Yay! We are on our way again, this time to Papua New Guinea, cruising on the True North.

I, Ted, first visited PNG in 1968/69 when I was posted there during National Service (more about that later) and for almost 50 years I have wanted Jo to be able to experience this wonderful country. Of course I am very excited and I am thrilled that, at last Jo has decided to come with me. Jo is less excited because she is a little nervous about doing a small boat cruise, especially as she has had back and hip problems and there is no lift to travel between the boat’s 3 levels and she is not as keen on water activities as I am – but she is happy to do it because she knows how much it means to me. I just hope she enjoys it.

We started with a 3 am wake up call before a flight to Melbourne for a second flight to Cairns. We met another Adelaide couple on the first flight and a Melbourne couple on the second flight who are booked on the same cruise.

True North have a scheduled cruise that they call Sepic Soirée South and this particular cruise has been fully booked by a travel company called Latitude 33, who have added some extras for only a small additional price. Instead of flying into Cairns to immediately start the cruise Latitude 33 have booked us into the Niramaya Resort in Port Douglas for 2 nights. The resort is quite luxurious, with large villas, each with large breezeways, tropical style open lounge and bedrooms and its own plunge pool in a lush garden setting – very nice. Complimentary dinner and breakfast were scrumptious. There are 36 passengers from all over Australia and we enjoyed the chance to meet and get to know the others. We were able to spend a few hours with friends from Cairns during the spare day.

After another early start a coach took us to Cairns airport where we were met with True North staff for the beginning of our cruise. Instead of boarding a boat we boarded a plane for a 1 ½ flight to Alotau on the south eastern end of PNG where we were greeted by a small group of islanders playing drums, singing and dancing. It was a nice gesture and many of the staff had not seen that before.

Trobriand Islands dancers welcoming us to Papua New Guinea

A ½ hour later we boarded True North for welcome drinks, followed by lunch and more drinks, then a safety briefing, a tour briefing, a snorkeling briefing and a helicopter briefing – we are all briefed out. Then, as the sun was setting, it was time for drinks and dinner. Drinks with meals are included in the fare so we could enjoy “free” drinks with dinner.

Today was Jo’s birthday and the crew made her feel quite special all day. She had hugs on arrival and all day from most of the crew. There was a delicious birthday cake served as desert for everyone.

On board True North; Happy Birthday Jo

Following the meal we registered for tomorrow’s activities then hit the beds, all agreeing that we were exhausted.