Whilst in the marina some more yachties arrived, two American couples and a South African couple. Wanting to go and explore they had hired a mini bus with driver and asked us to come along to lower the costs and see a bit more of PNG. We travelled out of Port Morsby and got high up into the local hillside and went up to Varirata National Park, most of the roads were broken with huge pot holes everywhere !! We saw some spectacular views with waterfalls and lush green areas.

Next stop was a huge War cemetary where lots of Australians were buried. This was because of the fight between the Japanese during WW11.

We stopped for lunch at Crystal Rapids, a picnic spot next to a river with a succession of rapids where the local kids played nearby. On the second day we went out to Port Moresby Nature Park (formely the National Capital Botanical gardens) in the morning followed by the Orchid and Avairy Park. The nature park housed many animals native to PNG like the Cassowary, Hornbill, Cus-Cus, tree kangaroo, many birds and the Bird of Paridise, the emblem on their national flag.

When we first got to PNG the others met a guy in the local supermarket who said he was happy to show us around anywhere we wanted to go. This all seemed very suspect and we were all a bit weary. Anyway he turned up this morning with his dad, younger brother and sister , girlfriend and another driver. He seemed incredibly happy to see us and be able to show us around.

We first drove to Parliment House (in Pidgin English it is known as the house of bullshit !!)  but as it was a Sunday we found it closed, damn. No bother though as he drove around the back to another security gate and found an old school friend working there, he promised him a few beers and he let us in, great security !!

The place was built in 1975 and had some lovely grounds to it, very well kept, there was a big muriel over the entrance with some great carvings.

Next stop was a trip to Bomana war cemetery.  When the Japanese invaded in WW11 the Australians fought them off from the south in an area now known as the Komodo trail. This runs a total of 96 kms through steep and dense inclines, many people were killed and about 4000 soldiers were buried at the cemetary. It was all kept very clean and tidy and a sobering place.

We stopped for lunch at this huge university campus, it had fantastic grounds with a huge lake in it, I was surprised to hear that there were only about 400 students there. The grounds must have been dozens of acres in size.

In the afternoon we went to the National Museum which contained lots of artifacts from different areas of Papua New Guinea, Dave clearly knew his stuff about the different people of PNG and him and his dad talked us through a lot of the history and culture of the place. It was free to get in surviving on donations from the visitors, it was clearly an underfunded place but well worth the visit. We all had a great day out and was surprised by the generosity of this guy and his family. He didn’t seem to want anything from us but we slipped him a few bob to cover petrol costs, etc.