I've just returned from a 10 night trip to Milne Bay in PNG.
Flights
So first things first…
DIRECT FLIGHTS TO ALOTAU! VISA ON ARRIVAL!
Now that that’s out of the way…Let me explain.
Domestic flights to Cairns on Qantas were straight forward. Had a 4 hour layover in Cairns before the flight to Port Moresby on Air Niugini. All easy enough. Went through departure immigration and was standing in line for security screening, and the fire alarm went off. Seriously. They didn’t make us evacuate, but they stopped screening until they had the all clear. Which meant it took ages to clear security because the line was backed up for ages and they only had one security line open. Given the number of flights departing at that time, it was kind of pathetic. But anyway, Cairns.
Flight to Port Moresby then departed an hour late because of the late arrival of the aircraft. No surprises there, we’re already on island time and we’ve not even left the country yet! So, we departed late, and landed late. Immigration in Port Moresby went quickly, customs clearance did not. Let’s just sit around chatting rather than clearing the 3 plane loads of people who just landed? Sure! I had a bit of time in Port Moresby before my next flight.
Checked in for the flight to Alotau early and everything was fine. Departed early, landed early. That wasn’t as good as it seems. I’ll get to that next.
Flights home were uneventful. Departed Alotau about 40 minutes early, which meant even longer to wait in Port Moresby for my connection back to Cairns. A 5 hour layover became almost 6. And while I most certainly appreciate the renovations at the international terminal in Moresby (there are now shops and cafés airside, and they’re actually pretty good), 6 hours is still way too long. So bored. And no free wifi. I tried everything to guess the Air Niugini lounge password, but no success. Was tempted to pay for a temporary Digicel login, but a couple of people near me had just done that and were complaining about how bad the connection was, so I figured it wasn’t worth the money.
Anyway, about my earlier excitement…I was reading the inflight magazine on the flight from Cairns to Port Moresby, and what did I see buried in a tiny little news item? This November (2016), Air Niugini will be starting direct flights from Australia to Alotau! It was initially unclear at this point as to whether they would be from Cairns or Brisbane (or both), but I had assumed Cairns due to the previous negotiations over that route. NO MORE MORESBY!!! And, to sweeten that deal, as of November, Australians will once again be eligible to get a visa on arrival! No more sending passports off with all the paperwork to the consulate to get a visa prior to travelling! HUZZAH! At any rate, on the flight home, we had the new inflight magazine for March, which confirmed that the direct flights to Alotau will be ex-Brisbane. If this all comes to fruition, I think Milne Bay may become an annual trip.
Transfers
So the thing about the flight to Alotau landing early, is that nobody’s transfers had arrived. Everyone’s eventually turned up. Mine didn’t. I got approached by some guy from a local Alotau hotel telling me that Tawali Resort told him to take me to the hotel and they’d meet me there. Wary of such scams, I hesitated on going, because well, people lying to you to get you to go to their hotel is kind of a well known play. I spoke to airport security, and they actually said that it was legit, and the resort had done this before. I’d heard literally nothing from the resort about a delay, all I got was this hotel shuttle bus driver telling me I had to go with him. Off I went…
At the hotel, reception told me that the resort transfer was on its way. Alright, I knew the resort was a 90 minute drive, and if they were on their way, it meant they’d be less than 90 minutes…Right? Wrong. Over 2.5 hours later, they show up. The sun had set, and we had to drive that dodgy unpaved road in the dark. We should have been at the resort just before 6pm, we got there just after 8.30pm.
I know **** inevitably happens, it’s PNG. But the communication with the whole situation was terrible. I was approached by a stranger who had no paperwork telling me to go with him. Of course I thought it was a scam, because it normally IS a scam. And how on earth did it take 2.5 hours to pick us up if they were apparently already on their way, when it’s only a 90 minute drive at worst?
I had later discovered when arranging the departure time for the return transfers with the resort that they really only do set pickup times and drop-offs and that they don’t necessarily meet every single flight. I have no problems with that at all, but I wish I’d known in advance so that I knew that I was supposed to go and wait at the hotel and I wouldn’t have been so paranoid that I was getting scammed when I arrived in Alotau.
The return transfer went without any issues at all.
The Resort
No real complaints. Rooms were spacious and clean, plenty of hot water, airconditioned…I think they use bore water though, because it was almost impossible to get any lather in the shower. Not the end of the world. Could maybe do with more powerpoints, so do bring more than one multi-outlet powerboard with you if you need to charge gadgets (there’s no camera room, so you’ll be charging everything in your room).
Wifi was available at reception and in the dining room. Worked pretty well, but I wouldn’t want to try downloading or uploading large attachments.
