A bit of a trip off the island.

Sorry for the poor blogging effort lately. We took a trip 'off island' in September to take Ed to meet his rellies in Philadelphia and to go to an amazing New York wedding.

First stop was Dallas, to eat Texan food, recover from the long flight, and eat texan food. Stu had to be held back from buying cowboy boots. I wish I'd been held back from putting so much food in the direction of my face.

And Ed discovered a probably life-long love affair with pork.

I guess he's not a vegetarian.

Our week in DC was an absolute nerd's paradise, and Ed humoured us as we dragged him from museum to monument. 

And then we found ourselves doing the playgrounds and dogs version of a visit to NYC.

The trip went too quickly, but it was a good chance to catch up with family in Philly and New York, and for Ed to test out his increasing mobility skills. Here he is on our last day in New York at Kate and Frank's wedding in Central Park.

And then thank goodness, he slept most of the way on the flight home. Phew.

gecko painting update.....




woo hoo. the gecko painting got auctioned off last weekend. Some art connoisseur (or blind philanthropist) was lucky enough to win the auction, at the price of 3100 kina. That's over $1500. Lucky Dr Barry.

Riding the island.....

Road bikes are out (or kept inside on their wind trainers). It's all about fatter tyres and suspension here. Gravel predominates over asphalt (although pot holes don't discriminate). But the riding here is GREAT! Plenty of hills to go up and down. Plenty of scenery. You just have to go out with a willingness to say 'morning' or 'apinoon' at least a hundred times as you pass the villages and people strolling home along the roads.

I've been getting out with some of the similarly minded girls on the weekend for a ride, in preparation for our goal of riding around the island soon. This will be a feat that will involve negotiating the day's humid heat (alleviated by the fine invention of the camelback) and a stop in the middle of the ride at the resort on the other side of the island for lunch.

  

    

Apart from the multiple hill climbs to plug away on, the current challenges to accomplish are 'the goat track', a steep short cut that gets you up from town to townsite (where our houses are) at the end of the ride, and managing to cross the creeks without falling in. Neither of which I've come close to achieving just yet.

It's not Beach Road, but the views are pretty good. And the road rage is non-existant. Or traffic lights (that could be because there aren't any on the island!).

      

   

   

On yesterday's ride we passed a big 'mumu' in full swing, involving the cooking of a very large pig. Here's one that was prepared earlier.

More stories of riding adventures to come soon.....

Saturday morning stroll......... (or acquisition of mud on clothes)

A few weekends ago a group of us started the weekend with a hike up a hill. To the 'comms tower', a shed on the top of a big hill with a big aerial that you can see in the night time down at townsite. 

I think the previous Saturday night, at around about midnight there had been a towards-the-end-of-a-big-night request about whether I could hitch onto someone's walk up the hill the next time they did it. As luck would have it, the decision had been made during the following week to head up the hill that saturday. So the group of keen hikers expanded until we consisted of a couple of full families, a half a family, myself and another lady setting out down the road to the beginning of the walk.

It was a gorgeous morning, plenty of sun. Although it had been raining quite a bit the week before (muddy!!).

So we set out up the hill. It was nice and shady, so the increasingly powerful heat of the day wasn't too oppressive.

We passed a couple of vegetable gardens, a lot of bamboo and a few creeks on our way upwards. Really beautiful and rain-foresty. Pretty muddy and slippery though. I think a lot of us were wondering 'hmm, will coming down be interesting?'. So we all tried to find ourselves personalised adventure/walking sticks. 

After a while we left the canopy of the jungle behind and followed the power lines upwards still. Through some very overgrown scrub, some of which was almost reaching the lines themselves. It's just so fertile here (the ground, that is).

And then after about an hour we made it to the tower. It was a bit of a surprise to find that the shed was in a bit of a state of disrepair, unlocked with all the computers and stuff (very technical explanation) exposed to the elements and open to the wild pigs. Maybe that explains why our internet and phone isn't always so reliable?

Anyway the view was absolutely worth the walk.

In one direction we could see across to townsite and out towards the islands in the distance.

And then in the other direction a view of the mine and beyond.

And then down. In a few more ways than one. Somewhat challenging. Fun if you like slip and slide. 

Here are a couple of the many dirty bums that headed back to town.

And my sock-dirt mark when I got my boots off.

But definately worth it and looking forward to another Saturday morning stroll soon.

And here's a little guy who is now crawling and working his way towards coming along on a hike real soon (albeit in the backpack). 

When you get an email with the subject..........

Coconuts falling in pool area - Tok Save Notice to remove coconuts 

Then you know you're not living in kansas anymore.

The chicken wars (otherwise known as 'chickengate')

One thing about living in a very small town (where excitement is sometimes defined by whether there is a new type of vegetable for sale at the deli) is that there's always some kind of contentious topic that people seem to become preoccupied with. And if you're not really involved or don't have an opinion either way then it's a good source of amusement and an excellent macroscopic study in people relating (or not) to each other. 

One current subject of suspicion seems to be the keeping of chickens in townsite. For a few different reasons it's apparently very controversial. One reason is that sometimes baby chickens become roosters and wake up very early in a loud and obnoxious way, if you're inclined to be woken up at that hour. This leads to tension amongst some neighbours and the occassional untowards threat of a violent nature directed towards the said young  cocks. So then said roosters invariably need to be returned to the village where they were sourced from, probably to end up in a large pot. Another reason is that if you let your chickens be free range then that means your neighbours can't let their dogs be free range. And something else about certain plants being eaten in a garden (I didn't pay enough attention to find out the specifics about that one). I have to admit, I love looking off the deck along the escarpment at the chickens who have their freedom scratching around under the paw paw and banana trees. I accidently voiced that opinion to someone in the anti free range alliance, and unbeknownst to myself at the time ruffled a few feathers (excuse the bad poultry pun and any others that I feel the need to use in this story).

But if it's not 'chickengate' then it's probably some other 'gate' that's the talk around town. Legendary in townsite folklore is the tale of 'strawberrygate' and the ladies who used to hide fresh punnets of (hard-to-come-by) strawberries in the back of the deli freezer whenever they made a rare appearance, leading to much strawberry-less angst amongst those who missed out on their rare berry fix. Apparently the culprits were shamed and their names were forever covered in mud for their fruity faux pas. This and other island tales sometimes lead one to wonder what will be the next 'gate' that is hatched.

Notice chickens under paw paw trees, making the view from our deck more visually appealing (disclaimer- in my opinion).

View of prime chicken scratching real estate looking towards our place (under large palm tree).

Chickens (or roosters) attempting to camoflage selves (unsuccesfully) in attempt to escape threats to have their necks broken after particularly early wake-up session.

stating the obvious?