Aqua-Firma always places a special focus on locations which have great terrestrial wilderness and bountiful marine life. Papua New Guinea is a prime candidate with vast areas of both pristine rainforest and coral reef; colourful tribal cultures scattered from high mountains to tropical islands; birds of paradise; volcanoes and more.

A journey to Papua New Guinea cannot possibly feel like ‘doing’ the place. There is so much to explore above and below the water that you will find yourself immersed in a world that time forgot, scratching deep below what feels like an unfathomable surface. No one can possibly say that they know all the corners of Papua New Guinea – it’s simply too difficult to get around.

It is worth quoting a few numbers when describing Papua New Guinea, beginning with Tribal Culture. When we take you into the rainforest, an hour by motor canoe might take you past tribal villages spanning three or four unrelated languages.  Across PNG, there are a total of 848 known languages, spread amongst a modest population of 7 million people. Whilst very much a thing of the past, cannibalism and tribal wars have played a major role in isolating communities and preventing integration. Today, contests are more often settled at a festival where tribes compete for the most elaborate costumes and displays, or take to a patch of grass to play their national sport of rugby league.

Holidays to Papua New Guinea

A land that is bound to intrigue, excite and astound in equal measure, Papua New Guinea has always been surrounded by myths and superlatives and, for those with an adventurous spirit, a genuinely different experience awaits. Your Papua New Guinea holiday ingredients range from highland tribal festivals with painted warriors, crocodile watching along the Sepik River, stunning birds of paradise, fabulous landscapes, dive sites that are amongst the best in the world, peaceful beach resorts, fascinating WW2 history, serious trekking, and a colourful and friendly population that offer a true South Pacific welcome to everyone making the long journey to
these exciting islands.

The journey to Papua New Guinea is a long one and so the destination combines well with a stopover in Singapore, Hong Kong or Manila. Get in touch to let us plan your PNG adventure and we’ll create the very definition of a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience.

BirdQuest, founded in 1981, has an unequalled repertoire of birding tours and combined birdwatching and wildlife holidays and cruises that will appeal to every kind of birder. Our tours are celebrated as the very best available, and we have shown our clients and friends over 10,200 bird species worldwide, more than any other birding tour company (and not that far off the total for all other birding tour companies combined!), as well as an extraordinary variety of mammals and many other fascinating aspects of the natural world.

 UNCHARTED PAPUA NEW GUINEA EXPEDITION

Papua New Guinea Birding Tours: Birdquest has been operating tours to Papua New Guinea for over 30 years, but this phenomenally biodiverse country still conceals hidden avian gems which have been seen only by a handful of intrepid researchers and expeditioners. This special expedition will explore well off the beaten track in search of an enticing array of endemic birds which have previously been considered ‘off-limits’ to world birders, and our adventurous itinerary will certainly break new ground, potentially even rediscovering one or more lost species!

One of diving’s last frontiers Papua New Guinea plays host to a collection of the world’s finest reef diving regions. Here deep waters run adjacent to the mainland and neighbouring islands which in turn offers excellent chances of pelagic sightings such as sharks and rays. Combine this with pristine coral reefs and vibrant marine life and you have all the ingredients for a premier dive destination.

Kimbe Bay, Witu and Fathers Reef offer exceptional diving in the shape of huge soft corals and barrel sponges, big fish make for regular sightings in the open ocean north east of Kimbe with silvertips and grey reefs not uncommon.

We’ve handpicked a number of preferred operators throughout the region to offer a scope of the finest diving and land based opportunities. Walindi Plantation Resort is located in Kimbe Bay and is run in conjunction with FeBrina Liveaboard allowing easy access to local sites of New Britain and also the more remote regions of Witu and Father’s Reef.

Tufi Resort is easily accessed from Port Moresby on the north eastern coastline of the country, this is beautifully located resort is surrounded by inlets and dense tropical rainforest and offers superb diving. For land based we can arrange tours inland to Mt Hagan for authentic culture and beautiful topside vistas.