Food was fine. Not a great deal of variety, but given the remote location, I can cop that. All served buffet style. On the dive boats, it was usually cold cuts of meat with salad and fruit for lunch. Snacks were usually cookies or cake of some description. Bottled water was provided in the mini-bar fridge in your room and replaced as needed. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate was free. Soft drinks and alcohol was available at the bar, and fairly reasonably priced.
There’s a small souvenir shop with very reasonably priced carvings (I typed up this trip report from Port Moresby airport, and a comparison of prices indicates that it costs roughly twice as much duty free as it cost to buy them from Tawali resort). So if you want carvings or masks, buy them in Milne Bay, not at the airport on the way out.
The Diving
Ah, Milne Bay…My favourite! It has big stuff, little stuff, and good quality coral reefs. Not much more you can ask for as a photographer! That being said, I think my photos from this trip are pretty average. Sometimes you’re just not in that zone. Plus, I had issues with my macro lens on this trip.
I spent time on the outer reefs (~45 minutes away), the inner coastal reefs (~10-120 minutes), and muck diving (~10-30 minutes). All good! Personally I prefer the muck diving, and would have been content doing that every day, but there was a couple of large groups of divers who were there at the same time I was, and they were persistent about wanting to dive the outer reefs all the time. I don’t mind wall diving by any means, so I tolerated that for a few days, but it’s kind of monotonous after a while, so I spoke to the dive manager and they agreed to get me on another smaller boat to go muck diving. I pretty much had my own personal guide for the back end of the trip to go critter hunting. Ask and ye shall receive!
The dive operations are well managed. No idea about the quality of rental gear, but they had it if people needed it. Had a few tank blow outs due to o-ring issues, but there were always spare tanks on the boat, so never really an issue. At worst I had one blow out at 8 meters as I was descending, the others happened as I opened the valve on the boat. I paid for nitrox, but in hindsight it probably wasn’t necessary due to the nature of the diving. Because we mostly dived as a group with a guide, we had to more or less go with the lowest common denominator – those on air. Blends were 32%, but got some tanks of up to 34%.
Water temps varied between 27 and 30C, but nearly all were at 29C. I wore a 2mm full length wetsuit and was comfortable. Others were quite happily diving in shorts and a rashie, so take that as a guide for water temps.
Guides were amazing – especially at the critter spotting. They found me some very cool nudibranchs that I hadn’t seen before, so I was happy. It’s not got quite the same abundance of weird and wacky as Lembeh or Ambon, but the difference is that Milne Bay has more diving options, and is pretty – Lembeh and Ambon are most definitely not.
Photos on my blog...
Flights
So first things first…
DIRECT FLIGHTS TO ALOTAU! VISA ON ARRIVAL!
Now that that’s out of the way…Let me explain.
Domestic flights to Cairns on Qantas were straight forward. Had a 4 hour layover in Cairns before the flight to Port Moresby on Air Niugini. All easy enough. Went through departure immigration and was standing in line for security screening, and the fire alarm went off. Seriously. They didn’t make us evacuate, but they stopped screening until they had the all clear. Which meant it took ages to clear security because the line was backed up for ages and they only had one security line open. Given the number of flights departing at that time, it was kind of pathetic. But anyway, Cairns.
Flight to Port Moresby then departed an hour late because of the late arrival of the aircraft. No surprises there, we’re already on island time and we’ve not even left the country yet! So, we departed late, and landed late. Immigration in Port Moresby went quickly, customs clearance did not. Let’s just sit around chatting rather than clearing the 3 plane loads of people who just landed? Sure! I had a bit of time in Port Moresby before my next flight.
Checked in for the flight to Alotau early and everything was fine. Departed early, landed early. That wasn’t as good as it seems. I’ll get to that next.
Flights home were uneventful. Departed Alotau about 40 minutes early, which meant even longer to wait in Port Moresby for my connection back to Cairns. A 5 hour layover became almost 6. And while I most certainly appreciate the renovations at the international terminal in Moresby (there are now shops and cafés airside, and they’re actually pretty good), 6 hours is still way too long. So bored. And no free wifi. I tried everything to guess the Air Niugini lounge password, but no success. Was tempted to pay for a temporary Digicel login, but a couple of people near me had just done that and were complaining about how bad the connection was, so I figured it wasn’t worth the money.
Anyway, about my earlier excitement…I was reading the inflight magazine on the flight from Cairns to Port Moresby, and what did I see buried in a tiny little news item? This November (2016), Air Niugini will be starting direct flights from Australia to Alotau! It was initially unclear at this point as to whether they would be from Cairns or Brisbane (or both), but I had assumed Cairns due to the previous negotiations over that route. NO MORE MORESBY!!! And, to sweeten that deal, as of November, Australians will once again be eligible to get a visa on arrival! No more sending passports off with all the paperwork to the consulate to get a visa prior to travelling! HUZZAH! At any rate, on the flight home, we had the new inflight magazine for March, which confirmed that the direct flights to Alotau will be ex-Brisbane. If this all comes to fruition, I think Milne Bay may become an annual trip.
