 Papua New Guinea Eco-tours |
EM20 ECO-TOUR
PACKAGE TOUR ITINERARY PAPUAN GULF ART TOUR |
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PNG SHOP
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Day
1: Monday Arrive Port Moresby on: |
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Ecotourism
Melanesia will meet you at international arrivals and assist you
to transfer to the domestic terminal to board Air Niugini (Air New
Guinea) flight PX126 to Wewak, departing 1540 arriving 1745 (via
Madang). On arrival in Wewak the Windjammer Beach Hotel courtesy bus will meet you and transfer you to check in at the hotel. After dinner, our local tour guide will meet with you and brief you on some important aspects of local culture before you visit the highly ritualised Sepik River area. Overnight Wewak (Windjammer Hotel). |
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Day
2: Tuesday After breakfast your local tour guide
will call for you and transfer you to the Wewak waterfront where a
motorised canoe will be waiting to take you on a 40 minute ride across
Wewak Bay to Muschu Island where you will check in at the Sup Village
Guest House. Muschu is an extremely pretty island consisting of tropical rainforest surrounded by beautiful white sandy beach. There are several small villages on the island. You can spend the rest of the day exploring the island, relaxing in the shade or undertaking water activities. There is good snorkelling just off the waters edge, with a great variety of fish among the hard and soft corals, good fishing and the chance of catching lobsters at night. |
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Motorised canoes (with driver) are available for hire if you would like to try your hand at fishing or snorkelling over the reef further out from shore. Accommodation, meals, walking, swimming and snorkelling on Muschu Island are included in your tour. The Sup Village Guest House offers simple but comfortable accommodation in traditional village style huts and island-style food featuring plenty of seafood and fresh vegetables. Overnight Wewak (Sup Village Guest House, Muschu Island). |
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Day 3: Wednesday After an early breakfast a motor canoe will transfer you back to Wewak waterfront where a car and driver will be waiting to drive you approximately 3 hours (on a good sealed road) to Angoram, the main town on the lower Sepik River. At Angoram riverfront a motorized 40 ft canoe and river guide will be waiting for you. You will motor up the Sepik a little way and then branch off up the Keram River to Chimondo village. Here you will visit the cultural centre and be entertained with a small sing-sing and be shown around the village. There will be plenty of opportunities to purchase fresh fruit and other local foods in the village.Overnight Lower (Kambot Village Guest House) |
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Day 4: Thursday After an early morning rainforest walk to see native mammals, the shy cassowary and possibly birds of paradise, your canoe will take you back downstream to Angoram. A car will be waiting to transfer you back to Wewak, arriving in time to check in for Airlink flight ND459 Wewak to Madang departing 1420 arriving 1515. Madang Resort Hotel will meet you on arrival at Madang Airport and transfer you to check in at the hotel. In the late afternoon, enjoy a stroll along the Madang waterfront and coastal reserve. Madang is a quiet, safe town that is very visitor-friendly. Overnight (Madang Resort Hotel). |
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Day 5: Friday At 8am our local tour guide will meet you at the hotel reception. You will spend the day exploring Madang town and district, beginning with a visit to the historical Alexishafen Mission, the Bilbil pottery village, and the Balek Wildlife Sanctuary and sulfur caves where parts of the Robinson Crusoe movie were filmed, finally arriving at Ohu Village in time for lunch. Ohu is the home of a Butterfly Conservation Area where huge birdwing butterflies will alight on your hands and head and a large variety of bird life can be observed at close range. |
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At Ohu you can walk between village houses and through
light rainforest to reach the 100m Dumeh waterfall where you can stand
under the sparkling forest water to cool off and enjoy some impromptu
entertainment from the village children who will of course escort you
everywhere you go, keen to show you their patch. Late in the afternoon your guide will drive you back in to Madang town to view the daily flying fox migration at sundown (an amazing sight) before dropping you off at the hotel. Overnight Madang (Madang Resort Hotel). |
