Papau New Guinea

We had a great last night in New Zealand, on Hot Water Beach. There's hot rocks under the sand which you can feel with your feet walking along certain parts - you're suddenly unable to stand there it's so hot. Then you dig a hole in the sand, which fills with the hot water and get in to wallow. It was just like family holidays in Cornwall, as the sea kept coming in, so we had to build a big dam to keep our hot pool warm. When the pool cools down a bit, just dig a bit more and instantly hot again. We even went into the freezing cold sea a few times, so we could then warm up in our hole afterwards.

We said goodbye to Trout, who'd served us well and arrived at Auckland airport with 14 hours until our flight. Checkin was 3am, so it wasn't worth getting a hotel room. Luckily they had a screen showing the olympics and free internet to keep us entertained. We even managed to get some sleep, until people started riding huge hoovers around the airport, then when that dyed down, a woman with a hoover strapped to her back and looking very much like an extra from ghostbusters came round and decided to concentrate on the area under our seats. The flight was 4 hours to Brisbain (which is the dullest airport we've been to) then 3 hours to PNG from here.

We'd phoned and booked a hotel in Port Moresby and our hotel came to collect us from the airport, which was very handy after not much sleep and a 26 hour journey with all the waiting at airports. Our hotel is all behind gates, as the areas round it are apparently a tad rough. My sister will understand what I mean when I say that it has an Indian feel here. People are curious by us and so stare a lot. Dan's been told he looks like he's from PNG, so I get most of the attention. The people are really friendly, somtimes overly so. We were shown into our room by no less 4 people. Some came just to have a good look at us.

We are only planning to stay in PM for a few days so we went to try and book a flight to the other side of the island. One of the ladies at the hotel told us that it was cheaper to try and catch a lift onboard a cargo chopper from the airport. I never expected that you could hitchhike with planes. As it turned out we had to take a normal flight. We tried all of the cargo companies and they all said it was possible, but not untill next week. No one thought it strange that we asking in the first place.

We can't wait to see the rest of this island. The diving and snorkling prommise to be incredable but we'll have to wait and see. Sue gets all the attention from the locals. I was told that I look like I'm from PNG so I can travel incognito when sue gets all the interest.

There is hardly any internet cafes in the whole of PNG so we won't be able to update untill the Phillipeans. It's only been two days in PNG and already strange aventures are calling. Bring on the rest of the island!