A few days' holiday on West New Britain

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. Mainly a big Swedish group but others from Wales, England, Germany, Italy, and Eastern Europe somewhere.


Siberian Sand Plover, Hoskins Airport


Red-knobbed Imperial Pigeon

Singing Starling

For the adventurous they have lots of scuba diving options and a large ocean-going catamaran for multi-day cruises around nearby islands. The main attraction for me was the birding and Joseph and David were the two excellent bird guides. Apart from one day when it rained extensively Jenny and I went out on birding drives or walks to various village, rainforest, grassland and plantation habitats. I managed to see 67 species including 20 lifers. I also added a lifer mammal (Great Flying Fox) and a number of new butterflies, moths and other small bugs for adding to my iNaturalist account.


Eclectus Parrot

Pacific Golden Plover

Stephan's Emerald Dove


Lifer list:


King Quail, White-rumped Swiftlet, White-necked Coucal, Violaceous Coucal, Stephan’s Emerald Dove, Nicobar Pigeon, Knob-billed Fruit Dove, Red-knobbed Imperial Pigeon, Island Imperial Pigeon, Yellowish Imperial Pigeon, Black-capped Paradise Kingfisher, Blue-eyed Cockatoo, Song Parrot, Purple-bellied Lory, Ashy Myzomela, New Britain Friarbird, Bismarck Crow, Long-tailed Myna, Red-banded Flowerpecker and Buff-bellied Mannikin.


Other highlights: 


Moustached Treeswift, Pacific Koel, Oriental Cuckoo, White-browed Crake, Grey Plover, Pacific Golden Plover, Siberian Sand Plover, Swinhoe’s Snipe, Lesser Frigatebird, Black Bittern, Pacific Reef Heron, Osprey, Common Kingfisher, Varied Triller, Shining Flycatcher and Black Sunbird.


Cane Toad

Alcides aurora - a moth.

A Carpenter Bee.

I’ll leave it to Jenny to tell the tale of our journey home. Suffice to say the flight from Hoskins to Lae is 90 mins and it took us nearly three days.


Common Green Birdwing

Citron Bug

So back to work on Monday. On Friday we have International Volunteers Day and are organising an event at work with lots of food, speeches and a quiz on volunteering and PNG-Australia joint history. Three weeks and we fly to Brisbane for Christmas.




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