A Year in Papua New Guinea

The forest behind our village has nearly disappeared under the clouds. Since Christmas there has been little rain - just enough to keep things looking green but nothing like the rain we had back when we first arrived. Things began to change a month or so ago however with storms most evenings and the occasional rainy night. Last Monday the wind changed the clouds rolled in and it was actually, almost chilly. Since then it has hardly stopped raining. This is welcome but brings with it some problems. Infrastructure is strained, landslips become a risk and the cooler weather increases the number of fires that people have and increases the number of burns victims presenting at the public hospital in town (according to fellow volunteer Laura who is a nurse in the emergency department there). Our normal view out over the mountains to our south. The same view on Saturday morning. As a birder I know that such a change in season triggers movement by many bird species. We are surrounded by mounta...

Early morning looking south from Loloata Island. Our TCL TV was getting progressively darker - first a strip down the left hand side then regular blanking out and finally a dark strip down the right side as well. I searched online for the manual and ChatGPT eventually told me that the TV was ancient and that I should be embarrassed. I didn't tell it how old my TV is at home. Anyway we came home one evening and there was a shiny new Samsung (a bit smaller but you can't have everything). Thank-you HBS Village! Next job is to get the bedroom aircon fixed. Our ancient, dying TV. We have just had the Easter break in Port Moresby - two nights in town and two at Loloata Island Resort. Unusually for us we do not have to put in a travel insurance claim as all plans worked just fine. On Saturday we went up to Varirata National Park for a day's birding with legendary local guide Daniel Wakra. I've been there before. In 1994 I went on a PNG Bird tour with Rockjumper Birding and we ...