Papua New Guinea trip

[Giancarlo M.]

Hi everyone, a good friend of mine has won a 4 week trip to PNG and since I will be accompanying him I wanted to ask if anyone has had any experience of travelling to PNG.

We will be staying in 4 resorts, Tufi, Tawali, Lissenung and the Walindi. For our convenience we will be arriving in Port Moresby via Manila with Air Niugini, this will give us a 20kg plus on domestic flights. 

The resorts as payment accept credit cards and some also accept payment in euros, but I would not want to travel with too much cash. The power sockets are all 220v with Australian-type sockets.

As a photography genre I have seen that there is also a lot of macro so I will have to bring both macro and wide.

 

Thank you in advance if you can give me some advice and a brief summary of your experience.

 

[Chris Ross]

First of all allow for the fact the Air Niugini may have trouble on connections.  Read Don Silcocks account on the best time to go, you probably don't want to go in the wet season.  Different sites have different optimum times - So for example, Nov is good at Tufi and also Walindi, where May is also good but it's not so good at Tufi.   Here is a link: 

 

 https://indopacificimages.com/papua-new-guinea/guide-to-diving-papua-new-guinea/

 

I went in May last year to Walindi and had a good trip.  I did mostly wide angle with CFWA on occasions. Another diver did mostly macro.  This was during the doldrums, though there was some wind.   Quite hot and humid.  November is also a good time.  Some days were a little rough trying to get out to the sea mounts which are the real feature of diving there with big schools of Barracuda, big eye trevalley and massive schools of plankton feeders with various triggerfish and pyramid butterfly fish etc in big numbers.  Also sea fans with pygmies, Colurful anemones with clownfish etc.  The sea mounts are relatively deep and diving on Nitrox is an advantage.

 

My trip report is here:

 

Consider though that even though you are there 4 weeks you might lose a day of diving to transfers as you fly between each site and you could  lose another full day to travel getting there with the risk of a cancelled or missed connection if going back through Port Moresby which you would have to do if you dived Tufi /Tiwali with Walindi/Lissenung Island and possibly also travelling between Tufi and Tiwali.   Some Flights to Kaviang stop in Hoskins (airport for Walindi) (or is it some flights from Kavieng stop in Hoskins??)  so you don't have a connection to make to get to your next spot.  DO your research to minimise connecting flights each one carries the risk of losing an additional days diving.

[OneYellowTang]

@Giancarlo M.

Chris provided some very solid information, nothing much to add there...

Just a few additional comments:
Tawali- pretty much the birthplace of muck diving, still one of the top 3 destinations in the world for nudibranchs. There is some good wide angle as well, but many visit just for the muck.

Tufi - if they can't get out to the outer reefs (due to weather conditions) then it's all muck diving inside the fjords. This is good, but the outer reefs are what make Tufi special.

I would be very surprised if you made all your domestic connections without an issue. Air New Guinea is notorious for long delays and cancelled flights. If you build in a bit of a buffer it can help, but you should just expect some connections are going to be delayed (up to a day or so).

Having said this - the trip should be phenomenal. PNG was Raja Ampat before Raja Ampat was opened up, with the advantage of better visibility and more large marine life (although some of that has been fished out).It's still an amazing destination.

As you've probably already heard, try to limit your time in Port Moresby as much as you can. 

Edited Monday at 04:01 PM by OneYellowTang