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The original plan (A) had been to trek in the last week up the Black Cat track from Salamaua to Wau. We had already given up this idea for many reasons and changed to plan B which was to trek it the slightly easier route from Wau down to Salamaua. I'd been pretty disappointed already by this as my seven weeks in the jungle appear to have turned me into a masochist and I wanted to do the harder route, but a week before we left Kamiatum Adam dropped another bombshell. We'd heard their had been a bit of trouble at the Wau end of the track but it turned out to be a pretty big deal with a major land dispute over ownership of the gold mine area. We'd hoped it would die down and were assured as much by the guide we'd hired to take us on the trek - he lived in a village near the top of the track. A few days later however, his village had been burned to the ground and he was on the run. We then had to modify our plan further! Plan C was to take us up the track as far as Mobo, where there is a fork in the track between the regular black cat track that tourists do, and the original track that heads up to the old mines. They planned a route for us where we could go up this less trekked route a little way, cross over to the normal track and then trek back through Mobo back to Salamaua. I was even more gutted, but obviously we didn't want to be chopped up by crazy locals, so it was a good compromise and avoided the troubled area - or so we thought. On the day of our leaving Kamiatum, during the toilet opening ceremony, there had been a lot of commotion and talking between the villagers. There had already been several refugees from the other villages coming through the area, but now a man had turned up with machete wounds in his back, and he had been attacked in Mobo after being followed down from his village that he was fleeing. There was no way Adam was taking us to Mobo after that! So we had to completely cancel the trek, which I was really not happy with and am still not really ok with. I was so mad! The trek was one of the things I'd been looking forward to since I ever thought about doing anything with Trekforce and now it was cancelled - just like that! The new plan was to go down to Salamaua as planned and try and create a new plan (D!) when we got to Lae. They wanted some of the local men to camp with us for our last night in case any of the trouble stretched as far as the village, we couldn't have asked for more helpful and caring hosts, they'd already given us so much over the 6 weeks we'd been there and now they were so fond of us they were willing to fight to protect us!
So we got up in the dark, everything was drenched and we could hear the river gushing from the river bed - it wasn't looking promising for walking down to Salamaua. Adam got us to all stay in our hammocks until he could check with Steve if it was safe to cross the big river, but when Steve showed up he said it would be no problem, so we got up reluctantly and packed the last of our stuff. Lots of the locals had turned up to say good bye which prolonged our leaving by most of an hour, but once we were off - with loads of our friends in tow to help carry our kit, it was properly daylight and we were relatively hopeful a new plan would transpire in Lae, and if nothing else, we were due to get a "Lot" burger at the yacht club in a matter of hours - or so we thought!
We reached the river for our first crossing and Adam went to investigate - and nearly got washed away. From previous experience we could tell it wasn't good news, in the past they'd been very over protective of us on river crossings - frustratingly so! Eventually after a lot of different plans, realising our 50m rope wasn't long enough and sitting around for an hour, they announced we would have to go back to Kamiatum and wait for the river level to subside - tomorrow! Again I was livid - more so when we watched all the 12-14 year old girls who had come with us swim across with some of our kit with no problems!! Luckily Steve came to our rescue and suggested we wait there and they would build us some rafts to float down the river instead. This was brilliant and we set about collecting wood and bamboo and Ruth, the pastors daughter went off to find some food for us from her home nearby. The girls lit a fire on the beach and roasted pit pit and bananas for us to eat while we waited. I was still in a bad mood, I don't like being made to feel pathetic and I knew we could get across the river, so Adam let me cross with him to see how strong it was - and we managed it, if it was a bit hairy for a while! It turned out in just the hour or so the river level had come down a lot but I was glad he let me prove I could do it and was much happier after that! We'd already built the rafts though so we kept to this plan and all climbed aboard one. There was a big stable one for our bags, a long but not strong one which us girls and Angus and Andre took and two smaller, which the rest of the boys split onto. They didn't really do much, we spent the entire trip sitting in 6 inches of water, but it was lots of fun and it was baking hot so we were able to work on our tans while we drifted - very, very slowly down the river! The kids all swam down with us, the girls mostly floating with water tanks as floats and occasionally climbing on the raft for a rest and the younger boys - Ricky, Brian and Dixon all floating/body boarding down on a log each! They were