Many years ago I worked in computer management for the government of Papua New Guinea. My ten year stay in the country gave me an opportunity to explore a remote part of the country that had not been opened up to westerners.

The Highlands Highway Road from Lae, the country’s major port, opened up the central highlands to mining. Elsewhere, air transport was the only way to travel to remote places, unless you walked.

Post Moresby, where I worked and lived, was where government business was conducted. It must be the only capital in the world which has no road to any other part of the country.

My wife, Ann, worked for the country’s police force, and one of her colleagues was policeman Jerry Yawa, from a remote village in the country’s southern highlands. There was no road between this area and the capital, and Jerry and I planned a walk from the main town, Mendi, to Port Moresby, through a largely uninhabited tropical forest.

We flew to Mendi, and began our epic journey to the capital on foot through villages that had no driveable roads but did have an air strip, to accommodate emergencies and oil company explorations. Villagers on our route were generous, directing us to the right path, often walking a few miles with us. All the villages had a special guest house on stilts, for weary travellers. The villagers would share their evening meals with us at a great feast in the evening. Each village had its own language, some of which Jerry could understand, and I tried to converse in Tok Pisin, formerly known as pidgin English, a national language (along with English and Motu, a widely spoken local language), in which I was reasonably proficient. Unfortunately, we had chosen the rainy season for this walk, which had started early this year. Walking through a rainy jungle is tough. We planned to take some canoe trips along our route, but with the unusually heavy rain the rivers were too dangerous for canoe travellers.

An Australian oil exploring helicopter landed close by to take oil readings. We were offered a trip back to Mendi. Unwilling to spend possibly months waiting for the river to subside, we accepted, flew the scenic way across valleys and canyons, and landed at Mendi airport for our Air Niugini flight back to home in Port Moresby. Stori bilong wokabout bilong me em I finis nau. (That means ‘the story of my walk is finished now’).