Saturday January 11. Muggy.

It was a very easy day for us here. The flights form Cairns to here, [Milne Bay], were short and quick. The planes were as one is used to on short flight but these were 80% empty.

We were in our Hotel Room by 10:00 AM, believe it or not.

Milne Bay is quite a historical name in the annals of war. In WWII Milne Bay was where the Japanese, who had been sweeping down from Manchuria, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malay etc., for a few years were stopped, or beaten for the first time, by Australian and American forces.

Australia is on the doorstep of New Guinea Australia would have been the next step for the Japanese, [or as they were called  after Pearl Harbour, Japs.] We are now politically correct and are back to Japanese.

Fellette and I spent the day lounging and sorting out our now-messy pack-sacks that have been our life-line for the last week. We do have two medium-sized bags with us and the ship was kind enough to allow us to leave two in our stateroom.

The ship is due to come in at 10:00 PM tonight, just down the road a bit. [Or that is what it says in a Ship-tracker site.]

We had a bit of a wander around before lunch when it was very nice out. The hotel property goes right to the shore. There is some flotsam in the water but it appears clean but I would not swim in it. This hotel was built quite a while ago, maybe 30 years [?]. It was well built but is very dated. There certainly will not be tour busses pulling in here and we are 40 Kms from the airport. To the locals, this is a posh place. We have one bath towel between us.

All the staff speaks English, some better than others. Those that deal with the public are excellent and all staff appear happy. I do notice some subserviency to us, to them we are rich as hell, I can sense it. No negative reaction at all though.

I heard from Jim, they will be moored down the road about a K or two, we will be able to see the ship from the hotel grounds. This is not the place to pull our cases down the road side which is beaten flat from walkers and is now mud from the torrential downpour this afternoon.

By the way, the average person does not have a car, scooter or even a bicycle. The method of getting around are lorries acting as people transporters of now vans that pick up and drop off people along the roadway. It reminds us of East Africa in that regard.

We are very happy to be here, the last week has been somewhat stressful regarding jet-lag, airplane flights and that passport thing did not help. We needed this time today to switch gears. Tonight will be the fifth bed in seven nights.

Waving goodbye or welcoming people at our final destination.
Our hotel tonight.
Waiting room for ALL flights at Port Moresby.
Off we go, down the ramp, rain or shine.

No comments:

Post a Comment