains. We achieved our current position in Telefomin remarkably quickly, after stumbling across a disused track, and rapidly expediting progress.
Although we have made phenomenal pace, the most recent stage has not been without its highs and lows.
After writing about Murray so positively in our last post in Mianmin, events unfortunately took a sour turn on our last evening with him. Murray was understandably worried about travelling back to his home in Green River solo through the jungle, and expressed his concerns to us as we prepared to leave the rest point. Understanding his position, we offered to pay for his flight to ensure that he would complete this journey in safety. Flights in PNG are notoriously unscheduled, and often run as and when they are required. With this in mind, Murray was not willing to wait for a flight, conscious of costs that he could incur whilst waiting, and eager to retain all of the wage which we had negotiated for his company. He instead chose to leave in the middle of the night, taking with him one of our sleeping bags, a dry bag and a head torch.
This was not at all the way we had hoped for him to depart, Murray had been good company and an invaluable navigator. Fortunately the items which he liberated from our kit were not irreplaceable, and the loss has not hampered our progress. With the old mantra onwards and upwards in mind, we placed trust in our new navigator Ishmael to lead us up and out of Miamin, reaching mossy, Lord Of The Rings ridges, and climbing to a nippy 2200m on the first day.
As we strung our hammocks in the dank, drizzling first evening, a quick study of our East View Geospatial maps realised the probability that we would be climbing to our highest point thus far, 2369m, the next day. The jungle at altitude is considerably different to that of the valleys and lowlands, and gave us our first respite from the plague of mosquitos, prompting us to build evening fires for warmth.
The following day, after an arduous morning of climbing we reached our high point, the rain continuously and incessantly pummeling down. Despite the stunning views that rewarded our efforts, what goes up must of course come down and we spent the remainder of the day trekking down in to the valley below.