It’s true. You do need to go via Auckland first, but we think it’s worth it to stop in French Polynesia on the way to the USA with Air Tahiti Nui. Papeete is the main city on the island of Tahiti, gateway to more than a hundred sun-kissed drops in the ocean – perfect if you’ve got time on your side – and an intriguing taste of France in a tropical paradise.
Visit the Gauguin Museum, enjoy the local seafood cooked with Gallic flair, and spend some time outdoors. Even better, head over the isthmus at Taravao on the other side of the island to get to Tahiti Iti (literally Little Tahiti). There you’ll find traditional Polynesian villages, amazing waterfalls and sea caves, and excellent hiking. Oh, and it’s also home to one of the world’s most famous surf breaks, Teahupoo, although you should only brave it if you’re better than average on a board.
The Cumberland in Manly is quintessential Australia boutique deli by day, top-secret underground speakeasy by night. There’s a lot to love about this Manly bar that is accessible through a vintage 1920s fridge door and down a spiral staircase. The 75-seater bar radiates old-world sophistication with a leather banquette, hard-carved sandstone blocks and antique brass beer taps.
The carefully curated cocktail list features drinks inspired by native Manly botanicals (the Dandelion Espresso and Lilly Pilly Sour are just two examples), but it’s the remarkable 250-strong whiskey collection that will force more than a few return visits. Platters of cheese and charcuterie from the deli upstairs quell any need to emerge into the world for dinner.
Our van comes to a screeching halt and, for the first time in about three hours, I unclench my jaw. It’s been that way to save my teeth from rattling together. My lower back aches, my nostrils are full of dust and DEET, and my body is jittering with nerves as we leave our vehicle and push through a shroud of dry palms hanging over a makeshift entrance.
A group of villagers is on the other side to greet us, their smiles wide and so full of crimson betel nut it’s difficult to see where their gums start and stop. At least I can tell they’re excited to see us. Secretly, after what I’ve already been told, I’m hoping the experience will be over quickly.
But before we even arrive at Safanaga Village, a remote and isolated settlement just outside Goroka in Papua New Guinea’s Central Highlands, we’ve been told by folks from Papua New Guinea’s Tourism Promotion Authority (PNGTPA) we’re the first group of western journalists to travel this road between the two main highland cities of Goroka and Mount Hagen. While this is significant given it’s considered one of the most treacherous stretches of highway on the planet, this fact almost instantly pales into insignificance. On the village’s riverbank, I sit aghast as waves of human blood and bile disappear downstream.
The Keeya people of Safanaga Village are one of just a few clans in this region still practising a confronting bloodletting initiation ritual. It happens regularly, but the PNGTPA reps say fewer than 20 tourists a year witness the tradition that involves young men removing the dirty or impure blood – they allegedly inherit it from their mothers at birth – in order to aid their transformation into men.
I watch in complete disbelief as three young brothers, Apune, Ansley and Yapo, use a range of makeshift bush apparatus to inflict unspeakable pain on themselves.
Yapo is the first to start the ritual. He rolls leaves into two tight wands, so they’re of a similar length and appearance to a cigar. Once he’s done, he repeatedly and violently pushes them up into his nostrils like two pistons firing rapidly in a car engine. Yapo, along with our group, is visibly distressed.
Ansley then hands a tiny bow and arrow over to his little brother, sticks out his tongue as if it’s a bullseye and, in rapid succession, a glass-tipped arrow is fired into it. After about 20 times it’s obvious the pain is almost unbearable.
“This [is] the most dangerous [part],” one of them says to our group in broken English, just as the remaining brother, Apune, begins to swallow a two-metre length of cane.
In a few seconds, something as thick as but less flexible than a skipping rope miraculously disappears down Apune’s throat and into his body. He calmly gags before it emerges again. I have to look away. Needless to say the entire experience renders me speechless and emotionally broken. It’s in this moment I realise that, despite being only 150 kilometres from mainland Australia, I’m in another world.
In reality, however, what we are watching is just a show. Sure, it’s a complex celebration of tradition, history, storytelling and ritualistic coming of age, but today these types of experiences are a way for these tribes to keep centuries-old traditions alive as well as attract much-needed tourist dollars.
When you look at Papua New Guinea on a map it’s hard to fully grasp the sheer remoteness in which villagers like the Safanaga live. Picture a tablecloth laid flat then pinch it in the middle and bring it to an elevation of 4,509 metres. That’s the height of PNG’s tallest peak, Mt Wilhelm in the Central Highlands. Their home, along with millions of others, is perched precariously in these fog-draped mountains.
