The idea of going on a road trip first sprouted after a camping trip about 2 years ago while we were driving down from Paluma Range National Park.
Since then and up until 3 weeks ago the plan was to kit out the hilux and use that for the trip using our trusted old tent to sleep in wherever we decided to pitch up tent for a few days. We had been doing just that for all our camping trips and had only just finished fitting the Hilux with a two battery system, fridge/freezer and canopy.
Our current set up
3 weeks ago however, while on a trip to Eungella National Park, plans changed. My aching back decided to weigh in on the conversation and suggested that if we were going to be on the road more often, the constant unpacking, constructing and deconstructing and repacking of our tents might become a tad much. The thought of having a bed, already made and ready to be crawled into after a long trip became very appealing.
Enter, the van!!
With some amazing organisational acrobatic skills from Jacinta, less than 2 weeks later we have the van and are in the process of selling the hilux, and as I write, we are sitting on a plane back to Townsville from Brisbane after a long drive down to drop the van off with Brad at Coastline Campers for its full makeover.
This will be one of, if not our main dwelling spaces in the coming months so we want it to be as comfortable as possible.
About to be transformed.Before shots of the van. Watch this space .Discussions with Brad about van design Y Gympie Motel- an uncomfortable place to stay to say the leastCleaning the Hilux for potential buyers.
In a few weeks time we’ll be returning back to pick up our tiny mobile home 🤩. (PJR)
I’ve eaten a lot of mumu in my time but I’ve have never been involved in preparing one, so when I heard Aunty Sauni’s stories about how she used to run a busy catering business called Townsville Tropical Parties back in the day (in the 90s) specialising in mumus, I thought, what a great opportunity to learn from an expert. We had been talking about it all year and finally, before Jacinta and I went to Manus we locked in 13th December as our mumu day at Aunty Sauni and Uncle Jeff’s house at Balgal Beach.
The shopping list
The New Zealand Maoris call it the Hangi and the Torres Strait Islanders call it the Kup Murri, in PNG we call it mumu. It is basically a way of preparing a feast in a ground oven using hot stones. Traditionally, the food is packed neatly in banana leaves, but in the absence of this al-foil wraps can be used. It does tastes better with banana leaves, which is what we opted for.
The day started early with a relaxing drive out to Balgal Beach for some breakfast. After breakfast it was a team effort as we got things rolling. There was a task suitable for everyone, from peeling and preparing the veggies and meat, to fetching and cutting firewood to digging and preparing the mumu pit with the stones.
We got kaukau (sweet potatoes), taros and pumpkin and for the meat we got lamb, chicken and a couple of whole fish (sweet lips). There was plenty of kumu (green leafy vegetables) and other seasonal veggies growing around Sauni and Jeff’s house. These two have some of the greenest thumbs I have ever seen. Within 12 months of living at this place they absolutely transformed a once dry patchy back yard into this thick, full of life tropical vegetable garden.
The mumu pit itself followed several steps. Firstly an appropriately sized mumu pit was dug. Then its base was layered by small stones. Then we arranged some firewood on top of this in a way where more stones can sit on it and heat up when the structure is lit. Basically we are forming a pyre for the stones.
Emily digging the pitAunty Sauni starting the food preparationSmaller firewood close to the baseAunty Sauni and Eddie with their calm presence made things run smoothly. Watch out!!! Firewood production in process.The pyre taking shapeEmily laying the banana leaves for cleaning The stones and firewood in place – ready for the word from Aunty Sauni to light.Banana leaf wrappings being washed.Fresh aibikas being harvestedLeah looks like she is not agreeing with how the firewood is being layered.Leah with her sweetlip fishEddie starting the fire.
Once all the stones have been placed on the firewood it is ready to be lit. It’s important to coordinate the timing of lighting the fire and the food preparation – which included stuffing and seasoning the meat and vegetables as desired, wrapping up the ones that need to be individually wrapped (the fish) and preparing the coconut milk for pouring onto the food before the final wrap. If we light the fire too early before the food is prepared we risk losing heat from the stone before they are in place and covered.
With Aunty Sauni, Uncle Jeff and Eddie’s expert guidance we had our timing down pat.
Aibika flower – which I did not know existed and also we were told – aibika can be grown from seeds.Putting the larger hot stone layer
It took about 30 to 45 minutes for the firewood to burn through and the structure to collapse into it self, sufficiently heating the larger stones which were heaped on top. These stones were then removed from the pit along with all the charcoal leaving only the initial bedrock. Then we carefully placed a second layer of the larger stones (now very hot) into the pit. On the layer of hot stones went the banana leaves to which formed a nice clean bed for the food.
