Hi readers, yes we are still here, even though my blog posting is slooooow. Busy busy at work and on holiday, so not had too much time or mojo to put into my blog.
I have just cleared a lot of questions from my spam queue, hopefully have answered them all….
We have a couple of events coming up, tonight it’s the last State of Origin game, and on Saturday the All Nations Ball is on. I’ll try and do a real update when I am hungover on Sunday 🙂
Hepi Easter 🙂
Over Easter, we travelled out past the LNG site to Sunset Lodge, it’s a fair old trip, and not too bad going until you get past the LNG site – then she is 4×4 country 🙂
We actually missed the SP SOLD HERE sign and went all the way to the footbridge at the end of the road, a quick turnaround and headed back.
Sunset Lodge is a fantastic place, and if it wasn’t for the very poor karaoke that was going on, would have been magical. I have a few photos – but it will have to wait until I can get them off my camera…
On arrival at Sunset – you need to follow your nose past the carpark and go around past the BBQ area to the bar. There is a honestly system in place, pay K10 per adult and K5 per child, then K5 for some wood for the wood fired BBQ’s and you are away. You do need to buy your beer over the bar, but it wasn’t that expensive until you buy an Apple Cider (K20+ a bottle!!)
Sunset Lodge is a magical place and I wish we could have stayed longer – but as is normal in the IT industry – something shits itself at work, and there goes the Easter weekend 😦 Jacinta had a much better weekend than me, and got to go out to Fishermans Island, and off to the Westpac Compound for a BBQ. You can read about her Easter here
And yes, even though I’m not posting as much as I could do – I still try and respond to all your emails and questions on my blog. 🙂
Aaron
Well, it has been such a long time since my last real post – I almost have nothing to blog about. Sounds weird, but truth is – this place can make you so busy, that you actually forget what you have done. So, a quick rundown:
Corporate 9’s – well…. where do I start, we ended up finishing in 7th spot out of 16 teams, which was quite amazing as all the other teams had a few extra weeks to prepare and we just got dumped into it. Then we played in the finals where we were beaten in all our finals matches… General attrition meant that we lost a few players on the way through injury, and others through lack of commitment. Pretty standard stuff really… So whilst the top teams finished off the season, I hosted a BBQ at my place where we all had a few beers, some kai kai, a swim, and many laughs. Every member of the team received an award (verbal of course) but our MVP got a bottle of Scotch to take home. It was a nice afternoon and all the boys are keen on other comps that we can get stuck into.
I then had a couple of weeks by myself in Port Moresby with Jacinta and the kids heading off back to NZ for a bit of R&R and an escape from the impending heat and humidity as the wet season approached. I hung back, worked my butt off since there was no one around, and left just before Christmas. My father – who works in PNG too (FIFO) ended up staying with me for the last couple of days and we both flew out together on the same plane – although he stops at Brisbane 🙂
We spent Christmas down in the deep south of NZ with my other family, before heading back up to the far north to spend time with Jacinta’s. I actually ended up buying a $2000 car in Auckland as it was just as cheap to buy one and leave it at the in-laws, than hire one all the time.
Flying around from PNG to NZ – I fly Virgin Australia as there is a connection in Brisbane on the day, so it is a pretty painless process. Plus, we get to pool all our airpoints and status credits into one persons account, so Jacinta is a velocity silver and I am velocity gold – soon to be platinum… yes – we do a fair bit of flying now 🙂 this means we get some extra perks like good seat selection, Priority checkin, priority boarding, free baggage, priority baggage, but best of all Koru Lounge access in Brisbane and anywhere in NZ if I am traveling. Koru access allows me to take in Jacinta and the kids into the lounge, which is bloody handy and a far better way to travel if you can 🙂
Coming back to PNG, I had the place to myself again – and no money. It seems my wages got stuffed up and didn’t go through. Lucky I had some spare cash hanging around, got the bank issues sorted and got paid. A week later – the bank took all my cash out of my account for no reason… pretty damn stressful and frustrating, but lucky we have great friends who lent us some weekend money and I ended up spending 5 hours in the bank come Monday trying to sort out the mess. success.
It is stuff like this – that really makes you tired.
Kids finally back at school, and all into our routines again. Nothing really special happening – although the two older kids have auditioned for The Lion King production being produced by the school, and I am going to get them sailing in the liklik sailing school. Xavier has a trip to Loloata coming up with school – and I have already booked holidays in June. Brisbane, Singapore then NZ for Jacinta and kids whilst I head back to Port Moresby. Should be fun 🙂 it’s great to be able to take advantage of where we live to give the kids memories that will last a lifetime…
PNG is really moving ahead now – there is lots of affirmative action and development, which is where our technology revolution will assist in getting information out, for more business tok tok you should have a read of www.businessadvantagepng.com and of course, Kina’s website – which is about to have a new makeover go live www.kina.com.pg
Aaron
blogger! lol – I know, not too many posts in a while. That’s what PNG can do for you, make you so damn busy you don’t have the mental energy to blog. Stay tuned – promise more this week. Aaron
On Sunday we went to the annual RPYC (that’s the Yachty) Christmas party at Fishermans Island. If you have a boat, then it’s a nice trip out of Fairfax Harbour and across to Fisho’s. Unfortunately, we don’t have a boat, and haven’t been invited on one… Note to new expats that read my blog, and come over and buy a boat – we have kids, but we’d still like to come for a cruise!
So, Jacinta hasn’t been over there and I have only once. We went across on a Steamships barge, which was pretty cool. On the way we past a guy on an upright paddle board paddling his way across. This is no small feat, it must have been easily in the mid 30’s and it is quite a distance, 45 minutes on the barge…
We had a great day, it was very hot, and since it was a family day – we left the booze back in Moresby :). Santa came and visited, and basically we just soaked in the beautiful clear water. We honestly felt that we were in a beautiful island paradise – and of course we were 🙂
The next day I woke up to a fully sunburnt body, including the tops of my hands. Very sore! And then to top it off, Deliotte Tower lost a circuit breaker which meant no AC, water or lifts…
Oh to be back on the island!
It’s getting very hot now – I’m really looking forward to cooler weather back in New Zealand at Christmas!
Heres some Photos: Xanthe and Xaria waiting in the shade
A Kiwi Expat in PNG 