First and foremost, we are a small company and plan to keep it that way. 21 years ago, in 1994, we (Ian Green and Fiona Dunbar) started Greentours, from the back bedroom of our flat in Norfolk, where we had both been at University studying Ecology, with one computer and a new fangled phone/fax machine. We still have customers travelling with us who came with us on in our first year, or indeed on our first tour!

Ian, who had already been leading and organising wildlife tours for other companies, noticed a yearning on the part of many of his customers. Those on birding holidays rather wanted to stop and look at the butterflies and flowers that were being passed by, and customers on butterfly trips were covertly sneaking looks at bird books, floras, and even the odd tome on reptiles… Sometimes, there would even be couples with different areas of wildlife interest! Again guided by the desires of our customers, we have more recently started offering our popular photography, wildlife at leisure and Alpine Garden Society tours.

Naturetrek was founded in 1986 and our first tours specialised in birdwatching and botanical treks to remote and mountainous areas of the world. Thirty-two years later, we still offer many such treks, but our portfolio of holidays now includes 450+ holidays to over 90 different destinations worldwide. Today, we offer the world’s largest selection of professionally organised natural history holidays.

What Can I Expect on a Naturetrek holiday?

All of our holidays are expertly guided by a leading naturalist. In addition, we often take an expert local guide(s). Birds, mammals and plants are usually the main focus of our tours but we do incorporate as many other aspects of the natural world as possible, and many of our tours also include cultural highlights. Our holidays are often longer than other wildlife tours and, because they tend to be slower-paced (with the exception of our Bargain Selection), offer more time for detailed wildlife exploration, photography, relaxation and to take an interest in the region’s people, culture, history and architecture.

We generally spend as much time as we can in an area searching for birds, mammals and plants on foot, though we do travel by minibus at least some of the time on most of our tours.

Papua New Guinea is one of the wildest and least explored regions on earth. Its astonishingly rich avifauna includes nearly 400 endemic species, amongst them the exquisite birds-of-paradise. This group of birds forms one of the principal objectives of this 16-day birdwatching tour. Starting in the capital Port Moresby, our tour visits Varirata National Park, Rondon Ridge, Karawari Lodge and finally the world-famous Ambua Lodge, encountering en route a wonderful variety of birds including many of the unique and fantastically plumaged birds-of-paradise. The lodge is situated at Tari Gap in the central highlands, home of the Huli tribe, or ‘wigmen’, known for their ornate ceremonial wigs, and dances and songs fashioned on the mating rituals of the birds-of-paradise.

The nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG) comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, second largest island in the world, as well as many other Pacific islands, some of a considerable size such as New Britain and New Ireland, and many much smaller islands and atolls.

The most linguistically diverse country on earth, PNG has more than 850 mutually unintelligible, indigenous languages reflecting at least as many different traditional tribal societies. This astonishing cultural variety has given rise to many different forms of expression, including art, carving, dance, singing, music and flamboyant costumes and hairstyles. The colourful cultural heritage is celebrated annually at numerous large regional festivals and sing-sings, including Goroka and Mt Hagen and lesser-known Tumbuna and Kundu.

Habitats range from dense tropical rainforest to savannah and wetland plains, volcanic mountains to white sand beaches and coral reefs. The forests are home to many rare species of marsupial such as tree kangaroo, insects including the Queen Alexandra birdwing (the world’s largest butterfly) and birds such as the cassowary. However, PNG is best known for Sir Richard Attenborough’s favourites: the brilliantly coloured birds of paradise, with 38 of the 43 known species found there.

Papua New Guinea is truly one of the world’s last travel frontiers. Nature and humanity unite in a heady mix of sights and sounds, and many parts of the country remain blissfully unaffected by the ever-advancing ways of the western world. However, PNG is definitely up and coming (it received the Most Emergent Destination award from Wanderlust Magazine in 2014) and, now that Reef & Rainforest can put together tours at reasonable cost, there should be many more visitors, so go now while it’s still authentic and unspoilt.