More food prepJacinta and Emily seasoning the fish with Leah getting ready with the secondThe sweetlips ready for wrappingThe final wrapping of the fishThe layered banana leaves ready for the food
Next – in goes the food – veggies first, then the meat, more stones which were carefully wrapped in banana leaves and strategically placed in amongst the food to ensure all the pieces get their fair share of the heat.
More banana leaves to cover the food
After all the food is in place and covered with the final layer of banana leaves, more hot stones are placed on top and the mumu sits to cook for about 2 hours.
Aunty Sauni relaxing after the mumu is set
Two hours later it was time for the great unveiling. The leaves were carefully peeled off one by one to reveal the deliciously cooked food which went straight to the table for serving. IT WAS DELICIOUS!
Elijah – husking the coconuts
What a wonderful day of learning, laughing, story telling and family time. Hillary, Eloise and Eloise’s parents Mike and Helen, and Ben were there to enjoy the lunch and afternoon with us. It was also great to connect with brother Eddie – who gave us a few tips about how to set up our ute for our planned road trip next year.
Leah, Elijah and Emily went for a walk to the beach and returned with some kulaus (green coconuts ) for refreshments and some coconut leaves to do some fun weaving. With fruit salad and kulau for dessert
Final photo of the day – Planning the next get together
We bought coffee and hopped on the 7am shuttle bus to Jackson Airport.
Home bound
Checking in our luggage we declared, like we did on our other flights, that we had inflatable life jackets containing gas canisters. We had already been advised by an Air Niugini customer support staff by email before we left Australia that this was allowable as long as we declared it. Declaring them today however triggered a whole lot of questioning, escalation to senior staff, sending and forwarding emails and waiting. We had already reconciled ourselves to the possibility of parting with our lifejackets when the supervisor came back to say it was ok for us to take them.
Me trying to find out what the verdict was about our life Jackets.In the end our luggage with the lifejackets made it through
We arrived in Cairns, checked into our hotel and went to the beach to relax.
Happy to be home
So that’s it, our little trip to my birthplace is done. It had been an important and interesting trip and I’m glad we went, but it was exhausting. Manus is a very different place to what I knew growing up for the first 9 years of my life.
We are not sure when we will visit Manus again and what that visit will look like, but when we do, at least we will have a much better idea of what to expect.
We caught a cab to the former Korobosea Medical Clinic, where Eva and the kids are. I finally got to see the building and the neighbourhood that I have heard endless stories about. PJ, with the help of family, friends and community built the clinic from the ground up. The feat that this was deserves a series of posts in itself. It felt really important to me that I got to see the place. No stories or photos can really paint the picture, I needed to see the building and the neighbourhood. I felt the same about all the people we met and the places we visited. I needed to go!
We picked up these two wonderful kids, who have just started school holidays. We hit the pool. Goggles and an underwater camera = never ending fun. Some scheming has continued about getting the kids over for to Australia for a visit with us soon.
Uncle John and Aunty Diara joined us all for lunch, with Vincent dropping in too. Again it was so so wonderful to meet these lovely people and spend time together. Phone calls and messages are never enough.
Benben, Uncle John’s grandson was our cheerful personal driver for the day, ferrying us and the kids around. We did some shopping with the kids for some school holiday supplies and had a teary goodbye with them with a hopeful promise to see them soon.
It was a bit of a rough night but we did manage to get a bit of sleep. We were up by 6am to finalise our packing before our ride arrived at 7:30. We almost left our passports behind which would have been a bit of an inconvenience but luckily one of the staff walked down dangling our passport bag saying ‘you left something’. That was a relief!
It was a pleasant slow drive to Momote airport and checking in and our flight to Port Moresby was uneventful. With the start of the holidays a lot of people are flying to their home province and being the only airline Air Niugini really struggles to meet the demands for air travel especially during this period.
Getting a bit nervous waiting for our luggage which was taking a little longer to arrive.
We checked into our hotel in Pom and went straight to have a long hot shower. Much needed after our one bucket-full shower last night.
In the evening we caught up with my sister Eva and her three kids, Crystal, Ikanau and Augustine all of whom I had not seen since I was last in Moresby in 2020.
From 2 minute noodles for dinner last night pizzas and burgers tonight.
We made plans with Augustine and Ikanau to come hang out with us tomorrow.
We left with a plan to find Mula and go to the block that the family own. His phone connection has been sketchy so we were hoping to bump into him on the road somewhere. Sure enough as soon as we stepped out there he was on the corner chewing his favourite nut (buai)
We caught a PMV and headed to the block. It’s a gorgeous piece of rainforest on top of a hill, with view to the beach. Other than a few little houses, the 25 acres is largely untouched. We hiked through with Mula’s help.