having so much fun! All the kids that came with us had skipped school for the day (and they'd all skipped the day before too for the ceremony) and they told us they would be punished the next day by having to carry rocks from the school to the river! We finally reached Salamaua - way too late to go to Lae for burgers and shopping so we just settled back into the guesthouse with Mittie and relaxed. We went to Lae the following day and having turned up before the Yacht club opened, were worried we wouldn't get any breakfast - luckily they agreed to open early on the condition we all ordered a full English breakfast - this was not a problem!! After we'd topped up our meat quota we headed into town and sorted out our bags in the TPA office, taking some luxuries we'd managed without for the last month and a half - like proper shampoo. Some of us went to do a top up at the wholesaler before we all headed to the supermarket to buy some luxury food. My latest pudding idea was banoffee pie, but I was struggled to find any condensed milk. After scouring the shelves I was eventually pointed to some cans of something called "teapot" that had only Malay writing on it and the only thing that possibly identified it as a milk product was that it was made by Nestle! I found the closest thing possible to digestives - not very similar at all - and ended up switching the cream part to custard - and I had what I needed! We all needed cash so we had a very eventful trip to several banks, each time being taken through the long queues of locals to the front and having our own private security guard with us, while we were scowled at by everyone! Finding someone to accept MasterCard was a mission "for everything else - except when you are in PNG apparently - there's MasterCard". Eventually we headed back to the yacht club for our Lot burger meal before loading up our stuff on the boats and heading back to Salamaua. We still had no idea what we'd do for the next week. That evening, while us girls all feasted on cheese on toast and noodles - the boys having skipped dinner after ordering two Lot burgers each - Adam announced Plan D. We were going to head down the coast to a beautiful coastal village called Lababia and try and spot some leather back turtles, do some fishing, snorkelling and a trek up into the hills round there. It sounded like the best possible option available, not what I'd hoped for but in itself, it was a great plan. We set off on Mittie's boat, with her in tow the following day. It was a couple of hours in the boat but we finally arrived in Lababia where we were greeted by a whole new village of staring locals - we'd forgotten what it was like in Kamiatum at the beginning! We met Nero - imagine Morpheus from the Matrix and he was pretty much like that and sounded identical! He had organised for us to stay in the house of his family. The boys were set to work building a lean-to against the house for them to sleep in. It was pretty impressive for a temporary shelter. The girls had been assigned a bedroom in the house! The locals and Mittie between them were overly helpful and prepared an amazing feast for us. It was very relaxing and the place was soooooo beautiful. You could see the sea from the house and all that separated us from it was a small mound of sand and some huge coconut trees! The next day I started by making friends with Catherine - whose room we had been given. She and her mum dressed me up in a traditional outfit for church and loads of beads and shells and they gave me a conch shell to blow. This was great, but unfortunately I felt really ill after about an hours sleep on a hard wooden floor with my roll mat being about as useful as a piece of tracing paper. I had to stay home and in fact spent the entire day in Andre's hammock which had been set up under the house. There were loads of kids in the family, who insisted on staring at me and rocking me which just made me feel worse! I missed out on the fishing trip on canoes which I was annoyed about as it was a beautiful sunny day and they all had so much fun! The next day - after we'd cautiously set up our hammocks in the room upstairs, not entirely convinced it could take the weight! - I was much better. We had to visit the school to introduce ourselves and I made friends with some more girls who showed me the lau lau tree - a new fruit for me, a bit weird and reminded me for some reason of aperol. They kept giving me necklaces and presents which was really sweet. In the afternoon a couple of the others came out for another fishing trip with me, despite the fact it was going to pour with rain! We got drenched and only caught one fish, but it was lots of fun! On the final day we did a long trek up to a research centre on the ridge of the hill, through some thick jungle. As it was a day trek we didn't need to take much, but still with my masochistic tendencies I volunteered to carry the rucksack for the girls with all our platipi and lunch food, a decision which I was close to regretting when we were about 3 hours into the steep climb! As we neared the top I managed to walk over and completely miss a baby death adder that lay in the path. About 5 of us past it before someone noticed and then David our guide went back and killed it - just in case...We finally reached the centre and were the most grateful we'd ever been for tuna and crackers, we were starving! There was some rickety old furniture outside that we sat on, only for it to break as it was so rotten. After