Monday 8 September – stocking up at the shops

Rowan was convinced he would be up at some time during the night to see the eclipse. At about 3:30am, I heard him get up and there we found an amazing blood orange moon. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, it was really spectacular. A great start to the day.

Claudette had been apprehended by the customs guy yesterday when she was in town. Apparently we should have checked into the town! This region is no longer Bougainville district but New Ireland District and they require us to check in here. He gave her quite a fright as he said he could lock her up! Rowan had sent the guy an email yesterday, so it should have been all ok, but we thought we better head into town and take the boat papers, then hit the supermarket and the veg market. Claudette came with us, we dropped by the fuel depot to book in our 400 litres of diesel, that took an incredible amount of time to book it all in. It did not help that the cellular towers were having issues. Finally they got it sorted and there is a dock we can go to so we don’t have to do it all in jerry cans which is a huge relief.

First stop was to the pharmacy to pick up a good supply of antibiotics for these cuts and sores that are difficult to heal, sepsis is a real issue here, and being days away from any real medical help, it is best we have a good stash. Here they sold Cefalexin readily over the counter, £5 for 100 tables! It is the recommended antibiotic to use here, the UK docs would be horrified. We couldn’t get a single antibiotic in the UK to come travelling with, we relied on picking some up in South Africa.

Next stop was the BISI supermarket, which the resort said was the best. I went and got provisions while Rowan went to customs which just happened to be above this supermarket. I actually thought the supermarket we went to on Saturday was better, but they did have some highly recommended PNG made dark chocolate and coffee beans. It wasn’t long before Rowan was with me, they waited half an hour and nobody arrived, so they left a message under the door. We stocked up on all gift supplies, rice, tinned meat, books, lollipops, coke and then our essentials – tonic water and eggs!

Sadly the market is closed on a Monday, so it was back to PolePole, where we had a lot of sorting out and tidying up to do before our guests arrive. Their cabin is piled high with bags and goodies. Around 7pm we got a message from Grant and Judith to say that their flight was cancelled so they will not arrive tomorrow but early Wednesday morning. Poor things have to spend a night in Port Moresby which is a notoriously dangerous place. It gave me the opportunity to catch up on my blog and get in touch with the guy setting it up as it has taken him a lot longer than he thought.