And in a region with more than 800 different ethnic groups and tribes, despite the pressures of the western world being firmly wedged against it, the highlands still remain a buffet of sensory tribal traditions where visitors like us are welcomed with open arms.
We’re visiting the region on the eve of the sixtieth anniversary of the famous Hagen Show, an annual sing-sing (the word means gathering) featuring the coming-together of dozens of tribal groups in the town’s central stadium across a single weekend. It’s an opportunity for tourists
to witness a melting pot of cultures all in one place at the same time.
Yet a mere weekend of watching these traditions unfold behind a fence as just another white-faced spectator is far less enjoyable than taking the long road between Goroka and Mount Hagen and crafting a remote experience to visit hidden tribes and witness their traditions along the way. There’s something much more raw and unscripted about seeing these take place in context, as if you’re being invited to peer inside a cultural time capsule with the implicit permission of a village elder.
Like the famous Australian Leahy family, who led the first expeditions into the highlands during the 1930s in search of gold, each new day
feels like another scene from the acclaimed documentary, First Contact.
THE ASARO MUDMEN
We start with the most popular tribal group in the region. They’re so popular, in fact, I’m sitting in the exact same spot as actor Morgan Freeman, who was here a few weeks ago filming his latest Netflix series.
Its notoriety in no way makes our personalised visit any less spine-tingling.
There’s an eerie silence before a horn sounds in the distance. Smoke wafts over the village’s dedicated performance ground and an Asaro Mudman scout, with a young boy in tow, leads out to “check for enemies”. Within just a few seconds dozens of ghostly mudmen wielding clubs and bows break through the smoke in a frenzy, bombarding us from every angle.
Their performance is tantalising, their movements deliberately intimidating. With each drumbeat, I try harder to peer through the holes in their masks – some of them weigh up to 15 kilograms each – to catch a glimpse of their eyes just to make sure I’m still dealing with humans.
GORUMEKA CLAN
“You can help expose my country, my village, my community to the rest of the world to help us keep our traditions,” leader of the Gorumeka clan, Robert Gotokave, tells me as he cradles his machete. We’re on an hour-long hike to the top of Mount Gorupuka.
Gorupuka was once a World War II staging post for Australian artillery and Gotokave’s grandfather was a Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel who ran supplies up the mountain to fuel wveary soldiers.
“I’m one of the sons of soldier men, too,” he says with a smile, and for a moment we share a special bond as I tell him my grandfather was stationed not far from Port Moresby at the same time.
But the mountain is so much more to Gotokave than simply a relic of a long-ago war. It’s a sacred place where his elders have held pre-battle sacrifices for generations. The summit is accessed only by a secret cave and I must leave the branch of a local fern at the ‘door’ before I’m allowed to enter or risk never being allowed to leave.
As Gotokave finally takes us back to his village, the other men are already dressed in their post-war celebration garb. Yet this dance, known as the mokomoko, is overtly sexual and phallic.
There’s thrusting, grunting and suggestive woven devices worn around waists which are, we’re told, designed to arouse the interest
of any female onlookers.
THE SKELETON DANCERS
A few hours up the road in Mindima Village you hear the shrieking before anything else. While the sound is horrific enough, it’s when you see the skeleton performers the real fear sets in.
Their faces are intricately decorated for our arrival and, in terrifying detail, they re-create the story of a monster who lives in the mountains above their village and who is famed for stealing and eating Mindima children.
KORUL VILLAGE
Before arriving in Mount Hagen you first pass through the breathtaking Chimbu province, which rises steeply out of the Asaro Valley.
In Korul Village I meet Batman, his name an indicator of both his size and stature. He’s huge, like most Highlanders I’ve met so far, and as he leads me over the crest of the hill where his village sits I understand why – you need to either grow wings or build muscle just to live here.
My journey through Korul is like visiting a modern history museum. Village life fans out in front of me and I look out across the valley. Batman says there’s as many as 3,000 to 4,000 people living here, yet I remain focussed on just four people at the end of a small clearing.
I’m introduced to village chief Bomal and his three wives. He sits proudly on a log, munching on a piece of fruit and surrounded by his concubines. Polygamy is still widely practised in the highlands, as too are ‘bride prices’, with pigs used as the most common form of currency.
The chief shouts angrily for water and wife number two hastily scurries off to appease him. Once again, as I felt in Safanaga a few days earlier, I’m uncomfortable and can’t help but look away.
