Leaving Australia

Hello from Papua New Guinea!

We had a wonderful time in Cairns, relaxing, swimming, and some shopping. Malachi started crawling and now is moving around all the time following us from room to room.We left Australia on January 5th early in the morning. We drove with the pilot Dave Douglas to the plane and dropped him off and then we were driven around to International airport. We waited on the other side of customs for our pilot Dave.Here comes the fun part. I (candy) got to sit next to the pilot. (I felt like a kid in a candy store). I asked a lot of questions and the scenery was excellent. I fell asleep and woke up just before we started to descend into Port Moresby. We went into the back way to customs it was deserted. We just walked into the customs area with our passports and paperwork and we left all our bags on the plane.

Soon we were off again. It was 1 1/2 hrs to Goroka. I fell asleepmagain on the plane and Dave and the others thought I had passed out. I don't remember falling asleep but I woke up when Johnathan poked me. Lucky I wasn't flying the plane! We landed and we had to wait at the hanger for someone to pick us up. We traveled to Lapilo base which is 10 min from the airport. There were people everywhere it is a lot like the Philippines but it is not westernised. I noticed how slowly paced it is here compared to back home.

We got to the base and settled into our house that we were staying in for the next week. After putting all our stuff into the house walking past the window was the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life. It is big. Oh it lives outside and eats all the bugs. A national walked past and was telling us about it (not that I could understand). He said that he had been bitten numerous times and it felt like a crab bite. I wasn't going to get close to find out. He offered to take it away but Trevor said oh no just leave it there. So now I have to share the house with a big spider. I didn't scream but nearly burst into tears over the size of the thing.