Slipping across the silken water of Simpson Harbour in a bananaboat, Andrew Luaina looks toward the ash-billowing cone of Mt Tavurvur, which sits on the south-eastern fringe of Rabaul, Papua New Guinea.
Read the story
Mt Tavurvur stands over village life in Matupit, where Okole Tokai, 24, sells scrubfowl eggs he finds buried up at the base of the volcano.
In Papua New Guinea, kids live with their parents and extended families in coconut-palm-tree huts, built upon the volcanic ash, which has stripped the trees bare.
Dorothea Bigina, from Kabuni, PNG, had her facial tattoos applied at puberty by a female relative. Tattooing has been a coastal New Guinean custom for thousands of years but has decreased in prevalence since WWII.
In the village of Kabuni, in the Tufi area of Oro, or Northern Province in PNG, sago is moulded into a loaf-like shape, wrapped in sago leaves, and fired for a minute on a blazing palm-leaf fire.
Cloaked in smoke and donning animalistic masks, the bare-footed men of the Baining Mountains tango with fire during a time-honoured Papua New Guinean initiation ceremony.
Wearing traditional dress and using a hand-carved wooden tool, Stordas Bigina, right, chips at the trunk of a sago palm tree.
Home Travel Destinations Gallery: PNG Our sultry neighbour
To really appreciate a region, you need to go back in time.
With unique locations, jaw-dropping experiences and dinky-di Aussie characters, North Queensland is the place for your next road trip.
The oldest European settlement west of New South Wales’ Blue Mountains, Bathurst is pure gold.
Our much loved calendars and diaries are now available for 2024. Adorn your walls with beautiful artworks year round. Order today.
From cuddly companions to realistic native Australian wildlife, the range also includes puppets that move and feel like real animals.