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| The River |
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| Kids on a rock |
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| Paul and his dad |
Not far from Kudjip
is an amazing waterfall, about 150-200 feet high. I have been there 3 other times and despite
the hills and the falls that usually go with the hike, the reward at the end of
seeing the waterfall has always been worth it.
Today, our guides weren’t sure how well the trail up the garden was
going to be and so they thought we should take the trail along the river and
see all 7 waterfalls. Having never gone
that way before and with the opportunity to see part of PNG that we haven’t
seen before, we let our guides lead the way.
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| Our trail up |
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| Elisabeth and me |
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| The Goal - Big waterfall |
The trail that we went
on definitely took us to areas that we had never seen. We got to see a number of waterfalls that I
doubt many others have seen, but it also tested our guides and our ability to
traverse the trail. The trail was made
as we were on it, our guides using their bush knives to cut down the bush
around us forming a trail that moments ago, did not exist. We were below, alongside and on top of
waterfalls, we went up and down hills and rock formations that few have seen
before, all the while knowing that a big waterfall awaited us.
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| One of the smaller waterfalls |
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| One of the smaller waterfalls |
After going up and
alongside the smaller waterfalls, we finally got into the river and made our
way to the big waterfall. Once again,
the goal of our hike did not disappoint us.
The waterfall was as spectacular as ever, with lots of water coming down
from high above us, the mist from the waterfall was quite cold, preventing us
from going swimming at the waterfall, but not from some of the kids catching fish.
As happens on all
of these journeys, we start with a few guides and then our group attracts others
who go along with us. Often those who
join us are kids, and this time was no different. We had a number of 1st-7th
graders with us, and even one baby, who wasn’t more than 1. In the US, if you take a baby out, you go
with a diaper bag that often weighs more than the baby and has everything in it
that you might possibly need while you are gone. Not this dad, he dad had nothing more than his
baby and went the whole way to and back from the waterfall, feeding him some
cucumber and passion fruit, and giving him water from the river. Paul, the kid, seemed happy the whole time,
despite spending 7 hours going to a waterfall.
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| Bill, Terry, Charity and I at big waterfall |
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| Some of the smaller waterfalls |
Our guides did a
great job of getting us there and back again.
Elisabeth was my guide and despite being only 14, was definitely more surefooted
than I was and helped guide me through many ups and downs on our way to the
waterfall. We had great weather and sure enjoyed our day.
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| Kids that joined us |
