A Year in Papua New Guinea

View across Stetin Bay from Walindi towards Mount Mululus, a dormant volcano. Check out New Britain on a map. It is divided into two provinces - East and West New Britain. We flew to Hoskins Airport on the western side and were picked up and driven to Walindi Dive Resort an hour to the west. The resort, as the name suggests, caters mainly to scuba divers but has become a popular spot for international birders as an add-on to the traditional PNG tour. There is a number of endemic birds on New Britain and I, of course, wanted to see all of them. Willie Wagtail in the rain. Black-capped Paradise Kingfisher Black Bittern So we arrived on Saturday late morning and were soon settled into our bungalow with views out over the ocean to distant volcanoes. This is one of the nicest lodges we have stayed in with lush gardens full of butterflies and birds, a great lounging area, a rec room, bar and a small pool. Excellent, friendly staff as well. We met lots of people who were here for the diving....

I'm writing this a day or two early as we are currently stuck in Port Moresby airport waiting for a delayed flight home. Just as our flight was due to be boarding the announcement came that it would be delayed by nearly 3 hours. Sadly the two little cafes had shut for the night a few minutes earlier. We've had a very quiet couple of weeks and I don't think I even have a photo for you. I'll make an effort before I post this. Work has been routine with me reviewing papers people want to publish and polishing my training presentation before I rehearse it with a few local colleagues on Monday. The only excitement was this overnight trip to Port Moresby. We are getting close to relaunching the two old journals and my boss (Laurie) wanted to have a preparation meeting with some people in PM so we flew Thursday morning and stayed at the Sanctuary Hotel near the airport. We got to drive to some new bits of PM so that was interesting. Otherwise it was one long meeting and a coup...