PNG - Preater Style

Preater homestead in Ukarumpa

River in the backyard

Christmas at the Preaters

Flowers PNG Style

Learning about PNG

• Don’t bother looking for Ukarumpa on a map from google, you simply won’t find it. Instead try Aiyura, the landing strip/airport where Uncle Bev flys out of for a geographical perspective. Oh and if it looks like there just aren’t any roads on the map that’s because frankly there aren’t that many main roads and roads could also be interchanged for large potholes or paths

• Although I am not usually or necessarily a fan of Wikipedia it does do a fairly good job on explaining PNG, the provinces, highlands, try Ukarumpa, Aiyura, Eastern Highlands, Madang to get a feel of my time here in PNG

• For fun check out the Planet Earth series and check out the episode entitled ‘Jungles’. The section on Birds of Paradise, the native bird of PNG is completely real and the diaries documentation at the end of the episode is just as picturesque and typical PNG.

About Ukarumpa, PNG




• Reminds me of Honduras with dirt roads, mud, mountains & valleys

• Coffee plantations

• 3km drive from Aviation to the Ukarumpa village centre, A-22 Preaters. Along the way, the kids former school is now the police station. Police and Guard Dog Security patrol the area by truck & on foot.

• PNG Preaters also have Bear, a guard dog of shepherd mix but shorter legs. Bear-sie can even smile, right now she has 2 puppies that are about a month old and will have homes with the house marys, Junette & Nanoso.

• Amazing blue skies with clouds that roll in usually around midday, 3-4pm is when the thunderstorms erupt and then sometimes it rains overnight creating a dense fog in the morning

• PNG people are most often barefoot, walking everywhere amongst all terrains – hardly any shoes

• Women use bilums to carry everything from produce & goods, to babies

• Every hour on the hour during the day time the tone sounds & in combination with the large trucks, public motor vehicles (PMVs), often carrying passengers over the metal bridge it sounds an awful lot like a train (promise that is not only so not true, but impossible for it to be a train!)

• One of my favourite things to do is sit in the front room looking outside at the green trees, leaves, beautiful flower gardens, green hills & mountains in the background.

• I have enjoyed walking the perimeter of the village with Bear. Just have to know where to pick up the rocks so the other dogs don’t come after Bear. It is a great walk though along the neighbourhood, up the hill, by the horse & cow paddocks & back in through town

• Walked by the one of the National PNG High Schools, Aiyura.

• Met Dimocko, house woman from nearly 12+ years ago when Ellie was little.



• Oh the fresh produce, the best bananas, mangoes, pineapple I have ever tasted.

• Going to market, mon-wed-fri between 6 and 8 am with the women, mostly, having walked for miles, some starting as early as 4 in the morning to get to market to sell their goods. The gardens will supply: bananas of many varieties, mangoes, pineapple, passionfruit varieties, lemons, strawberries, broccoli, peas, carrots, potatoes, caucau (sweet potatoes), and soooo much more. There are bouquets of flowers laced together with flax. Then there are the handmade goods: bilums of every size & colour, necklaces of all kinds, seed necklaces, rubber bands, wood carvings, and more

• Gravel pit at the end of the road = multiple trips by Blue Ford tractors with flat beds to fill with large rocks

• So happy to be here over Christmas, with Donna’s handmade quilts, wall hangings, stockings, advent calendar & the tree is up with singing lights. My first summer Christmas could not be better!


Ellie gave me a tour of her high school, grades 7-12. She is in the senior class graduating this coming June 2011. The outdoor classrooms, basketball court, soccer field & all the departments seem like more than I had in New Liskeard.


Next installment..............  my PNG  aviation training!