Two men trying to read a map PJ telling a story about how clean the stream used to be and where he took the girls swimming Phone rings even in the jungle Amos’ work in progress in a gorgeous spot Leaves for a well endowed Adam If we didn’t have Mula, we would’ve had trouble finding our way around the block Sweet leaf growing in the neighbour’s gardenMula’s home
We headed back in to town sweaty and muddy (well only I seemed to end up muddy?), to meet Amos for lunch, on his work break.
Hotel number 1 had no seafood or salad. How can a restaurant in Manus run out of seafood!? Hotel number 2 was good to go with fish and chips. It felt extremely luxurious to be eating a meal at a hotel. Complementary coconuts. It was so good to catch up with Mula and Amos.
There were happy kids jumping off the platform and swimming under the deck
We dropped in to the pharmacy on the walk home for some supplies and PJ connected with the pharmacist. We got some very helpful information on how he can prescribe remotely and what we can do to potentially help some relatives.
We got back to the guest house, and as I described yesterday, no water…. So we packed and tried to work out what to do with the enormous pile of lovely bilums we have been gifted. It’s not simple to get them to Australia as they are all made of natural materials.
We were so happy to see Nawes, PJ’s sister who dropped in later on. We have not been able to spend any time with Nawes since we had the ‘culture food’ together and I had just spoken about her when she arrived. We caught up, and she was keen to see pictures of the girls.
Our final night in Lorengau. We had a bucket shower, as the whole town’s water supply was still off. I was relieved to get clean by whatever means necessary. Dinner was 2 minute noodles in bed, served in rice cooker bowls, the only bowls in the kitchen. The noodles were a gift from our friendly neighbour Bobby, who is in Manus as a sea cucumber buyer. The sea cucumber season is coming to an end but is still going strong. His business partner just arrived and has taken up chain smoking indoors. It ended up being a bit of a wild night at the guest house with not a whole lot of sleep.
I had the (probably very obvious) realisation that I likely did not have stomach flu. I might have the flu as well as a bug from eating exciting new bacteria here my gut is not used to.. We have eaten all the same things but PJ probably got immunity as a kid. I started on antibiotics and started feeling better. PJ also performed some impromptu energy healing and chanting over my belly in a moment of desperation, so it was probably that that did it… Thanks for your prayers to David Bowie also. I’m still a bit shaky but definitely on the other side of that.
I just tried to have a shower, and got enough water to wet my hair, then the water went off. I am filthy dirty, stinking hot. Mud up my legs and all my clothes soaked through kinda dirty. Putting clothes back on without washing was emotional 😂 So, good time to write yesterday’s blog.
We decided the soccer ball and Cowboys football would go to the local primary school. This is where PJ went to school for grade 1 and 2. He was one of the first students here when they moved from one building to another, via a ceremonial march across town to the new school, where the flag was raised.
We got there just in time, it was actually the kids’ last day of school, they were only having an assembly and then heading off for the holiday break. We met the head teacher and some of the other teachers. They told us they don’t get much in the way of funding but they do what they can. We saw all the kids doing a work parade last week so everything was looking very tidy. This included digging out the drains that are just trenches.
This was the only school building when PJ was here as a student The drink tap
After our walk around, we enjoyed approximately 15 seconds of electricity in our room before a storm cracked and the power instantly went off.
In the arvo, Phillip dropped by and we wandered to get some coconuts to drink. They had run out but a speed boat pulled up with a fresh delivery so we waited for them to unload. We had a fun arvo wandering, telling stories and fending off nosey folks staring. People will unashamedly pull up, sit close by and stare, unflinching, for excruciatingly long periods of time. Even when we point them out, they cannot be deterred.
Phillip and PJ
We had to flake on a relative’s dinner invitation because I was too crook to go anywhere.
We have had to turn away so much food. Everyone wants to see PJ and people drop in to the guest house, all day every day while we are here. I feel like they have a secret roster so when one person leaves, the next one is here within a minute. He needs a PA. While we are eating, more people and more food arrives. It’s very lovely, however we merely hold one stomach each, and one of those stomachs is not functioning.
M’Buke departure day today. We had no power so no photos! As we tried to get a photo of Kiteni, Lancer and I, first the camera died, then PJ’s phone died, then finally, Chakumai’s phone came through. Lancer just started to like me the night before and now we are leaving! I just had to pretend to be a shark and eat him, and then we were old friends.