In the space of just a few days I’ve witnessed bloodletting, phallic sex dances, polygamy and skeleton spirit rituals, but on the road to Mount Hagen in Papua New Guinea’s highlands that excruciating feeling of unease at every corner is all just part of the experience.
Lakes of bubble-gum pink seem to be something of an Australian phenomenon. Apart from the Insta-famous pond in Melbourne’s Westgate Park that turns pink when salt levels peak, the rest can be found in Western Australia. Lake Hillier is one of the most famous, and the only one that remains pink all year long. The colour is caused by a microalgae called Dunaliella salina, which is found in water that’s highly saline.
Lake Hillier is located on Middle Island in the Recherche Archipelago, near Esperance, and is best enjoyed on a scenic flight with Goldfields Air Services. That way you can truly appreciate the juxtaposition of the lake, which is the same shade as Pepto-Bismol, and the deep blue of the ocean, separated only by a thin stretch of scrub and white sand.
It’s the national airline, so Vietnam Airlines serves up a very different Asian stopover on the way to Europe (it has direct flights to London, Paris and Frankfurt). From Sydney or Melbourne, you’ll fly direct to Ho Chi Minh City, with its combo of local personality and French influences. Colour us crazy, but we’d stop here just for the opportunity to gorge on excellent food. And as much as we love pho and banh mi, this is the chance to head to food streets and night markets for less well-known dishes. (Plus, you can have pho for brekky with iced Vietnamese coffee, so you won’t miss out.)
Try banh xeo (crispy rice pancakes with seafood), bun mam (noodle soup with fermented fish broth, seafood and pork belly) or anything else that looks tempting. Stretch your legs before getting back on the plane checking out the War Remnants Museum, Saigon Opera House and the Reunification Palace. The Cu Chi Tunnels are just 90 minutes away, so you can even organise a day tour. Last but hardly least, kick back and have one of the city’s famous massages.
I believe in love at first sight. You know that feeling you get when you catch a glimpse of a stranger and everything slows right down? Your heart skips a beat and you ask yourself, “Why have I bothered with anything else up until now?”
At the water’s edge we pull up our Nissan N-Trek Navara and hop out, the turquoise waves of Shark Bay lapping at our feet. Hermit crabs scurry off into the distance and hungry gulls squawk overhead in search of their next meal. My wife and I look at each other and marvel at what we’ve accomplished in the past 14 hours of driving. The journey, however, was merely the obligatory courtship period required for the start of any good relationship.
As the sun rises behind us and we both look back at Steep Point, mainland Australia’s most westerly outcrop, it’s time to get down to business. Despite the early hour, the Dirk Hartog Explorer, a makeshift barge specifically designed to transport a single 4WD and camper trailer from the beach, approaches the shoreline and we drive carefully onto the deck.
Its skipper is a burly, unshaven West Australian named Keiran Wardle, who wears a Bisley shirt and a strong, wide smile. Keiran fires up the Explorer’s motors and, as we leave mainland Australia, I look across to Dirk Hartog Island already convinced this is a love affair that will last.
Dirk Hartog lies about 900 kilometres northwest of Perth, past the point where canary yellow canola fields make way for that unmistakable West Australian red dirt. From the turn-off to Shark Bay conservation area it’s another three- to four-hour adventure, even for the most experienced off-road enthusiast. The corrugation along this route is bone-rattling and, as you turn off Useless Loop Road onto the Steep Point 4WD track, you cross ashen saltpans and manoeuvre your vehicle over thick sand dunes with virtually no air in your tyres. The experience is equally exhilarating and exhausting.
After the short water crossing, we arrive at what I pictured the edge of the world to look like. The 80-kilometre-long finger of land is mostly flat and craggy through the middle. Enormous rocky cliffs force back the wild Indian Ocean on one side; on the other 190-metre-high Sahara-like sand dunes shift in the wind.
It’s spring and magenta wildflowers and sun-tinged scrub explode with life on the roadside, helping to guide our 45-minute journey from the southern arrival point to the ecolodge set on protected Homestead Bay on the eastern side of the island.
It’s here we begin to realise Dirk Hartog Island has a knack for creating unlikely love stories. Either you fall in love with the place yourself – as I already have – or lose your heart to another and remain forever.
Keiran Wardle’s grandfather, Sir Thomas Wardle, was one of the first to fall under the place’s mystic charm. An Australian supermarket baron in the 1950s, he acquired the pastoral lease for the island in 1968 and took over its sheep station. He loved it so much, Keiran explains, he would “just come up here fishing all the time with his mates”.
