First glimpses of Scotland

When I flew into Scotland, we were above the clouds, so it wasn’t until we got low enough below the clouds as we were arriving that I caught my first glimpses of Scotland on this trip, and obviously I saw a lot more in the ensuing two weeks! Anyway, here are just a few of the photos I took from the plane as we were coming in to land. I wish I could tell you what little villages or townships we can see in the photos, but I don’t know either!

Flight to Canada

Well I made it to Canada safely. My first flight was Melbourne-Los Angeles, then another flight to Toronto. We had two meals on the Qantas flight to LA, but on the American Airlines flight, you had to purchase a meal if you wanted to eat, so I didn’t bother as I had bought something to snack on at the airport in LA.

Here’s a couple of photos of my meals on the plane to LA.

Four cheese ravioli in a wild mushroom sauce, carrot and cherry tomato salad, fig and honey rice pudding, roll and butter, Boost chocolate and Jila mints.

Breakfast was bacon and zucchini frittata with pork sausage, baked beans and Roma tomato, and the extras were fruit salad, orange juice, passionfruit and raspberry muffin, and a cup of tea.

Scenes from my flight to Buka

I’m back in Buka now and off to the village tomorrow for two weeks. We flew from Lae to Buka on Monday, via Rabaul. I was at the window seat on the flight from Lae to Rabaul, so here are some photos that I took.

Lae

Islands and reefs

Thank you Air Niugini!

Travelling home (post by Bill & Liz)

Our time with Julie in PNG has come to an end. We said goodbye to Julie at The SIL centre and went to Madang airport to wait for our flight to Port Moresby. But PNG hadn’t finished with us yet.

Madang airport terminal building.


Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11.30, but was delayed, delayed and delayed till nearly 17.00, due to aircraft being unserviceable.

Madang airport is not the most comfortable place to wait 7 hours in, no air conditioning, and hard wooden seats. We did get to see Julie’s small plane take off from another part of the airport at 15.30 returning her to Ukarumpa.

Inside Madang airport.


Well we finally got away from Madang just before 17.00, but our onward flight to Cairns left at 17.00 so we were definitely going to miss it. Air Niugini did arrange accommodation for us at Loloata island Resort, which was a 20 minute bus drive, then a 10 minute ferry trip away from Port Moresby.

Loloata Island Resort




The next morning we left Port Moresby on the 09.30 flight to Cairns, but PNG kept calling us back. Half way to Cairns the pilot announced, ‘We have an engine malfunction indicator and are returning to Port Moresby’. After a 3 hour wait in Port Moresby, we were on our way again in the same plane, hopefully fixed.

The troublesome plane.


We made it to Cairns safely and stayed at the Tree Tops Lodge, which is in a lovely location. We went into Cairns and wandered around Cairns city centre and visited the Night Market which is very touristy.

Tree Tops Lodge


Port Moresby was very hot and humid, but Cairns at this time of year was a lovely 30 degrees when we left to return to a very chilly 12 degrees in Melbourne.

Well that’s Bill and Liz’s incredible adventure to visit Julie in PNG over, so I hope that anybody that read this blog enjoyed it.

BYE for now.

Flight to Madang (post by Bill & Liz)

We flew to Madang from Ukarumpa. It’s only a half hour flight, down from the mountains to the coast.

Here is the small plane we flew in.

A view of the mountains and clouds along the way.

PNG is not all mountains and bush, here are some cultivated fields on the plains before the coast.

It’s a tight fit into the plane!

Finally arrived! (post by Bill & Liz)

On Tuesday, we got up at 4am departed Melbourne on the 7am flight to a very wet Brisbane. After a slightly delayed flight from Brisbane, we arrived in a hot and humid Port Moresby. As we travelled from the airport to the guest house, we saw many people sitting by the side of the road selling betelnut and lots of people milling around doing nothing.

The next day we flew to Ukarumpa. Liz was a bit apprehensive in the small plane, but thought it was good after we were safe on the ground! The picture below shows a view of the mountains from the plane.

Here we are finally at Ukarumpa, which is much cooler than Port Moresby: