64 Papua New Guinea
Orion cruises are all about these cultural meetings, with opportunities to engage real people, in their ancestral villages, without a tour guide flag or staged photo opp in sight. Exploring the Samarai Island, once the pearl of Milne Bay and a popular settlement for expatriates living in PNG, Dan and I follow the sound of laughter and find a gang of gleaming children diving off a jetty. Escaping the oppressive tropical heat, Dan strips down and jumps into the brilliantly clear water to a roar of laughter from the kids and their parents resting in the shade of the nearby markets.
At Kitava, in the Trobriand chain, an idyllic archipelago of coral atolls once known by shocked missionaries as the Love
Islands because of its unique matrilineal society, we watch school children perform both ancient tribal dances and contemporary interpretations, their feet kicking up the sand as they writhe and wriggle. The faces
of these pint-sized warriors are blackened with charcoal and brilliantly-coloured parrot feathers dance from their necks and from the tips of their crude spears. Their school chums lie in the sand and giggle, their feet swaying in the air in time with the drums.
Our island exploration continues as the sun peaks above the horizon at Tufi, on the cusp of Cape Nelson. One of PNG’ s best kept secrets, Cape Nelson was created by the eruption of three towering volcanoes, the fast flowing lava flows from which created a series of unique fjord-like formations called rias that boast depths of up to 90 meters and cliffs which climb vertically 150 meters on each side. At the end of these rias, mangrove forests act as fish hatcheries while the entrances are protected by brilliant coral reefs.
While guests depart for www. jetsetter. hk