Trip to Madang

With Term 1 completed, the kids had a couple weeks break. We decided to be tourists for a while and went down to Madang which is on the Northern coastline of the Island of PNG. The drive takes about 5 hours and about 1 hour of it is through the Finistair mountains. It might be appropriate to just call it the Forest Stairs as the pass is just one steep hill after another on dirt roads that lead you through the jungle. Of course, the road hadn't been graded for a long time and it had rained a lot just before we left, so you are basically 4 wheeling it through a jungle dirt road for what seems like forever. Fortunately, even with all the shaking and jarring, Ruth's neck was only a little sore! There was even one river to forge right at the end! Here is a picture our friends took of us as we forded the river.

Chad had a lot of fun driving the family through all of that. And once we got to Madang, we all decided it was totally worth it! It's a beatufil setting on the pacific coast. We all had a great time snorkelling and taking in the amazing junglescape view.

We hired some guy with a boat (Johnie) to take us out to a deserted island called Pig Island. When we asked some of the people, they said they wouldn't go there because they were afraid of that place.

This is us on the boat as we headed out to Pig Island.

A picture of the island as we approached

There were some jellyfish out there in the lagoon. Unfortunately, Kiery got stung in the arm. We didn't have a lot with us as far as medicine, but we used some "Jungle Medicine" which made her arm feel a lot better.

Chad got a good sting on the neck.

Here is Meliah snorkeling

Clown Fish/Nemo!

 We all had a great time on this much needed vacation. We took a lot of pictures and look forward to sharing more of them with you sometime.