The fish had wisened up to PJ’s ways and they had their first fruitless 5am fishing trip.
Lomot sent us off with freshly baked scones, and 5 of us went on our way. I was sad to wave goodbye to everyone.
The boat trip back was silky smooth, and we saw one final dolphin on the way out. Its such a beautiful trip. Back to Lorengau we spent some time landing with Chakumai who was sporting my Allbirds shoes, that were always too big for me anyway. Went to the markets together in the tumbling rain, and got our supplies for the day. PJ and I are feeling like a bit of a tourist attraction, with everyone staring, watching our every move and trying to talk to us. Someone unclipped my bag, people trying to touch me etc. It’s a bit nuts so we grabbed what we needed and dashed out.
We said our final (for now) goodbyes to Chakumai. We shared such a nice time together.
If you’re still sticking with us you can have a less glossy part of this trip. I’m not sure if I am half dead or half alive. Not only do I have the Lorengau Lurgy but I also have Lorengastro. I don’t know what to eat and my tum laughs in the face of the tablets. I’m washing and disinfecting my hands a hundred times a day for everyone else’s sake. I’m gonna need you to pray to David Bowie. It’s not pretty.
The day started with another early morning fishing trip with Chakumai and Kiliwi. We managed to get a few before a storm set in so we turned back to shore.
I Joined Jacinta for breakfast then we lounged on the verandah watching the storm pass through. J was slowly recovering from her cold symptoms but she had also developed travellers diarrhoea 🙁 which was still there and really restricting her activities. Unfortunately there was going to be no more snorkeling for her.
After the storm passed we went down the beach to muck around with little Lancer. Chakumai had kept some of the fish bits which we used to attract little fishes and a couple of small reef sharks.
I saw a small canoe laying there and asked if it still floats which Chakumai said it did but needed a bit of minor repairs.
Chakumai fixed the canoe’s outrigger while Lancer did a little Manus dance. He’s a happy kid 🙂Lancer pointing out the reef sharksThe jetty repaired and back in action.
Yesterday I saw a family of 3 clown fish in their anemone home but had run out of battery then so I decided to head back in to capture it and do a bit more exploring of the reef around Chompoin Island.
Chakumai came in to join me, initially just following me around on the canoe but eventually we convinced him to don some snorkeling gear and dive in. We took turns pulling the canoe along with us as we snorkeled along the south-east side of the island. It was amazing, peaceful, full of life and colours.
The family of 3 clown fish just off the jettyChakumai on the newly repaired canoeThis video shows just how close these 3 beautiful clown fish were to the jettyChakumai enjoying the sightsThis bioluminescence coral stopped me in my tracks. It was glowing a bright fluorescent blue/purple from where I was on the surface. As I got closer to take the photograph the intensity of blue/purple diminished. Trying out the canoe. It was a bit wobbly but I managed to stay afloat and paddled back to the jetty.
In the evening we found out that we had no power as we had not put the switch on properly to charge the battery.
Chakumai joined us for dinner and told stories about how the Titan people of Manus first come to settle here. Legend has it that they were originally inhabitant of an island some 5 hours boat trip, which sank to form now what they know as Casta reef. Their exodus saw them settling in areas of the south coast of Manus and some of the southern islands. The most famous Titan village would be Pere Village which is where Margret Mead the famous anthropologist had lived and based quite a lot of work.
Chakumai told us that the M’buke people were originally Pere villagers who migrated outwards to settle in M’buke some 7 to 8 generations ago.
Another story was about a group of M’buke Islanders who got lost on a sea voyage due to strong winds which threw them off course and they ended up in Palau.
It was really intriguing and I sat there thinking I could understand why some anthropologist/ historians/archeologists who dedicate their whole lives listening to these stories, putting the pieces together into a documentary.
Without light, it was going to be an early night for everyone tonight.
A peaceful day today with not too much to report. We needed it! It was nice to consolidate all the experiences and ideas that have come our way on this trip.
PJ spent a few hours snorkelling with Kiliwi on the beach straight out from the front of the house. I sat with Kiteni and she told me about how hard she has worked to get herself through her first year of welding school and about how hard it is to continue with education or find a job here. This young woman is so absolutely determined to get herself an education, despite the huge barriers.
Lamot, who has been head chef, and Tikon, taught us how to make sago while we told stories of camping and living on the island. PJ got back to his island roots and gave a coconut scraping demonstration.
We recovered, PJ from the snorkelling and me from having the flu, lounging on the bed on the verandah. How did we get so lucky?
We watched the sun set over the sea, a special treat for these two Eastern Australians.
