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Number of days of toil and sweat it took me to cover the final 100 miles to<br />Port Moresby: 12“Present fears are less than horrible imaginings? - William Shakespeare<br /><br />“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome? - Samuel Johnson

The Long Struggle to Port Moresby- The surprises of Papua New Guinea

Rob Lilwall
2007-12-01 15:13:45

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this the hardest adventure I have ever done alone (Siberia in winter was harder, but I was with Al during that). The ride through PNG began with a timber merchant?s road through the rainforest... within half a day I was panicked by the jungle that enveloped me on all sides. It hummed and flapped and sank deeply and darkly out of sight - I felt it could consume me and no-one would ever know. To make matters worse there were periodic junctions in the road where I didn't know where to turn, and there were no more villages to ask the way. Fortunately, having run out of water, I eventually found a loggers camp where a couple of the local lads agreed to walk with me (the muddy road was often unrideable anyway) for two days to get back to the coast. Once there, we followed the beach road... which essentially is not a road, but a beach. Here, I pushed and waded and sweated my way past the postcard perfect breakers and sands. Some days I had to hitch dugout canoes across rivers, other days to walk up to my armpits in saltwater, the bike lifted high over my shoulders. I spent my nights in village huts, eating cooked bananas and freshly caught fish and wild pig. One night I spent floating down "the Mighty Sepic River? in a motor boat I hired to get me past the crocodile infested Mangrove swamps. Finally I was riding into Lae, the second city. It was on this road that I had been warned that I would most likely be "rascalled?, so I was glad indeed when a variety of local guys with bicycles offered to escort me ? I felt a bit like Forest Gump - cycling down the open road with my silly beard, accompanied by a friendly throng fellow riders to protect me!

After a ferry ride along a 200 km stretch of roadless coast I attempted my final challenge of PNG: the Kokoda Trail. This is essentially a bush track through the Owen Stanley Mountains which is one of the only land links between the north coast and the Capital. It achieved great fame and significance in World War II ...