Soon after the lease became his, however, his business interests crashed. He fled to the island, but it became mostly off limits to the rest of his family. Kieran first returned as a six-year-old, but it was at 18 that he was asked to help run the station for a few weeks. His true love of island life then began to solidify.
Like all good love stories, fate would intervene and a young apprentice chef from Melbourne named Tory would soon also get a call to help, this time with meals for weary workers. Her visit was supposed to last just a few weeks, but it stretched into marriage, three children and now a thriving eco-tourism business. If you haven’t found romance yourself, forget about Fiji – turns out the real Love Island is in the west.
In 1991, when the West Australian Government decided it wouldn’t renew expiring pastoral leases, it had already earmarked Dirk Hartog as a national park. This move, along with diminishing wool prices, gave the Wardles an idea. They saw an opportunity to negotiate the acquisition of more freehold land for tourism and, in return, they’d assist with the rejuvenation of the island’s ecological heritage.
Kieran’s grandfather had already significantly reduced sheep numbers – he’d even attempted his own species reintroduction process – but now the flock would be completely removed from the island. So too were the goats and a significant population of feral cats.
The change over the past 10 years, says Kieran, has been dramatic. Vegetation has returned, dunes have retained their shape and bird species are now coming home. “I reckon they’re dinosaur footprints,” he says with boyish enthusiasm, as he traces his finger across some coloured dots he’s made on blurry iPhone photos. “We’ve just got to get an archaeologist over here to verify it.”
As he’s talking, I imagine it’s this enthusiasm for new discoveries that has kept him so enamoured by the island for decades.
While there’s no guarantee the island’s history is prehistoric, it is certain this is the location of the first European landing on soil that is now known as Australia. Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog carved his name into a pewter plate in 1616 and nailed it to a wooden post at what would become known as Cape Inscription at the north end of the island. But today’s history is being written by the Wardles at their ecolodge, ocean villa and new camping facilities on Homestead Bay.
For those looking for a little more comfort, the converted limestone shearer’s lodge features six well-appointed rooms with 180-degree views of the bay. These are fully catered by Tory, who somehow manages to assemble a breakfast, lunch and dinner worthy of some of the best hotels in the country despite being in the middle of nowhere.
The ocean villa sleeps up to 12 people in three separate rooms. There are also camping sites aplenty, which fill rapidly during school holidays. Kieran’s self-imposed cap of just 20 cars on the island at any one time ensures a sense of remoteness is retained and the impact on the environment is low.
On our first day, from the balcony, we see a dugong feeding out in the bay. The next morning, as the sun rises, a manta ray hunts in the shallows. But this choose-your-own-adventure holiday destination also allows you to leave the lodge each morning with a packed lunch to discover the island’s pristine hidden corners.
Following Kieran’s directions on a map, I push the Nissan over a ridge before parking it and clambering over some rocks feeling like a young Charles Darwin. Walking down to the water’s edge, I watch as dozens of small nervous sharks gather in the shallows of Surf Point, their fins cutting the surface as they whip one another into a feeding frenzy. If they were a few metres longer it would be truly terrifying.
Kieran and his family have their secret spots, too. We are given directions to Stowk Cove (the name is made up of the initial of each family member – Sanchi, Tory, Oli, Will and Kieran), but there is another favourite family spot where the boys and their father regularly camp under the stars. Here they dive in the mornings with whale sharks that are migrating north to the more popular tourist spot of Exmouth.
Thanks to Kieran and Tory, Dirk Hartog Island has a bright future. But their biggest accomplishment to date, despite having no supermarket, no mechanic, no doctor, no plumber, no cleaner or full-time chef, is creating a world-class destination unshackled by the need to run livestock in order to survive.
At the time of writing, an unfinished cafe and bar dubbed Inscription sits overlooking the bay adjacent to the ecolodge. Negotiations with the state government for a liquor license are complicated and ongoing, but Kieran is unperturbed by the delay. It’s like he knows something we don’t. Could it be the result of needing to be an eternal optimist in a place where life is always on a knife’s edge?
On our last night on Dirk Hartog, we follow the Wardles and a few other guests into the dusk across the towering sand dunes towards a spot known as Herald Heights.
They make this trip regularly with visitors as an opportunity to catch Australia’s last sunset. “If you don’t count Christmas Island,” says Kieran, smiling once again. Tory cracks a bottle of champagne and, against the setting sun, I grab my wife’s hand, feeling terribly romanced by Dirk Hartog’s evening charm. I look over at Kieran who has his arm around Tory’s shoulders and I realise this place offers much more than just love at first sight. Falling for a place like Dirk Hartog Island is everlasting.