successfully destroying both benches, I sat on the table instead, but when a few others joined me, that also gave way and we ended up in a giggling heap on the floor! The trek down, although it should have been easier, proved harder for me, as I kept falling over - slipping on wet leaves and generally being clumsy. Iwas happy to reach the relatively solid ground of the beach. As soon as we were back at the house it was a case of stripping off and jumping straight in the sea, having had one of the sweatiest days of my life! We had to make sure we were out of the water by dusk as we'd discovered from the locals after a similar mistake on the first day, as that's when the crocodiles come down the river to the sea! The next morning we packed up our stuff and eventually said goodbye and left Lababia behind. We stopped off at Lababia Island on the way back, a tiny and beautiful island just off the coast. After a quick look around we carried on up the coast. We made one more stop for fuel at another village which is where we encountered the turtle we named "Survivor". One of the local men had caught him, with the intention of eating him and selling his shell, but he hadn't kept him in very good condition and the turtle was obviously distressed and very dry. We asked how much for the turtle and were told 20 kina which we split between us - a small price to pay for liberation! The mad carefully explained the best way to polish the shell and cook the meat and we listened politely. We then put Survivor in our food box, which we'd filled with sea water, ate the watermelon they presented us and loaded up the coconuts, climbed aboard and set off. Unfortunately our plan to get out of view before releasing him was scuppered when the driver asked us to adjust the weight in the boat and a rogue foot went through the side of the plastic box, leaking sea all over the boat! Before we had a chance to think, Justine had jumped to action, grabbed Survivor and hurled him over the edge of the boat to freedom - still in clear view of the villagers on the beach! The last drama of the boat trip was when we reached the Salamaua peninsula and did not have enough fuel to get round the headland. Instead we had to unload the boat and lug it over the spit of sand that separated the headland from the rest of the peninsula - and it wasn't a light boat! We finally got back to the guesthouse only to have to sit around for hours while Mittie went over to the house near the school where the others were going to be living for the next 2 months. Once she returned, we all went over with all the kit and trekked up the small hill to a beautiful housed with a veranda overlooking the sea. Iwas really pleased to see where they where they were going to be living for the next few months, and it was great for them to finally have their own house. We had a very sad last night, where Mittie produced yet another amazing feast with the help of her daughter Freda and Alicia. I finally made my banoffee pie, but as it appeared to be the only day in the whole PNG trip when we were lacking in bananas I invented mangoffee pie instead, which was pretty good too and luckily the "teapot" came through for us, turning out to be evaporated milk after all! The following morning Andre, Adam and I had to say good bye and set off for Lae. It was horrible, Ididn't want to leave them behind! In Lae we spent a stressful day - after stopping for a Lot burger of course - doing shopping for the group to send back over on the boat. We finally checked into our nice room at the Melanesia hotel - a luxury we had agreed to upgrade to! - had a swim in an actual swimming pool, then went for the all-you-can-eat buffet and then the bar before finally collapsing into the real bed exhausted! The nice, soft, fluffy sleep was short lived, as my airport shuttle was at 5am! In the process of leaving I also managed to leave my phone in the room, so after trying to ring it, courtesy of a friendly PNG man on the bus, and me being an emotional wreck already, we turned the bus back, I sprinted back to the room, grabbed the phone and had to say good bye all over again! I sat next to two Aussie guys who worked in the mines on the plane to Port Moresby, and on telling them why I was there, one produced a newspaper and said " Is this you then?" and showed me an article and a photo of us at the leaving ceremony in "the National" newspaper! The media had spun the truth, implying we were leaving early due to the fighting in Wau, when actually, the three of us had been leaving then anyway! I was met at the airport by Heni, who was a great tour guide and took me all over town to see the Parliament building and other interesting sights, in between sorting out the others' visa extensions. He dropped me at a fried chicken place for lunch, but being unprepared for this I had to order the cheapest thing on the menu - chicken nuggets and chips - I'm not convinced any chickens were harmed in the making of those nuggets! After this we had a few more errands to run that left me feeling very uneasy as it was Friday afternoon and it involved leaving Adam's passport at immigration - he was flying on Sunday... They assured me it would be taken to the airport, but in the end that didn't happen and he had to spend an extra day in Port Moresby. I was dropped off at the airport early by Heni so after occupying myself for a few hours it was time to see one last sunset and say good bye to PNG and I was still an emotional wreck!- comments