The trip home

We’re back in Oregon right now, and have recovered from jet lag enough to share a few photos of our trip.

It all started at 7am on Wednesday (PNG time) when we caught a ride to the SIL airstrip.

It was raining and foggy, and we were a little bit nervous that our flight to Port Moresby would be able to leave on time. It was scheduled to leave at 8:30, but we didn’t hit the air until 9:00. The fog would come and go, come and go, but eventually cleared enough for us to leave. Brian and I were the only passengers on the Cessna 206, so it was a bit boring sitting around and waiting for the flight.

There was an extra set of headphones, so Brian got to listen to the chatter of our two pilots. I just put on my headphones to drown out the noise and looked out at the beautiful PNG scenery during the two-hour flight.

We made it to Port Moresby on time, and then flew on to Brisbane, Australia.

We had a 24-hour layover in Brisbane, so we took the train to the downtown area, where we spent the night at a little bed and breakfast. I was really craving fish and chips for some reason, so we found a restaurant that was serving them – and look at the lovely salad that came with it! I was sooooo excited to be eating spinach – something we never see in PNG.

The next morning we hit the streets and wandered through the shopping centers downtown, enjoying all the sights and all the wonders of a first-world country - crowds, smooth asphalt, coffee shops, book stores, etc. We wandered through a supermarket and marveled at things like M&Ms varieties that we had never heard of before.

We also enjoyed holding hands – something that we can’t do in public in Papua New Guinea.

After that we wandered through the botanical gardens and along the waterfront – it was a very relaxing day. It was also nice to stretch our legs, knowing that we had many, many hours in an airplane ahead of us that evening.

In the afternoon we took the train back to the Brisbane airport, flew to Sydney, and then from Sydney to Los Angeles (12.5 hours), and finally from Los Angeles to Portland. We arrived in Portland at about 11:30pm, and then had an hour and a half drive back to Brian’s parent’s house. Needless to say, we were dead tired and had a nice long sleep.