the end of my PNG trip

After the colour and spectacle of the Mount Hagen festival, we had a couple more days of our holiday left, but in the completely different environment of one of the country’s many islands – New Britain.  We had a couple of days in which to snorkel, to watch dolphins, to visit a volcano observatory and Japanese underground tunnels from World War II, and to watch a performance of the Baining firedance.  It wasn’t exactly downtime (not enough time to use the hotel swimming pool ☹ ) but if a change really is as good as a rest then yes, I suppose it was restful!  & we did have a couple of free hours on the final morning, when I suppose I could have used the pool and flown out with wet swimwear, but I decided instead to visit the Kokopo War Museum.

When we arrived we drove across the area which was devastated by the 1994 eruption of the Tavurvur Volcano and then covered with many metres of ash in the 2014 eruption, until we reached the observation point at some hot springs, and after lunch we toured the Japanese tunnels.  Interesting, but nothing to make a special trip for.

The real purpose of visiting this area was to see a Baining fire dance.  This tribe was decimated some generations ago by a volcanic eruption, and now the rites of passage into manhood include the conquering of fire.  In the fire dance, masked men (the designs for their masks apparently coming to them in dreams) dance around a fire and then start running at it, and kicking it, to show their lack of fear and indeed their dominance of fire.