Caves conjure visions of tight squeezes, claustrophobia and dark, scary spaces. Not on Maewo in Vanuatu, where Moon Cave is spacious and lit with rays of sunlight that strike the water and create an iridescent yet eerie glow. Swimming here on a hot day is a must and so is engaging your guide to explain its cultural stories.
Serving as an important site to the community, Moon Cave helps locals share their story of creation and, in particular, the ways it’s influenced by the direction the sun and moon take as they travel across the sky. Hearing this new cosmological perspective will undoubtedly make you look up and wonder. Moon Cave also features ancient cave writings and an impressive amount of stalactites.
Maewo is off the beaten track, so if you’re seeking an authentic Pacific Island adventure, this is going to fit the bill. Don’t expect everything to be perfect though – part of the adventure is the rustic experience.
Get off the grid and ease into island time – it’s real and, rather than being measured in minutes, it’s all about chats and connections. Be sure to visit villages and ask about the gardens. Most people live here in tune to nature’s rhythms and, yes, that means seasonal home-grown fruit and vegetables dug directly from the garden to your plate each night.
When you dip your face into the sea at Uri Marine Park, colours will explode before your eyes. It surely is the real deal when it comes to snorkelling.
Uri is off the seriously remote tropical island of Malekula, and has a coral reef that would give anything in Queensland a run for its money. Best of all, there’s not another tourist in sight, so you can forget where you are, let go and float your worries away.
Expect to see giant clam shells on the sea floor and huge turtles glide past you surrounded by schools of exotic tropical fish, including translucent houndfish that look as though they’ve got straws for noses. If you’re super lucky you might even see a majestic dugong swim past. The soft coral is an epic combination of purple, lime green, pink and tan. This is as good as it gets.
Once you have finished you snorkel, you’ll be greeted by the locals kids, who’ll have come down for a swim and a chat after school. Nothing on here is touristy or flashy – accommodation comes in the form of basic bungalows constructed from bamboo. There’s no power and no fuss, but everything is idyllic and perfect. If you want to escape the hustle and bustle, Uri Marine Park is your place.
The jungle is thick, green and steamy and you will be caked in sweat. It will run rivers down your arms and chin. No need to despair though, there is a heavenly aqua pool surrounded by limestone rock at the base ofthe waterfall where you don’t even have to change into your swimmers to enjoy. It’s laidback and pretty casual here on Malekula Island, Vanuatu, everything is done with a laugh and a smile.
There’s not a man-made structure in sight. It’s all just green and lush. There are butterflies, bird song, splashing and laughter. This is what you want when you come to the pacific – nature at its most magnificent.
Vanuatu may not be on the tourist radar yet, and that’s exactly the attraction. There’s no luxury resorts on Malekula Island. Outside the capital city, there’s no electricity and very little infrastructure. The roads are a bumpy adventure in themselves.
A visit to Losinwei waterfall is easy to organise once you’re on Malekula Island especially if you’re in the north near Norsup airport and Lakatoro, the capital city of this province. Just ask your host to arrange a guide and bus to the base of the short walk. You don’t need to book ahead. Things here work at their own pace and everything is done with a smile.
While you’re lazing in the pool you can devour freshly cut pawpaw and banana and wash it down with green coconut juice straight from the coconut. If this sounds like heaven to you…it’s because it is. After a dip, there’s tons of time for relaxing and taking in the bush and beautiful falls.
The Losinwei Jungle Waterfall trip includes cultural dances, a 3 day bush walk, some visits to an old cannibal site and viewing traditional canoes that Malekula Island is famous for. There’s tons to do…you can either lay on your back and let the soothing falls wash away your worries or you can explore deep into the jungle.
We promise you there’s no music festival in the world that is as unique and awe inspiring as the water-drumming, singing ladies of the sea at Gaua Island, Vanuatu.
The Ëtëtung or water music is a soothing, sonic and visual experience where ladies in hand woven costumes adorned with tropical flowers and beat a calming, hypnotic rhythm with their arms and bodies by lashing, splashing, scooping, slapping, skimming, swirling at the water while singing traditional song.
Each song is not only a deep water beat that you can feel and hear but also a whimsical song sung by the ladies in their local language. Stories and tales are shared. While you may not understand it all, you sure will feel it. The women’s eyes are alive with joy and participation is encouraged, so if you’re brave enough you’ll be invited to join in the dance.
If you’re looking for a truly unique cultural experience, this one is hard to beat. So is Gaua Island. It’s remote, wild and full of adventure.
(
