EM25 – DISCOVER KAVIENG PACKAGE FOR INDEPENDENT TRAVELLERS 5 nights ex-Kavieng Kavieng is a quiet South Seas town, reminiscent of Honiara, Port Vila and Suva thirty years ago. Quaint Chinese shops, manual pump petrol bowsers and sprawling rain trees typify Kavieng. The harbour is a stunning piece of Nature’s handiwork, a huge crucible holding a soup of tiny tropical islands and brilliant coral reefs. Notable of the accommodation options are the Treehouse Village Eco-Resort, a collection of native-style waterfront bungalows built around the world’s largest inhabited tree house, and the award-winning Lissenung Island Resort, with just a handful of low-impact bungalows on a tiny island. Kavieng and its island-dotted harbour offer diving, swimming and snorkelling galore, canoeing in native dugouts or kayaks, beachcombing, village visits and rainforest nature walks. New Ireland is truly a tropical paradise and its people are inherently friendly and welcoming. This package itinerary may commence and conclude any day of the week. Click here to download a more detailed itinerary for EM25 with prices, list of tour inclusions and trip notes, click here (Adobe Acrobat PDF file)
Treehouse village Eco-Resort Cycling on Bulumiski Highway	GENERIC ITINERARY DAY 1:KAVIENG (TREEHOUSE VILLAGE ECO-RESORT) Arrive Kavieng and transfer to the Treehouse Village Eco-Resort by car (15 minutes) or bicycle (1 hour), according to your preference and the time of day. If cycling, your baggage will be transferred by support vehicle. Spend the rest of today enjoying the quiet village seaside setting at the Treehouse, which has a range of activities available for both the energetic and the jet-lagged. The Treehouse is the world’s largest inhabited tree house and will surely remind you of Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree. www.treehouse.com.pg In the evening you will receive a briefing on local Maimai culture from your host, and hear the history of the Treehouse. Overnight Treehouse Village Eco-Resort (choice of waterfront bungalow or treehouse room), includes all meals.
Local flora and fauna Treehouse village Eco-Resort waterfront bungalow's	DAY 2: KAVIENG (TREEHOUSE VILLAGE ECO-RESORT) Today you will discover part of the east coast of New Ireland, with a choice of exploring on foot, by bicycle or by car. If walking your guide will take you on an interesting foray through mangoves, rainforest and village areas to discover the local flora, fauna and people. If cycling you will ride down the Buluminski Highway for a couple of hours to Fangalawa, stopping at villages en route to meet the locals, have a swim and a snorkel on any beach that takes your fancy, and visit local points of interest indicated by your guide. In New Ireland, there is always something different happening every day like a church fete, a village feast, a wedding, a school sports day, a fishing contest; you never know what you will run into as you cycle along. If you decide to explore by car, you’ll travel down the coast as far as Konos and return. Overnight Treehouse Village Eco-Resort (choice of waterfront bungalow or treehouse room), includes all meals.
Arriving at Lissenung Island Lissenung island waterfront bungalow	DAY 3: KAVIENG (LISSENUNG ISLAND) After breakfast you’ll transfer from the Treehouse by car to the Kavieng waterfront and board an open speed boat for the 20 minute ride to Lissenung Island. Check in to your waterfront bungalow and take a beach walk, a paddle, a swim or snorkel before lunch. There is a pristine “house reef” right on the main beach in front of the resort dining room. In the afternoon, enjoy everything Lissenung Island has to offer. If you ever wondered what it would be like to live on a tropical paradise island… well, this is it! You can walk right around the island in less than an hour, but you’ll have to get your feet wet if it’s high tide. One end of the island has rainforest with a variety of tropical plants and birds, insects and small reptiles (geckos and small lizards) to discover. Snorkelling over the house reef is just as good as on any of the others reef that the Resort takes divers and snorkellers to. And there is plenty of quiet beach with overhanging shady trees where you can curl up for a snooze or to read a book. There are never more than 20 people on the island at a time so while others are out diving you will have the island to yourself. Overnight Lissenung Island Resort (waterfront bungalow, includes meals)
Snorkelling and also meeting up with local's Scuba diving A lucky fishing trip with a catch of Mackerel	DAY 4: KAVIENG (LISSENUNG ISLAND) Today there is a variety of suggested activities to choose from: - a full day of scuba diving or snorkelling with the Resort diving program to one of Lissenung’s great diving and snorkelling spots. If you have your scuba diving ticket, this is your opportunity to do some diving in an exquisite marine environment, otherwise mask and fins are provided for snorkelling over the shallows, or you can be dropped off on the shore of the nearest island for a beach or rainforest walk while your partner dives. - get marooned on a desert island for the day. After breakfast a banana boat from the resort will drop you off at one of the tiny uninhabited islands in the harbour with a picnic hamper and an esky of cold drinks, and you and your partner or travel companion can spend the day by yourselves in complete isolation with plenty of time to soak up the sun and enjoy the water in complete privacy (well… unless any other picknickers turn up on the same island… which is only likely on weekends when Kavieng townspeople go for picnics…) and be picked up late in the afternoon. You’ll be given a mobile phone to take with you in case you want to call for early pickup. - take a fishing trip in one of the resort banana boats: troll a line behind the boat as you chug along at low speed, or bottom-fish in one of the known reef fish hot-spots. Your boat driver knows all the good spots. You can catch-and-release or bring something back for the girls in the resort kitchen to clean and cook for your dinner. Mackerel, trevally, red emperor… it’s all there. - take an exploratory jaunt around the harbour by banana boat, stopping off anywhere you like to take a look around. The Kavieng area is very tourist-friendly and private owners of coastal land and small islands don’t mind if visitors pull up their boat on the beach and have a look around. There is a big map of the harbour in the resort dining room that you can use to help you plan your exploratory route for the day. Note that self-drive won’t be permitted – resort boats must be handled by one of the local boatsmen from the resort. The Kavieng Harbour is a low population area – there are very few boats and few villages and it’s just like discovering the place for the first time. - stay back and enjoy the quietude of Lissenung Island while everybody is out Overnight Lissenung Island Resort (waterfront bungalow, includes meals)
On an exploratory jaunt and meeting up with the local's at the Kavieng waterfront market	DAY 5:KAVIENG (LISSENUNG ISLAND) Another day with choice of activities as above. Overnight Lissenung Island Resort (waterfront bungalow, includes meals)
Departing Kavieng	DAY 6:KAVIENG / FLY OUT Fly out of Kavieng on either the early morning flight or the midday flight. If you book on the 6am flight you will have to rise at 3.30am and depart Lissenung Island at 4am for a night water transfer to Kavieng in order to check in at the airport at 4.30am, so consider the merits of booking on the midday flight out J