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Day 6: Saturday Early check in for Airlink flight ND100 from Madang to Goroka, departing 0730 arriving 0755. Our local tour guide will meet you on arrival and take you for breakfast at the Bird of Paradise Hotel and arrange for safe storage of your luggage for the day. From Goroka it is a scenic one hour drive by four-wheel drive vehicle along the Highlands Highway and a bumpy feeder road to the Henganofi District. Here you will be able to visit a bona fide traditional village where people live subsistence lifestyles. The village women’s group will be your host for the morning, showing you around the village, inside their houses, and demonstrating their methods of cultivating vegetables in the garden, and local cooking techniques. |
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This
will culminate in a highlands-style lunch served in the village meeting
hut. In the afternoon, your guide will drive you back through Goroka and out the opposite direction up the steep winding highway to the majestic Daulo Pass with its stunning high-altitude plant diversity. There will be many photo opportunities here. You will return to Goroka town by 1600 hrs so you can collect your luggage from the Bird of Paradise Hotel before checking in at the airport for Air Niugini flight PX963 departing Goroka 1730 and arriving Port Moresby 1840. (Highlands artifacts, bilum bags and other handicrafts are available for purchase from a small market near the Bird of Paradise Hotel.) |
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On arrival at Port Moresby airport the Gateway Hotel courtesy vehicle will meet you and transfer you to the hotel. The Gateway is a pleasant mid-range hotel with two restaurants and room service; the pizza is very good. Overnight Port Moresby (Gateway Hotel). |
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Day
7: Sunday The hotel will
transfer you to the airport at 6am to check in for Airlines of PNG
flight CG382 to Tufi in the
Northern (Oro) Province, departing 0720 arriving 0855 (via two other
stops). On arrival at Tufi’s grass airstrip you will be met and
transferred to the Tufi Dive Resort, which boasts excellent boutique
accommodation and stunning views of Tufi’s Nordic-type fjords. The breathtaking topography is dominated by some 25 fjords which penetrate deep into the coastal landscape. Many of the fjords feature sheer basalt clif. |
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numerous white sandy beaches perfect for swimming, and pristine fringing reefs offer excellent snorkelling. The water clarity is stunning and scuba diving is a major attraction for visitors to the area. After lunch the Tufi Dive Resort will offer you a choice of activities including a scenic boat ride along the coast, snorkelling over stunning living reefs, paddling a kayak along the length of a fjord, or hiking along the spurs between fjords. (Scuba diving in the afternoon or night is available if you have your diving ticket and insurance). Overnight Tufi (Tufi Dive Resort). |
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Day 8: Monday After breakfast a village canoe will call for you and transport you down the coast to a local village where you will spend a day and a night soaking up the colourful and unique culture of the Tufi area. The people of the Tufi area have a rich cultural heritage that is nurtured and treasured. One of the most memorable experiences for visitors is witnessing a sing sing featuring bare chested dancers with intricate facial tattoos, adorned with traditional tapa (bark) cloth and spectacular coloured feather headdresses. Village people in the Tufi district are experienced at hosting visitors in village guest houses for hiking, fishing and skindiving experiences. |
| Hiking of moderate difficulty can be enjoyed in the
Tufi area at a leisurely pace. On arrival at the village your hosts will walk around the village with you, introducing you to local families and giving you the opportunity to sit and talk with people. You will be invited inside people’s houses and shown around their vegetable gardens to see how local foods are cultivated. As lunchtime approaches you may observe your hosts as they prepare lunch, simmering the morning’s harvest of garden vegetables in freshly squeezed coconut milk, and throwing in a whole lobster from last night’s catch almost as an afterthought… lobsters are more abundant than tinned fish around here |
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| After lunch your hosts will accompany you as you paddle your own outrigger canoe up one of the fjords, taking in the breathtaking beauty of the sheer basalt cliffs of the fjord and stopping off to swim and snorkel on the numerous coral reefs that inhabit the fjord area. At one point you will be able to paddle up a freshwater stream, under the shade of the jungle canopy, to a beautifully cool waterfall where you can sit and relax under a refreshing cascade of water. Swimming, snorkelling, paddling, beachwalking and shell collecting will occupy you for the rest of the day (either that or some serious snoozing in the shade of a tree on the water’s edge in front of your bungalow, coconut drink in hand…) | |
| In the evening a full-scale sing-sing will be performed for you in the village, with various dancing groups of men, women and children competing against each other for the approval of the visitors (you). It is likely you will retire for the night long before th singing and dancing ends. Your village guest house offers basic accommodation with clean bedding & mosquito net, outdoor bathroom and toilet. Overnight Tufi (village guest house). | |
| Day 9: Tuesday This morning the village boys will accompany you on a hike (or not, if you would prefer to do something else). The length and difficulty of the hike will be up to you: it can be as little as 30 minutes to a birdwatching area, an hour’s climb to 360 degree views from a hilltop village, or a half-day hike beginning with paddling across the fjord to a neighbouring village and hiking around the bluff and back via an inland route. After a final lunch with your hosts you will be transferred by motor canoe back to Tufi Dive Resort as early or late in the afternoon as you wish, and certainly in time for a sundowner at the bar as you watch the changing colours of dusk over the fjords – magic ! Overnight Tufi (Tufi Dive Resort). | |
| Day 10: Wednesday Airlines PNG flight CG379 lifts off from Tufi airstrip at 0735 arriving Port Moresby 0855 via Wanigela, (although sometimes this flight is rescheduled later in the day if the aircraft is needed for charters earlier in the morning). On arrival in Port Moresby you will be met by the Gateway Hotel courtesy vehicle and transferred. After lunch, Ecotourism Melanesia will call for you and take you on a personalised tour of Port Moresby by private car including a drive around the city, a visit to the national museum, parliament house (if open) and botanical gardens. | |
| At your request our guide
will also be happy to take you artefact or souvenir shopping – there
is an excellent range of artefacts and handicrafts from all over
PNG available at the PNG
ART warehouse - and help arrange for shipping of any larger items you
would rather not carry home with you. Overnight Port Moresby (Gateway
Hotel). Day 11: Thursday The hotel will transfer you to Port Moresby airport to check in for flight PX003/QF350 to Brisbane departing 0700 or PX090/QF384 to Cairns departing 0925 |
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| INTERNAL FLIGHTS PX126 POM WWK 1540/1745 (via Madang) ND459 WWK MAG 1420/1515 ND100 MAG GKA 0730/0755 PX963 GKA POM 1730/1840 CG382 POM TFI 0720/0855 CG379 TFI POM 0735/0855 |
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| TOUR
INCLUSIONS
• all hotel airport transfers specified in the itinerary • one night accommodation at Windjammer Hotel, Wewak 1 night (standard room, room only, twin share) • briefing on Sepik culture by tour guide in Wewak • transfer to Wewak waterfront and boat to Muschu Island • accommodation and meals at Sup Village Guest House on Muschu Island • road and water transport from Wewak to Kambot and return • overnight accommodation and meals at Kambot village • guide, canoe driver and all site fees and entry fees for Kambot trip • two nights accommodation at Madang Resort Hotel (standard room, room only, twin share) • day tour, lunch and guide for Madang day trip as specified in itinerary • day tour, lunch and guide for Goroka as specified itinerary • two nights accommodation Gateway Hotel (premier room, room only, twin share) • two nights accommodation with meals at Tufi Dive Resort • one night accommodation with meals and sing-sing performance at local village, Tufi • village-based activities and hiking at Siu Village or Jebo Village, Tufi • motor canoe transfers from Tufi Dive Resort to Siu Village or Jebo Village and return • half day tour / shopping trip in Port Moresby by private car with driver/guide |
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| TOUR EXCLUSIONS: •bar drinks, telephone calls and items of a personal nature • meals at Windjammer Hotel, Wewak • meals at Madang Resort Hotel • breakfast and luggage storage fees at Bird of Paradise Hotel, Goroka • meals at Gateway Hotel • scuba diving and chargeable activities at Tufi Dive Resort |
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| SPECIFIC TOUR NOTES: |