PNG Time ... to the Highlands!

With our unexpectedly quick descent of the Upper Busu we found ourselves with a few days up our sleeve. But PNG being PNG this was soon to be soaked up in the ever-present PNG time. We decided to have a rest on Sunday following the Busu and use that day to get ourselves all set up for a 10-Day highlands mission. This time we thought we would try and by-pass everyone making calls on our behalf and directly call the owner of Grahams Land-Cruiser. After getting on the phone to Vaile, the boss-man, we sorted a price of 400Kina a day and arranged for a 6am pick-up. We figured there would be some delays but were happy and psyched to leaving in the morning. In the morning, however, this all changed. Graham arrived on time, perfect, but had to go fix a puncture, expected, and then went on to say that the price was 700kina a day... ridiculous! So while Graham went to fix the tyre we got on the phone to negotiate, and in short we couldn't get Vaile to agree to a 'wet-price' (fuel included0 of 400kina a day. So Graham went about his usual runs and we were off to town to try and find another ride. Between going to the local government, regional transportation agency, to a little restaurant that the owner had two land-cruiser and a couple of other place.... we came up with nothing!!! Much to Shannon's distaste Barny and I thought we should try with Vaile again, giving him a call to see if he could meet us in town. Surprisingly he was more than willing and we arranged to meet outside the ANZ, a nice place to loiter as the bank security removed all the local loiters. Although he was late, Vaile arrived and was willing to work out a mutually beneficial price. After explaining that he was unble to justify pulling his vehicle off its normal run for 400kina a day 'wet price', we decided on a dry price of 400K a day, with now knew was a relatively good price. We shook hands, exchanged a few light-hearted words and left with a solid agreement. Again, Graham arrived on time and like 'Ground-Hog Day' he mentioned that he needed to go to Dunlop AND that we needed to confirm the price with Valie. Not to be dis-heartened Barny jumped on the phone to Vaile, just to find that Vaile wanted a quote from another company and then went of to try and hire it to use for 250kina a day + 1kina per km. Over the next two hours we negotiated with Vaile and Difna (his partner) and eventually we agreed on a price... 400kina a day! Anyway, after all this, an hour or two at Dunlop and a brief interlude when the boys jumped off the truck and, with machete's in hand, chased someone they knew stole a mates cell-phone, we were on the way to the highlands!

After a week we were so used to being on a Land-Cruiser
we even caught up on sleep (p. Jordy)

Cruising down the high-way (p. Jordy)

Here is a quick link to check out, just before we left to the highlands (via Goroka) it was in the news that a Chinese national crashed his car, shot a man who was raping a female occupant of the car and then was hunted down, murdered and chopped to pieces... uh so yeah

http://malumnalu.blogspot.com/2011/04/chinese-killed-fighting-rapists_19.html

After spending five hours on the truck we reached Goroka, another typical PNG city but the roads were better than Lae. One thing you need to organise in PNG is accommodation, once you are there you will understand, and we hadn't... Fortunately for us people in PNG have big families, and Graham's sister lived in Goroka. So after a night camped in her backyard querying anyone and everyone about 'fast rives' with 'big stone' and 'wara callapse', we went to sleep with the knowledge that we would have to go over Daulo Pass and further into the Highlands to find steep white-water.

We were right! Descending down from Daulo Pass (2472m) the road followed a small creek that at twice the flow would be class III-IV. Then rounding a corned a bigger creek come in on river right and topped it up perfectly, right before a steep class IV-V section of rapids. On sight we were all keen, and had trouble waiting for the truck to slow down before jumping off to scout the rapid. As we were running around the river bank with smiles on our face, a group of locals with bigger smiles came up and asked, "you go down? its good? not too dangerous?" Then, while throwing their young boy on our truck, they told told us that the river was 2km down to Chuave and we need to get out before it gets to dangerous. We figured it would be good to check the take out and just out of interest the section that was too dangerous. The drive to Chuave indicated that the locals were somewhat underestimating the distance of the river but this was soon forgotten when we say the sweet and sour 15 footer. Even more fired up now we returned to the top and got ready, one thing both Shan and I remember Barny saying was, "looks like 2-3km of class II-III in there"... not at all!

Note my white underwear that are now Shan's paddle pants (p. Jordy)

The first rapid on the Koningi (p. Barny)

Me at the confluence on the Mai and Koningi (p. Barny)

Barny running the confluence drop (p. Jordy)

Me on the confluence drop (p. Barny)

We put on about 300m up Wara Koningi, which was the large trib that we seen coming in on river right. This short section had a couple of great rapids, much more then we expected. After the confluence with the Mai was quite a stout rapid, feeling similar to the rapids in Colliers Gorge on the Whitcombe River (NZ), that all the locals applauded as we came through clean. After that was quite literally a blur, from the huge amount of great white-water that lead down to the Lime-Stone Wall. All of the rapids were in the class IV-V range, on the boarder of what you would boat scout, and all went. So after the 2km that villagers said, which was actually more like 10km, we came back to the waterfall we had scouted earlier.

The Mai (p. Barny)

More and more ledges and holes (p. Jordy)

Shannon probing (p. Barny)

Super classic (p. Jordy)

The Lime-Stone Wall (p. Jordy)

It wasn't the most appealing drop, but it was. A constricted entrance that you needed to be driving right, ensuring you got a solid left boof to land on the right side of the massive boil/maelstrom/thing to avoid going into a shitty pocket-eddy or getting stuck on the ugly boily stuff. Taking some time to give it a proper look I hear Barny, "I'll just go". So we set up a bit of safety and waited for the 'Bull-Dog' to come down. After his good line it was my turn, then Shannons. All of us had good lines and after a seal-launch we were instructed that it was "ok, not so rough" for the next 100m to the take out. Up to this point in PNG we had realised that the people were so eager to help us that even if they didn't actually know anything they would still give us information, so I figured I should have a quick look. Class IV-IV+, a couple of moves then a big eddy on the right. I routed Shan down and after seeing him pull safely into the eddy I jumped in my boat and told Barny to follow me. Well, in my brief scout I hadn't actually seen all of the rapid and there was another slot going to the hard right below the wall I was standing on to scout. As I was about to break into the eddy a seam grabbed my boat pulling me to the slot, all good I thought and semi-boofed off the ledge, but not enough. Back looped, spanked, looped, Barny boofs over me, rolled up, endered, spanked, I'm not get out so EJECT. The first swim off the expedition, a stout little slot drop that I could not get out of after trying everything. Anyway, after regaining my gear we had one more class V rapid before reaching out friends at the take-out. A success, 10km of class IV-V with the sick 'Kick-Right' Falls pretty much at the end... but not actually at the end!

The village kids who followed us pretty much the whole way (p. Jordy)

Barny on Kick-Right (p. Jordy)

Getting a tube for the village kids (p. Jordy)

Me on kick-right (p. Barny)

Shannon on it with the kids watching (p. Jordy)

Ready to launch with Bonny holding me (p. Barny)

That evening we stayed with John & Hanna Oumba at the Yama Siane Guest House. If you end up in PNG go there, its such a sick little place. We were the first 'whitey's' to ever stay there and were very well received. That evening we didn't really have much of an idea of what we were trying to get on next, all we knew was we were going further into the Highlands!