Transfers
So the thing about the flight to Alotau landing early, is that nobody’s transfers had arrived. Everyone’s eventually turned up. Mine didn’t. I got approached by some guy from a local Alotau hotel telling me that Tawali Resort told him to take me to the hotel and they’d meet me there. Wary of such scams, I hesitated on going, because well, people lying to you to get you to go to their hotel is kind of a well known play. I spoke to airport security, and they actually said that it was legit, and the resort had done this before. I’d heard literally nothing from the resort about a delay, all I got was this hotel shuttle bus driver telling me I had to go with him. Off I went…
At the hotel, reception told me that the resort transfer was on its way. Alright, I knew the resort was a 90 minute drive, and if they were on their way, it meant they’d be less than 90 minutes…Right? Wrong. Over 2.5 hours later, they show up. The sun had set, and we had to drive that dodgy unpaved road in the dark. We should have been at the resort just before 6pm, we got there just after 8.30pm.
I know **** inevitably happens, it’s PNG. But the communication with the whole situation was terrible. I was approached by a stranger who had no paperwork telling me to go with him. Of course I thought it was a scam, because it normally IS a scam. And how on earth did it take 2.5 hours to pick us up if they were apparently already on their way, when it’s only a 90 minute drive at worst?
I had later discovered when arranging the departure time for the return transfers with the resort that they really only do set pickup times and drop-offs and that they don’t necessarily meet every single flight. I have no problems with that at all, but I wish I’d known in advance so that I knew that I was supposed to go and wait at the hotel and I wouldn’t have been so paranoid that I was getting scammed when I arrived in Alotau.
The return transfer went without any issues at all.
The Resort
No real complaints. Rooms were spacious and clean, plenty of hot water, airconditioned…I think they use bore water though, because it was almost impossible to get any lather in the shower. Not the end of the world. Could maybe do with more powerpoints, so do bring more than one multi-outlet powerboard with you if you need to charge gadgets (there’s no camera room, so you’ll be charging everything in your room).
Wifi was available at reception and in the dining room. Worked pretty well, but I wouldn’t want to try downloading or uploading large attachments.
Food was fine. Not a great deal of variety, but given the remote location, I can cop that. All served buffet style. On the dive boats, it was usually cold cuts of meat with salad and fruit for lunch. Snacks were usually cookies or cake of some description. Bottled water was provided in the mini-bar fridge in your room and replaced as needed. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate was free. Soft drinks and alcohol was available at the bar, and fairly reasonably priced.
There’s a small souvenir shop with very reasonably priced carvings (I typed up this trip report from Port Moresby airport, and a comparison of prices indicates that it costs roughly twice as much duty free as it cost to buy them from Tawali resort). So if you want carvings or masks, buy them in Milne Bay, not at the airport on the way out.
The Diving
Ah, Milne Bay…My favourite! It has big stuff, little stuff, and good quality coral reefs. Not much more you can ask for as a photographer! That being said, I think my photos from this trip are pretty average. Sometimes you’re just not in that zone. Plus, I had issues with my macro lens on this trip.
I spent time on the outer reefs (~45 minutes away), the inner coastal reefs (~10-120 minutes), and muck diving (~10-30 minutes). All good! Personally I prefer the muck diving, and would have been content doing that every day, but there was a couple of large groups of divers who were there at the same time I was, and they were persistent about wanting to dive the outer reefs all the time. I don’t mind wall diving by any means, so I tolerated that for a few days, but it’s kind of monotonous after a while, so I spoke to the dive manager and they agreed to get me on another smaller boat to go muck diving. I pretty much had my own personal guide for the back end of the trip to go critter hunting. Ask and ye shall receive!
The dive operations are well managed. No idea about the quality of rental gear, but they had it if people needed it. Had a few tank blow outs due to o-ring issues, but there were always spare tanks on the boat, so never really an issue. At worst I had one blow out at 8 meters as I was descending, the others happened as I opened the valve on the boat. I paid for nitrox, but in hindsight it probably wasn’t necessary due to the nature of the diving. Because we mostly dived as a group with a guide, we had to more or less go with the lowest common denominator – those on air. Blends were 32%, but got some tanks of up to 34%.
Water temps varied between 27 and 30C, but nearly all were at 29C. I wore a 2mm full length wetsuit and was comfortable. Others were quite happily diving in shorts and a rashie, so take that as a guide for water temps.
Guides were amazing – especially at the critter spotting. They found me some very cool nudibranchs that I hadn’t seen before, so I was happy. It’s not got quite the same abundance of weird and wacky as Lembeh or Ambon, but the difference is that Milne Bay has more diving options, and is pretty – Lembeh and Ambon are most definitely not.
Photos on my blog...
